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Comment by hazz | Hacker News Reader

>Specifically, lightweight, short-distance personal transportation is something we’re interested in.

Doesn't this already exist, in the form of the bicycle?

Yes, this one was licked in 1885. The problem is not something amenable to a startup company. It's a huge entrenched cultural preference for terribly inefficient vehicles and development patterns that go with them.

Bicycles are not an 80/20 solution, they're a 99% solution, with the appropriate kind of bicycle and accessories. You can haul all kinds of crap - construction equipment, children, appliances, etc. - with a bicycle.

There are many other kinds of bicycles that make them accessible to people with reduced mobility: tricycles, hand-cycles, electric assist. Further - active transportation also counts as exercise and physical therapy, even further reducing the number of people who end up with reduced mobility in the first place!

I don't really know what a startup could possibly do in this area that's not already being done by the dozens of active transportation advocacy organizations at every level of society.

Everyone in this thread keeps bringing up the same argument about these catagories: "The problem is not something amenable to a startup company."

Isn't that the point of these requests? To inspire new and innovative ways of addressing a small (or, a chance at a larger) piece of these huge problem spaces?

It doesn't matter if you don't think these are realistic requests. YC is just trying put out an image that it wants to invest in historically "hard" market startups.

(As an aside, I'd say that bikes are not a 99% solution until the majority of people aren't afraid of riding them around cars.)

How do you deal with weather? It's certainly a lot more comfortable to drive somewhere in pouring rain than it is to bike, even when well prepared. And that preparation takes time and effort. Not to mention trying to bike in winter.

I really really hate cars, but I can see why people prefer them.

In cities I can imagine an apparatus not unlike a retractable roof in function, spanning the gaps between buildings. It would capture rainfall and prevent flooding while keeping citygoers dry. The "rooves" themselves would channel water as would an aqueduct, possibly reorienting themselves to better handle local downpours. The underside would need to emit light, whether transmitted natural light or otherwise.

Such a system would bring ancillary benefits of improving travel safety in the city, and reducing the need for road maintenance and vermin control (esp. mosquitoes).

I imagine the biggest technical challenge to be durabiity: The need to be resilient against hail, high winds and flying debris. And should it fail at the worst time ... an awful thought! But levees are a similar technology in that regard.

Or in the extreme heat you can get during the summer. Not fun showing up to work drenched in sweat because you biked in.

Not long ago a brilliant inventor, Dean Kamen, created a startup that tried to solve this. The product received considerable hype before launch. When Steve Jobs saw a prototype, he reportedly said: "This will change the way cities are designed."

The final product -- Segway -- didn't, though. I'm not sure anyone is willing to try again soon.

Don't see your Jobs quote in this account, although there are many more skeptical quotes, such as "Jobs said he lived seven minutes from a grocery and wasn't sure he would use Ginger to get there."

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3533.html

Looks like the Jobs quote was a rumour, at least according to BusinessWeek in 2001:

"Other stories claimed that Apple Computer co-founder Steven P. Jobs got an early peek and made the wacky prediction that cities would redesign themselves around the device. (Jobs denies he ever said this.)"

http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2001-12-16/commentary-gi...

But then, I wrote "reportedly", and it was indeed widely reported at the time :)

The bicycle already exists, but I read that section assuming ideas related to it like:

- bike/scooter/... share programs

- new designs for bikes to improve safety, could work with the existing market

- while you're at it, new additions to other forms of transportation etc. to improve safety too.. even if a lot of it is policy, but even things like self-driving cars fall into this category

- new designs for bikes to improve ease of use. I don't ride bikes because I have never found any seat and any amount of cushioning that isn't immediately painful, while bikes that accommodate that (like recumbent bikes) are typically not as portable

Some of this is outside the scope of YC or it's definitely something else like policy, but just a thought. I especially like the idea of improving rideshare programs, and that is very doable. I was going to try out SF's program but there's no bikes near me since the company behind the rideshare program went out of business. :(

Many people with reduced mobility (e.g. my grandmothers) can't ride them, though. There's space for alternatives.

The bicycle is a 80/20 solution, but it's hard to make VC-level money in the business. Plus, a few more decades of high-tech short-distance personal transportation and we'll all look like in Wall-E and the bicycle will become 20/80.

Don't dismiss it out of hand. The world bicycle market is $70B/yr. A Silicon Valley company, Specialized, makes $500M/yr revenue. If you had the next thing that millions of people would commute short distances on, there's more than enough potential for VC.

Uber for Rickshaws!

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