For more than a year, I commuted to and from work (3 miles each way) on a lightweight electric scooter I bought on Craigslist for $100. It's been a while, but I used to skateboard, surf and snowboard, but having the handlebars of a scooter in an urban environment is huge for me in terms of control and safety. I used to call it the poor-man's Segway.

Edit: Not mine, but these look nice: http://www.goped.com/products/Electric.asp

They are extremely heavy.

My current kick scooter weights 12 lbs and i consider it heavy. I can't imagine handling 35 lbs, my bike is lighter :)

I think that taking this [1] rather insane idea for a "longboard stroller", and replacing the child(!) with one's laptop bag and maybe some kind of fairing would be a pretty sweet solution for those of us not agile enough for regular longboarding.

[1] http://www.blessthisstuff.com/stuff/living/misc-living/longb...

A child shaped crumple zone. I already feel pretty squeamish with kids on the bike (2 kids, one adult, one bike).