A New Age for Transportation?

Entrepreneurs ride the waves of change. Over the past 100 years we have seen transportation (automobile, trains and planes) and information (hardware and software) support the economic expansion in America.
What will be the next major wave? That is the sixty four trillion dollar question.
There are some signs that transportation may again shape our economic future. That may sound a bit crazy given that we are now paying $2 – $3 a gallon for gas and the airlines and railroad industries are in disarray. But, we have come to rely both culturally and socially on physical connectedness in this increasing global economy. There in lies the source for possible opportunities. It may be time for transportation to go through another technological revolution that could support the world economy for decades to come.
What shape it may take is not clear. It never really is clear anytime we are in a time of revolutionary change. In the beginning of the information age we had no idea which companies or even which technologies would prevail in the market. Who would have guessed twenty years ago that I would be sitting today on my back porch buy topiramate 100 mg typing into a machine on my lap that through a wireless connection can broadcast my words all over the globe?
The information age is still an exciting part of our world and will be for some time to come. But, it is inevitable that the breakthroughs will begin to slow down enough so that this segment of the economy will no longer be the main engine of growth.
So where might a new transportation age take us? Could it be some variation of the hydrogen cars now being developed by General Motors? Could is be travel in the sky as envisioned by NASA’s Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS)? Could it come out of the work of Burt Rutan and his group? Or could it be some breakthrough that an unknown group in North Dakota is working on in a garage in Fargo?
I am not sure what the next transportation age will look like, but I am beginning to feel more and more strongly that it will come. Change and chaos creates entrepreneurial opportunity. The potential crisis of supply of fossil fuels and the complete inefficiency of our current transportation systems just oozes opportunity.