[QUOTE=scout1222]
I don’t necessarily want to hop into the middle of something, but here’s a question for you based on the quoted statement. How often is this necessary for you? Do you often drive around with 5 people and luggage for a week?
Because I think a lot of people think that way, but really, how often are you road tripping? Sometimes the answer might be a small car for 51 weeks of the year, and renting something that will seat 5 for the 52nd week.
Anyway, presumably you’ve already thought of that and I’m just shouting into the wind, but it seemed like a good question to ask.
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The need to fit 5 people into a car happens semi-weekly - on my custody weeks. The luggage is just an occaisional problem, probably three times a year. But there’s often groceries, football gear, picnic stuff, etc that has to fit. Having carrying capacity is always a need.
The problem I have with compact & mid-size sedans is their three across seating is usually fine for kids and tiny people. While I have kids today, they won’t be kids in 5 years, and I try to keep cars for at least 10 years. There’s nothing to suggest that my kids today won’t be the size of an adult in 5 years and likely even larger.
Trying to find a car that’ll fit 5 large adults (and be fuel efficient) is a bit of a challenge. This is where I think industry still hasn’t met need. There seems to be lots happening in “city vehicles”, little pint-sized two-person jobbers. There seems to be half-assed attempts at retrofitting hybrid tech into gas-guzzling SUVs. There are very few vehicles that I can fit my XXL frame into initially and even fewer of these that’ll sit 5 adults easily. The Colt Vista, a rebadged Mitsubishi, (now off the market) was a good start, a ground-up design with three rows, two butts per row. The 3rd row was somewhat vestigial, though. In general, I think we need stretch versions of compact cars. We may be getting them with them with some of the new cross-over designs but they’re still leaning too far to the SUV side to be fuel efficient.
More things missing from Denver, IMO, is efficient public transit system. RTD is designed to get people into and out-of downtown. Going cross-town or from mid-to-edge is not a good experience. I rode the bus for years when I worked in the tall buildings downtown. Now, working on the NW corner has made the bus impractical. Atlanta, I always thought, had a pretty good system. A rail core with buses running loops connecting to it. Start to finish was bus to rail to bus - often just two transfers. Not as fast as driving, but at least fairly usable. By the way, every try to shop for groceries using the bus? I have - not fun. Again, fine for one, not good for a family.
We need more affordable housing distributed near workplaces. One reason for not moving stated over and over in this thread has been unaffordable housing near workplaces. We’re back to ground-up design, though. Office parks surrounded by varying neighborhood types. Good urban planning would help in this - the focus on livability and energy usage versus simply tax base.
We need more research into alternative energy - including nuclear. All these electric vehicles on the drawing board need something to plug into. Ignoring nuclear is foolish, IMO.
We need affordable ways to retrofit housing and industry with energy saving technologies. It’s one thing to build a green home - it’s another to retrofit my 1940’s constructed house to be more energy efficient, and do it without tearing the walls down to put insulation in. More efficient industry & housing would free energy to be used in transportation.
We need to change the culture to reduce the NIMBY problem with much of these technologies - make it somehow chic to have a wind generator on the corner of your house.
I guess what I’m saying here is that we don’t have all the pieces today to address this problem. I think there’s a lot of missing pieces, pieces we didn’t need at $1 a gallon but we would be a big help at $4 a gallon. They’re almost essentials if we hit a $8 a gallon - something likely on the horizon.
