BOULDER - For most people, going anywhere - the office, dry cleaner, juice bar - entails getting behind the wheel of a 4,000-pound gasoline-powered vehicle.

The downside of car dependence is obvious: a precarious reliance on foreign oil, environmental toll of emissions and the frustration of gridlock - clogged roadways, too few parking spaces in downtowns.

The need to transform transportation is evident even to giant automakers. In November, Bill Ford Jr., chairman of Ford Motor Co., said if current automobile use patterns hold the 90 million cars on the road today will increase to 2 billion by mid-century, further exacerbating pollution and congestion. The idea of individual car ownership, he said, will have to change.

How to get car-addicted Americans to kick the habit has preoccupied Daniel Sturges, founder of Boulder-based Intrago Corp., throughout his 20-year career. His stints have included years at General Motors developing the Neighborhood Electric Vehicle, or NEV, GEM car, and being the first car designer in residence at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California-Davis.

To Sturges, the future is not one car fits all trips, but instead a range of transportation options that can be used as needed - from mass transit to car sharing. He noted a missing link in the web of alternative transportation and started Intrago in 2005 to fill that gap. "It's a huge opportunity to rethink transportation," he said.

"We're not a vehicle company," explained Larry Blankenship, the company's chief executive. Intrago is a rental/management company providing "last mile" transportation - personal electric vehicles such as scooters, bicycles, NEVs for short-term rental and short-distance travel.

Getting people to abandon their cars altogether is unrealistic. "People like their powered transportation," Sturges said. Converting drivers to more fuel-efficient vehicles is a good move, but it doesn't decrease the number of cars on the road. "I was on (U.S.) Highway 36 the other day going 4 miles per hour. Even if everyone was driving a Prius that would still not be a comprehensive solution."

Mass transit is not without challenges. Even if you stash your car at the park-n-Ride and take the bus to Denver, how do you get to a business meeting two miles away from the station?

That's where Intrago steps in.

Intrago offers a station stocked with zero-emission personal transportation vehicles for what Sturges calls "microrental" by the hour and electronically managed without the hassle of paperwork. Subscribers access a vehicle with a "go key" and a PIN number. Ideally stations would be located throughout neighborhoods so the vehicles could be dropped off at the end point and rented again if necessary for the return trip, offering a convenient, inexpensive, less sweat-intensive mode of getting around than by bike or foot.

Intrago provides the station, vehicles and system. Patent-pending software supports the station, tracking use and ensuring vehicles are secure, charged and ready to go. The company partners with local "mobility system providers" to operate the fleet.

The target for Intrago systems are self-contained communities in which traveling by car is overkill, such as office parks, universities, military bases or resorts. In summer 2008 the system will go into action at the University of Washington campus and at a 7,000-person business park in Walnut Creek, Calif.

"The automobile a wonderful thing but not necessary for every trip," Sturges said. "You don't need a car that is capable of driving 3,000 miles to go two miles downtown." But for the 90 percent of adults in the U.S. addicted to traveling only by car - often without passengers - this may require an attitude adjustment.

"We have created a transport monoculture in the U.S., with (mass) transit now serving only 2 percent of passenger travel," said Dan Sperling, founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis.

"The challenge of 'new mobility' is to create more choice and to ease the inconvenience in transferring modes. Dan Sturges has been championing these ideas for almost 20 years. Better yet, he is actually doing something about it. He will one day be recognized for his leadership and foresight."

The Intrago startup was funded by angel investors including VPSI, a provider of van pool services, as well as Ishiro Hatayama, until recently the No. 2 man at Nissan in Japan. Blankenship said the company is seeking additional investors to move into the next business phase.

While the Intrago system has not arrived locally, Sturges thinks Boulder has the potential to be a great model city. Intrago makes it doable to "park once" - drive to Pearl Street, ditch the car, and rent a neighborhood car. "This would make it easier to get around in the downtown core, easier to park, reduce pollution and make it a nicer community overall," Sturges said.

The city has yet to embrace electric vehicles, banning even electric bicycles from multiuse paths. To ease the glut of traffic and pollution, here and everywhere, takes more than bicycles and a sprinkling of solar-powered vehicles.

"The overriding goal should be to do whatever we can to get people out of cars," Sturges said.