Oh, what a progressive society they have going on in Bethel, Alaska, where hardly anybody owns a car. However, it’s not because people are particularly green-minded there, but rather because of the supposedly horrendous local cost of gas ($6 per gallon) and limited access – the town’s road system is cut off from the main…
According to The Atlantic, it’s therefor hugely expensive to bring in any kind of vehicles, despite Bethel being a town of over 6,080 inhabitants. It serves as the administrative and transport hub for an additional 56 villages surrounding it, so the lack of personal cars is odd.
So how do people get around Bethel and its surroundings? Well, there is a large fleet of taxis, around 70-strong, that serves the needs of the locals. They are, for lack of a better definition, the equivalent of public transport.
Now, don’t go thinking it’s an affordable way to go – it isn’t. You have to pay at least $5 for any trip of any distance in town, going to the airport or suburbs will cost you $7; each stop you request adds another dollar to the fare too.
The locals can’t really afford going by taxi to wherever they need to go all the time – people move around on foot. Some 23 percent of the population is actually below the national poverty line.
This place sounds like the perfect one to try to implement self-driving cars (that can negotiate rough, unpaved roads) and actually have them do something useful like ferrying people around (for free or at least much cheaper) in the name of science and research.