Alex Pareene, writing for the New Republic, makes a modest stimulus proposal–buy Americans an electric scooter:
A nation of electric moped-owners would not just change their own behavior; they’d become a constituency for changing all of our transportation options and our built environment itself. Most people don’t need massive vehicles for the majority of their travel. Throughout the rest of the world, most people manage to get by with lighter and smaller vehicles than the ones Americans use. Many Americans are purchasing larger and larger SUVs and trucks because they feel safer, but the main thing they feel safer from is other people in larger and larger SUVs and trucks. Low-speed, light-weight scooters will pose much less of a threat to children and pedestrians, and if their use is widespread, their users should come to realize the benefits of further restricting the use of heavy automobiles in urban and even suburban settings.
Even if you had a car, you could make do with one of these for a lot of your jaunts about town.