It’s a shame this isn’t possible at the moment, I suppose the safety requirements of cars that need to be able to run on highways means a substantial minimum cost.
I almost wonder whether we shouldn’t have two overlapping road systems, one for residential streets and one for transport routes.
You could have a class of cars that only run on the residential streets which would be half way between a moped and a car, with 1-4 seats, a range of 30-50 miles, and a cost of $5-8k.
> I almost wonder whether we shouldn’t have two overlapping road systems, one for residential streets and one for transport routes.
It's not unrealistic at all, some cities already limit access to city center for some vehicles.
IMHO it shouldn't be an outright ban, just a big financial disincentive, so that people with big cars happen in the city center rarely enough not to matter, but they can still afford to drive there a few times a year when they really need to. Maybe on the order of 1 USD per minute?
You could maybe just do it with speed limits, maybe limiting the speed to 20mph or 25mph would be enough to de-escalate the threat and make it safe for smaller cars. Pretty much all of central London apart from Westminster has a 20mph limit now. Or use the existing congestion charge infrastructure, introduce a new low weight class for cars which are exempt. An additional new standard for a smaller parking size would also help.
The main point is that standards have to be adopted by multiple cities otherwise the market won’t be large enough for manufacturers.
I almost wonder whether we shouldn’t have two overlapping road systems, one for residential streets and one for transport routes.
You could have a class of cars that only run on the residential streets which would be half way between a moped and a car, with 1-4 seats, a range of 30-50 miles, and a cost of $5-8k.