Salt Lake City is moving relentlessly into a energy efficient transportation future with the aid high-tech and some hard-core low-tech ideas.

City Councilman Soren Simonsen is proposing to install electric-car recharging stations to encourage the use of non-polluting volt-mobiles within the city. Electro-commuters would juice up with a swipe of a credit card at equipped parking meters.

There are a still a lot of unknowns. What is known is that we have a growing interest — I would say it has become quite large — to look at alternative fuels and alternative transportation.

Meanwhile, another entrepreneur is reviving pedicab service downtown. Stick Dog Pedicabs, which can be powered under-employed bankers, real estate agents or journalists, haul two passengers at speeds of several feet per second.

Relax UTA, Stick Dog owner Bret Cali says his bike-shaws will not compete with FrontRunner.

Mainly these are really short trips. We're going to be taking people from a bar to a restaurant or the symphony to a restaurant.

Add these innovations to the buses, Trax trains, mopeds, bicycles and horse-drawn carriages and downtown is looking increasingly like a Richard Scarry children's book.