The twin screens flicker to life on the back of the Cadillac Escalade's plush leather headrests, and Deborah Melina is relieved.
Taking delivery on the 2,000kg sport utility vehicle at Frost Motors this week, the Hopkinton, Massachusetts, mother of two sees nothing but serenity in her motoring future. One screen shows Erin Brockovich on DVD and the other a Nintendo football game; wireless headsets are donned by son and daughter.
The amenities available in cars today don't make Melina fret about distracted driving or wax philosophical about how much time she spends traversing the suburban landscape, from school to lacrosse practice to home or to the mall. But they reflect a new reality: With so many hours spent behind the wheel, cars have to be a home, a workplace, and a daycare center rolled into one.
PHOTO: NY TIMES
"We're driving to Pennsylvania this weekend and I do not expect to hear, `Are we there yet?'" she said.
Faced with spread-out development, longer commutes, and more frequent traffic jams, drivers across the country are rushing to make hours spent in SUVs and minivans more productive. And with technological advances across a wide spectrum, they are installing extras as never before, dealers say.
The mobile comforts of home include DVD players, VCRs, and TV reception on flat screens similar to those in first-class on commercial jets, as well as such low-tech add-ons as beverage coolers in side panels or the glove compartment, or oriental floor mats. A model for a Ford Windstar minivan even offers a compact washer and dryer.
At the same time, the much-publicized transfer of the home office to the car is accelerating, including new cradles and keypads for handheld computers, Web-enabled phones with voice recognition so no dialing is needed, and satellite services that read one's e-mail aloud.
While the national debate on mobile technology has focused on safety, planners and environmentalists say the trend reveals a more fundamental truth about suburban life and contemporary development patterns: The way most people live, work, and shop requires more time behind the wheel. Consumers are getting creative and taking advantage of technology like never before to make those hours less dreary, said Elizabeth Humphrey, associate director for Smart Growth America in Washington.
"It's a sad commentary that we have to spend that amount of time in our cars, but it's finally come to this: We figure out ways to make it more tolerable," Humphrey said.
No one can pinpoint exactly how much time drivers are spending in the car heading to soccer practice or the mall, but nationally, the average commute to work has lengthened to almost a half-hour each way; and about 75 percent of commuters drive solo, according to the US Census. In Greater Boston, the average commute is 45 minutes each way, according to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, a regional planning group.
"The mobile living room creates a roomy place where you can turn quantity time into quality time," said the council's executive David Soule. "If you have a home in the suburbs and a job in the suburbs -- and 60 percent of the new jobs are in suburban locations -- there's only one way to get around."
The foundation for car-dependence was laid post-World War II in single-family subdivisions, strip malls and highway construction, Soule said. Beltways such as Interstate 495, originally designed to move truck traffic around city chokepoints, instead opened up opportunities for housing and office parks, he said.
"You can go out on [Route] 128 at any time of day and be in a traffic jam," Soule said. "You've got to find some way to pass the time."
Conveniently, as time spent in the car increases, advances in technology, engineering, and design are all converging at warp speed, making it possible to go way beyond the cup holders and high-quality sound systems that car owners once settled for.
"I used to have a fax in my car, until sanity set in," said James Rappaport, the one-time Republican Senate candidate and head of the New Boston Fund, a real estate investment group. The family SUV is equipped with VCR screens, and he takes his e-mail-ready handheld computer with him in the convertible he drives in from Concord.
"I would say half the people in my neighborhood either use AOL e-mail communicators or Blackberry," Rappaport said, referring to common devices for checking e-mail on the go. He carries that technology with him so he can use it in different cars, but expects that in the future every car will be outfitted with a small screen for satellite-guided maps and Web access.
"I think all of it will be ubiquitous, like the mobile phone," he said.
Yet the scramble for mobile amenities has already prompted a kind of contrarian backlash. Some who live or work in the suburbs seem to believe that loading up with creature comforts is an acknowledgment of how much they are tied to their cars.
"I bought a Subaru and it came with three jacks, and I asked the guy what they were for and he said, `They're for your fax, your laptop, your cell phone,'" said Carter Wilkie, coauthor of Changing Places, a book on redeveloping city infrastructure instead of building in the countryside.
Wilkie, who works at EMC Corp in Hopkinton, said proudly that he does not use any of those things in the car. "But I do have the jacks," he said.
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