Way back in ancient times, about 1982, plans were being made in Los Angeles for hosting the 1984 Olympics. As an applied futurist, one of my concerns was with the potential traffic problems. After all, we expected millions of people to converge on LA during the Olympic games, and LA was already known to have certain traffic-related problems: massive traffic jams, smog, irate motorists and resulting mayhem. Although the area was famous for its extensive freeway system it was clear that one can only fit so many cars into a given space. Add a million or so more cars, stir, and the result would be total chaos. Even spreading the games among several widely separated venues might not help; the cars still had to get to the sites. Furthermore, the mass transit systems were not likely to be able to fill the transportation needs without enormous expenditures for new equipment that probably would not be used after the games. My colleagues were forecasting total gridlock.