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Thanks for the replies so far. As noted, bikes aren't allowed on BART during commute time (it's very crowded then, so it makes sense...unless you're commuting by bike). The Segway, aka 'IT', is right out--I doubt they'd ever let that on BART because of the size and weight. Plus there's the cost for me...

However, folding bikes are allowed, so the Bike Friday looks like an interesting possibility.

The area of SF from BART to my destination isn't too far (unless I run errands, too) or too hilly. The problem comes at the other end. BART is at about 200' above sea level, and home is near one of those 1200' markers and about 3 miles from BART. I can drive and walk, but I'm looking for something to get rid of the driving part. The Bike Friday's seem better designed and geared, so the hills might be doable with them. I haven't ruled out an electric scooter, and have been referred to a scooter dealer in SF to start looking.

The article that Time recently did about the Segway answers many (if not all of your worries.

Reinventing the Wheel
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1 86660,00.html

To avoid confusion, I've responded to each of your points with quotes pulled directly from the article.

Imagine riding this thing during the lunch hour in a crowded downtown area (pick the city of your choice). And you obviously have to ride it on the sidewalk. But it would not be faster (if not slower) than walking, since you wouldn't be moving faster than the rest of the people. It pretty much defeats its purpose in the suburbs or in the industrial parks.

[Kamen] wants his machine taken seriously, as a serious solution to serious problems. That anxiety was one of the reasons he and his team decided to concentrate at first on major corporations, universities and government agencies--large, solid, established institutions--rather than dive straight into the consumer marketplace.

The second problem, as one of the previous posts mentioned, is what happens when you suddenly hit something (more likely someone). The thing might be self balancing, but I've felt what happens when one of your rollerblades gets stuck in a groove.

Especially gratifying to Kamen was the reaction of Andy Grove, the chairman of Intel and, unlike so many Silicon Valley boosters, a bone-deep skeptic. Perched tentatively on the machine, the 65-year-old Grove was rolling slowly along when Doerr ambled over and pushed him in the chest. When the Segway kept him from losing his balance, Grove emitted a distinctly un-Grove-like giggle. "The machine is gorgeous," he said later. "I'm no good at balancing; it would take me a hundred years to learn to snowboard. This took me less than five minutes."

Third, think of its battery life (I presume it is battery powered)

This last piece is from the Segway Product Specifications
http://www.segway.com/consumer/segway/product_spec ifications.html

When most transportation companies talk about range, they reference it under optimal conditions--no wind, flat terrain, and so forth. While Segway HT's maximum range with NiMH batteries is approximately 17 miles (28 km), we expect you'll be able to travel about 11 miles (17 km) on a single battery charge--accounting for variations in terrain and other factors. This is far more than the distance we expect the average user will travel on a Segway HT in one day.

Ooh, purty.

(Oh god, geek cheesecake photos. This is really embarrasing.)

Some videos show that:
wohoohoo

By the way, people on segway look so... hum... how to say that...

why, with segway®, of course.

seriously, though, there are transport systems that would let such a robot navigate offroad.

Allow me to segway for a bit;

either that's funny, or he's just dumb.

Of all the ULT concepts I've seen, I like SkyTran the best. Putting a raised track on light poles is a great idea, as is the switched on-ramp. I can really see these getting up to 100mph (160kph)

As a dedicated transit rider, I love the idea of hopping into a vehicle, setting a destination, and hopping out when I'm there. Let's hope these take off.

Until then, I'll settle for a Segway. :)

~chris

If Kamen's Segway becomes as popular as I think it will, Segway busses will be deployed in every major city to take advantage of this new class of mass transit passenger.

Segway riders will enter and exit this special "tall" bus or subway car on their own vehicle via a special ramp at each stop. There could also be a charger for each passenger/sub-vehicle and a small workspace (with ethernet, of course) on the inside of this vehicle as well.

Are you Dean Kamen?

• Spiking Ted Kennedy's lunchtime beverage with gin and vermouth

• Convincing people that there was something special about SHT.
• Setting the maximum file descriptors per process on Solaris 2.5.1 to 1024.
• Writing business plans for dot-coms
• Telling Adobe about DEF-CON's speakers this year
• Convincing Microsoft that C developers would pronounce C# as something other than C-pound.
• And, the number one thing they've done to us - introducing the newsmakers to the cliche, "if we don't ****, the terrorists have won."

Like that other respondent, I'd like to point out that although ePaper may be thrown away, it may mean less paper is thrown away.

Take magazines as an example. A lot of those womens' magazines on the newstand are as thick as the Manhattan yellowpages. If they were made with ePaper, they'd only be one sheet thick. We'd benefit from that many trees not getting turned into paper and then thrown away due to the human laziness you cited. We'd also benefit from reduced transportation costs.. Instead of a big diesel truck hauling those magazines to the grocery store, they could be hauled behind one of those Segway scooters (heh-heh).Or perhaps they could be 'recycled' by bringing them back to the store and paying to load up some other magazine. Or, of course, the transaction could occur over the internet.

In any case, I am betting that Adobe is creaming its shorts over this technology.

Rapid Install Release 11i Oracle Applications Rapid Install Portal

I'm sure someone else has posted a link to the videos by now, but here it is again anyway. Pulling down the QuickTime version was a very fast download for me just a few minutes ago.

I give this thing 2 maybe weeks from start of public sale before the "extreme sports" assholes start successfully modding them to go faster at the expense of battery life, and maybe remove the handlebars, and become a public nuisance on city sidewalks just like the skate-rats are now. Expect cities to come up with entire new revenue streams as they pass Segway Speed Limit ordinances and it becomes possible to get pulled over and get a ticket on the sidewalk.

~Philly

if www.segway.com doesn't work, try www.segway.com.edgesuite.net

The site is up now. They must've just been "hiding". It's slashdotted to hell and back, though, even though it akamai-hosted, so you can imagine that the demand must be insane...

Go to www.segway.com and you'll get the standard IE "This page cannot be displayed" form with all sorts of helpful advice on why it can't.
Which is all well and good, except I am using Omniweb. Damn that freaked me out.
Let the conspiracy theories begin!