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The popular picture of the commuter is of a man wending his way daily from bedroom suburb to city office. But in the ten largest metropolitan areas outside New York City, only 18% of the daily traffic moves that way; fully half of the commuters travel from suburban home to suburban job. (About 25% both live and work in the city, and 7% reverse-commute from the city to the suburbs.) As many suburbanites know, that pattern has produced traffic snarls, at intersections dozens of miles outside the core city, that rival anything encountered on downtown streets. Says Ford Motor Chairman Henry Ford II: "Subways are fine for getting downtown and back, but most people don't travel downtown and back any more. They travel all over the place. And you can't build subways all over the place."
Buses cannot roam all over the place either, but they can reach many more points than a rail system can, and Detroit is now moving to upgrade bus transportation. GM, the nation's largest maker of city buses, is spending $32 million redesigning theirs to provide more comfortable seats, a smoother suspension, wider doors and better visibility for both driver and passengers. Chrysler and American Motors both have Government contracts to develop new buses.
One possibility is computer-controlled, driverless buses running along expressway lanes reserved exclusively for them. Another is "dial-a-bus" systems. These would employ small vehicles that would run frequently along fixed routes but have no set stopping points; a passenger would simply dial a central office and the next bus would stop at his corner to pick him up. Of course, the best answer to urban transportation problems will be a mix of buses and rail-based systems.
Some other changes, technical and sociological, can at least be imagined for the small-car, gasoline-short future. The car of the next decade may be more tubular-shaped to reduce wind drag, a prime factor in fuel economy, and come equipped with fuel-injection, which measures out the right amount of fuel needed for more complete combustion.
Smoother-rolling radial tires could become universal. Cars may be made almost entirely of plastic to cut body weight—though not if the oil shortage continues to reduce the supply of petrochemical feedstocks from which plastics are made. Autos will almost surely be shorter in front and rear and roomier inside. They will probably be more expensive but possibly built to last longer; annual model changes are already becoming less pronounced, and the public is likely to be more impressed with quality construction than frequent cosmetic restyling. Says AMC's Chapin: "I think we're headed toward smaller, more efficient automobiles, including cars that perform specific functions better. By that, I'm thinking of cars particularly suited to our urban life, more resistant to the abuses that a car gets in traffic and parking."
Socially, there could be a movement of