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By Mike Tully

I wish to propose a marriage. In this corner, the Groom, whose personal ad reads, "Young, single, groundbreaker. Interested in new ways of getting to new places. ISO female who does not yet exist."

In this corner, the Bride, whose personal ad says: "Check back when I exist."

Is this a marriage made in heaven? Of course not. Is it a marriage made in Tucson? I wouldn’t rule it out, assuming the midwives of Rio Nuevo are willing to think outside the box. The centerpiece of Rio Nuevo, perhaps the bulk of the thing itself, might just be the Groom’s uncreated suitor. The name of the Groom is "Segway."

Yes, Segway, that ungainly, gravity-defying person mover, a bizarre creation that goes forward when the user leans forward, backward when the user leans backward, and turns when the user wants to turn. Some users, anyway. The President was thrown by his. (Does that mean he has to give the flight suit back?) The only Segway I have ever seen in actual "use" was in Kapiolani Park in Honolulu, operated by a guest of a nearby resort. By "operated" I mean she would lean forward and propel the Segway for four or five feet, and then stand still for several minutes. It was like watching a piece of statuary occasionally move under its own power. It seemed otherworldly.

But that’s the Segway’s problem: it is otherworldly. It’s designed for a twilight zone between feet and tires, a band of commerce too slow for cars and too fast for shoes, an auto-free urbanity of fast-moving pedestrians with fast-moving business and no place to park. It serves what has evolved into a basic human need in the petro-sucking countries: the need to be transported on self-propelled wheels without jonesing on limited resources from shiftless sheiks. It can turn routine tasks into a Disneylandish Autopia. And Autopia, as we fondly remember, was an "E" ride.

But, Autopia is not Utopia. Two of the groups whose members one might think of as potential beneficiaries of the Segway want it off the sidewalk.

"Groups devoted to the interests of senior citizens and the disabled in this high-tech city aren't happy with the idea. They think letting the new vehicles on the sidewalk will wind up hurting people who can't easily move out of the way, and they're lobbying City Hall to keep the Segway on the street along with most other motorized vehicles." CNET News.com November 19^th. The "high-tech city" is San Francisco.

"’This isn't competition for the sidewalks; this is an invasion," says Bill Wilkinson, executive director of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking, a non-profit advocacy group in Washington, D.C.," as reported in USA Today on June 16. "The sidewalk is supposed to be a safe zone, and now we're putting something there that goes 12.5 miles an hour. ... What are they thinking? I think they're out to lunch. It's a threat to public safety."

However, Doug Field, Segway’s Chief Operating Officer, told USA Today, "Our goal is not to introduce another group of people and new machines to the sidewalk, but to take people out of automobiles. We designed the Segway HT to belong on the sidewalk amongst other pedestrians."

The Segway is winning the battle for people’s sidewalks but has a long way to go to win their hearts. The New York Times reported last week: "Robb Woldman was driving his new electric vehicle on a Los Angeles sidewalk when a police officer tried to ticket him. But Woldman was acting in compliance with California law, and the law in 44 other states, which allows his vehicle, the Segway Human Transporter, to be driven on the sidewalk.

"’The officer had to make four phone calls before he found out that I wasn't doing anything wrong,’ Woldman said. ‘He had never seen a Segway before.’" (Link added)

Who can blame the cop? The Segway is Star Wars by way of Whamo!, somewhere between a "beam me up" teletransporter and a clapper. It weighs just under a hundred pounds, can carry three times that, and rambles along at the speed of a world-class miler. Of course it has no business on a sidewalk and I’m glad that cop checked four times before letting that clod wheel down the sidewalk, comfortably self-assured and legal as he weaves around people, dogs, and other crash-test dummies. I hope someone washes his windshield, if you get my drift.

Which does not make me anti-Segway, just anti-clod. This mechanized refrigerator dolly is too big, fast, and dangerous for sidewalks. Unfortunately, with a top speed of twelve and half MPH, clods would be clodpies if they tried riding them in the streets. The only safe place to ride them in Tucson is on the Diamondback Bridge, which is generally free of both autos and pedestrians. Could this be the sad future of the noble Segway, hauling heat-addled Tucsonans from one end of the bridge to the other and back again, like a big, slow shooting gallery? Will the poor Segway be Adam forever doomed to exist without Eve?

Not if we build Eve. And we’re going to build "Eve." Actually, we’re going to build – you can’t make this up – another bridge. This one will not be called The Bridge Trucks Crash Into; it will be called The Bridge of Knowledge." The reason is that the City of Tucson’s Rio Nuevoans are going to include all kinds of knowledge, including a "Butterfly Vivarium" and a "Unispherium." Who needs an aquarium? Come watch our butterflies vivariate. Bet you can’t get that in Phoenix.

The Bridge of Knowledge will span both Interstate Ten and the Santa Cruz River, linking east downtown and west downtown with tons of concrete, steel, and knowledge. It’s an absolutely fabulous concept and the only serious criticism I’ve heard regarding it is that it’s, well, too damned long. Tourists’ feet will wilt and fall off before they have acquired even half of the knowledge promised by the Bridge.

You see where I’m going with this. The Segway was designed for an urban landscape that does not yet exist and we, the citizens of Tucson and Pima County, are building it. I don’t think the planners of Rio Nuevo planned on creating a Segway friendly landscape, but I’m sure they didn’t intend a design that induces heart attacks, either. I think it’s actually a wonderful synergy, the madness of Dean Kamen, designer of a conveyance for a non-existent world, and a city that actually plans to build that world. The Segway has a bride – at least on paper.

Segway and Tucson should run into each other’s arms and consummate their relationship by exchanging bureaucrats and signing contracts and ultimately giving birth to the only economically viable near future for the Segway: the hourly rental contract. We should have Rent-A-Seg kiosks Starbucked all over Rio Nuevo and dedicated Segway lanes so that Bill Wilkinson doesn’t have to take evasive action. Limit cars and trucks to the periphery of Rio Nuevo and leave the interior to the Segs. Make downtown businesses, which means bankers and lawyers, rent Segways for their employees. Guys in suits look funny in Segways and lots of guys in suits riding Segways would look like a combination of a Dood-Dah parade and R2D2 impersonators. People will travel here just to see that.

And the butterflies.

August 20, 2003

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