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Originally Posted by whswhs
I would not count on Mars having much use for wheeled vehicles of any kind. They don't work well without roads, and roads are expensive to maintain.
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Excellent point. I hadn't given that aspect of it much thought, but it's true.
That said, some parts of desert Mars might still have viable roads, depending on the engineering skill of the Old Martians. After all, the sparse, mostly absent biosphere would tend to preserve some things better than the fecund activity of Earth. Flat surfaces like well-made solid-surface roads might endure for some time absent extensive plant life and related biological dangers. Paradoxically, the roads might be in better repair far from civilization, in the depths of the deserts, than they would be in some of the canal valleys.
Still, time would take its toll, wind, quake, scouring sand, the roads would be buried or destroyed in a very short time on a geological or historical scale.
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When there are canal routes, of course, those are going to work better. Turbines powered by a biodiesel analog could be a workable technology. There's also sailing, of course, but in a less dense atmosphere sailing is going to provide much less power.
Bill Stoddard
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Here's where the food/fuel dichotomy kicks in again. But sailing might partly make up for the thinner air (it can't be too much thinner than Earth's, though, if Mars is habitable) by the fact that it might not take much 'power' to sail the canals, esp. if speed is not of the essence.
Hmm...one might see two categories of canal ship, slow, cumbersome sailing (or even oared) vessels, or maybe pulled by animal power on the shore in places, and biofuel-powered motor craft that move high value, high priority cargoes or combat troops. The scare fuel would tend to be saved for critical needs.