Public Transportation ... for Your Car?

Anwar Farooq has some out-there ideas, the product of his background as an electrical engineer, before he ever became a high school math teacher in Los Angeles. He’s invented what he thinks is a better mechanical pencil sharpener, a kind of turbo bike, and a remote-controlled camcorder (this last design sounded more innovative when he first thought of it in the 1980s).

His most recent patented invention, though, tops them all in eyebrow-raising ambition. Farooq has been designing his own transit system, a scheme that looks both futuristic and antiquated, one that would try to eliminate traffic congestion from our highways while still accommodating the car. He has invented, in essence, a train-ferry. For car commuters.