Last night I dreamed up (literally, this was in a dream) a futuristic integrated electric transportation system.

     In this dream all cars were fitted with a physical connector on the under carriage.  If you wanted to go somewhere local you would drive there under the cars own electric power.  But if you wanted to drive to a distant town, instead of a highway you’d go to a car train station.

     You’d drive up onto a platform and a thing would come and attach to the connector on the under carriage of your car, lift it off the ground and then go onto a track that was like a train track but it was equipped with the stationary portion of a linear motor.

     This would then, under computer control, propel the platform and the car attached to it, at high velocity, to the destination, where you would separate from the platform and drive to your final destination.

     These same tracks would move trains also to their destination to move freight and people that didn’t want to drive cars.

     It seems to me that with cheap enough electricity, such a dual-use system could be practical.