Each month in Fast Company, we include a Jetsons Moment item in Next, taking a look at a technical or scientific development that brings the future just a little closer. In the October issue, Lucas Conley focused on conductive plastics.

Take the Jetsons, and add a dash of the Simpsons, perhaps, but a Minnesota-based company called SkyWeb Express has developed a transportation project that pairs individual transit pods and an elevated guideway. A slight improvement on existing mass transit options such as buses and subways, the pods would queue up for passengers in stations. When someone boards, they enter their destination, and the pod zips off on it way. Less waiting, perhaps. Definitely less crowded.

So why do I feel like the idea is quaint, a la Walt Disney World's Epcot or Xanadu, home of the future?