What if you could get from Boston to Washington with blinding speed, using a convenient and efficient transit system that takes you straight from your home to your destination? Architecture firm Höweler and Yoon envision ‘Shareway’ as a futuristic mode of urban living that turns a large chunk of the East Coast into ‘BosWash’, a megalopolis that stretches 650 kilometers and is home to 53 million people.
The concept, which won the Audi Urban Future Initiative 2012, allows users to move along efficient mobility networks without ever having to own a car or a home. The concept reconfigures the structure of cities and suburbs, answering Audi’s challenge to mesh sustainable urban development with individual mobility.
The idea is that you don’t need ownership to have opportunity. The architects concede that the American Dream is hopelessly interwoven with the idea of personal mobility – the ability to live in a sprawling home and drive your own vehicle wherever you please. But instead of trying to break Americans of this unsustainable habit, which places a lot of strain on the Earth’s resources and wastes land, Höweler and Yoon attempt to reimagine the way in which this can be achieved.
‘Shareway’ is conceived as an operating system – both hardware and software – for the megalopolis. The proposal gathers individual mobility systems like cars, trains and subways into a single, coordinated bundle – a new high speed rail system that would sit above the existing highway corridor, allowing travelers to switch between high-speed and regional trains, and between cars and other modes of transit. The software interface will allow users to create travel routes, make plans and meet in the ‘social space’ of the Shareway.
Get more details, including an interesting video that explains how this system would work, at Mooove.com.

