Mobility Hat Trick

I have been confused with the term “mobility.” It seems that our organizations, parking departments, and transportation sections have added the term “mobility” to their name. But just what does it mean?

My friend Tim Maloney over at Flash does a fantastic job at promoting his cause on twitter and I find most of his tweets up to snuff. I am confused, however, by his latest. He directs us toward his “Mobility recap” which is a list of links to articles ostensibly about ‘mobility.’ Fair enough.

However when one goes down the list, one finds that 12 out of the 16 links deal with EVs. Although I understand Tim’s regard for EVs and their success, I’m trying to understand just how this relates to mobility. Are we saying that a car (or bus) that is powered by electricity gets one from place to place (mobility) better than a traditional ICE vehicle?

I wonder if we are losing our focus here?

Do we really REALLY know just what mobility is or means. Have we succumbed to a buzzword? If mobility is a way to get people from point A to point B then are we discussing that, or are the topics concerning the inner workings of this mode or that.

The question it seems to me is that are we actually trying to get people conveniently from point A to B or are we discussing alternative ways to power the vehicles we are expecting to perform this mobility magic.

It seems to me that we have a ‘hat trick’ (look it up) working here. We are, I think, trying to do too many things at once. Change the populace’s way of transportation, change the way that the transportation actually works, and in doing so, change the way our entire infrastructure works.  These are admirable goals, but in attempting to change them all at once, are we pushing the envelope just too much? And do we end up with many untenable solutions rather than one good one.

JVH