Cars must be very valuable. In a blog explaining why hydrogen will never be a transport fuel,[1] the author mentioned in passing that cars average well under 4% utilization, and the average fill frequency is once per month.
To have something so expensive and little used, the option of being able to use it on demand must be highly valuable. And as you say it's secure storage and portage.
1. In a month, a steel-walled 200 bar hydrogen tank with 10 mm (0.4 inch) thick walls will lose over 80% of its hydrogen through its walls.
There is definitely maintenance and cultural expenses for public lockers, but there’s no way it’s anywhere near as expensive or time consuming as maintaining roads.
Can they fit a golf bag? Can I know that I’ll get one when I show up? Is it roughly on the way? If I’m wanting to go home to office to golf to dinner/drinks to home in a day, how different is it to go home to transit to transit/locker to work to locker/transit to transit to golf to locker to dinner to locker to home?
Before kids, I’d play sports 4-5 nights a week. These fields often take up a lot of space (it’s obviously hard to fit a golf course in a high density area) meaning public transit would never be robust to get to them.
Doesn't really solve for sports like softball and golf that GP mentioned since those are in lower-traffic areas basically by necessity.
It also breaks down when the alternative transportation (typically an alternative to a car in the US) doesn’t provide a key function that the car provides.
If I’m going to play a round of golf or softball game after work, my car doubles as a secure (enough) locker for that equipment and transportation directly to the sports location. If I’m going to a town 30 miles away, my car serves as a conveyance not only for that 30 miles but also for local transit while I’m there. My car is likewise ready for me in 5 minutes of walking to, unlocking, and starting it. I never “miss” my car by it leaving without me and once I’m there, I never have to wait for my next car to depart.
If it was easy to displace cars, more progress would already have been made, because they’re expensive already in terms of fixed costs. Once the fixed costs are covered, the apparent cost per incremental trip seems very modest.