Don’t put those Jetsons dreams on hold just yet–a Google-related startup has eyes on launching flying taxis in San Fransicso, and they’re not kidding around.
Kitty Hawk Corp., is a three-year-old company backed by Larry Page, founder of Google and CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. They say the best way to get people out of traffic is to fly them above it, and are working hard to develop a flying taxi that could do just that. Their vehicle, they say, will take off and land vertically, fly 10 feet above water, and travel at 20 miles per hour on a predetermined path–no driver needed. They’ve opened a test site in Nevada and say they’ll launch a taxi service over the San Fransisco Bay to get people out of their cars. They’ve also apparently hired lobbyists to begin working on the regulatory issues that need to be settled for their taxis to fly.
No word yet on where these vehicles will park, but we’ll keep our ears open. Read the whole story here.
Following several other California cities, San Francisco is considering designating a parking lot as a safe place for people living in RVs to spend the night.
San Francisco, whose minimum parking requirements for new developments date to the 1950s, is preparing to do away with them, becoming the first major U.S. city to do that.