Eastside Annual Dinner Imagines Future of Transportation (Now!)

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The future of transportation is here. Or at least very close. That was a key message from Tony Seba, one of two keynote speakers at last night’s Eastside Annual Dinner, hosted by the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce. 

Owing to economic forces, Moore’s Law, technology innovations, and disruption of business models, the mobility world as we know it about to change, and change fast. Seba, a Bay-area disruption guru, author, serial entrepreneur and Stanford University lecturer, is a leading authority on the changes afoot. He has been a popular, internationally-sought-after speaker for chambers, trade conferences, universities and downtown associations. 

Seba’s bottom-line: our relationship with the car will be disrupted and completely transformed. So too will our cities and built environment. 

Highlights from Seba's Speech:

• Within the next few years, individual car ownership will plummet. We will almost fully transition to “transportation as a service,” with vehicles owned and managed as fleets.
• Advances in processing power and sensors will make autonomous cars the norm. Vehicles will be electric and cost way less than they do today. The market for the internal combustion engine will sputter out. 
• Fleet management and on-demand service will dramatically decrease the number of vehicles on the road.
• Autonomous cars will be much safer, greatly reducing traffic accidents.  
• On-demand, shared vehicles, need a lot less parking. Parking lots and other hardscapes devoted to the auto can be transformed to green space, parks, walkable connections in our urban cores.
• Research shows that dense, well-connected, walkable communities are healthier and boast more successful economies. 
• Overall mobility will improve for all segments of the population.
• Bellevue and Eastside companies are deeply influential in these innovations.

 
Special thanks to the Bellevue Chamber for bringing Tony Seba to Bellevue. We know visionary work will continue in the private and public sectors to prepare our city for this major disruption, coming soon to a downtown near you. 

Tony’s best-selling book is “Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation.” Check out his website, and YouTube videos if you’d like to dig deeper.