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How Will We Get Around Near-Future Earth?
Slob Nerd points to this BBC article on future transport possibilities. It begins "The prospect of a revolution in air travel has been raised by Nasa's successful test of a 5,000mph plane. But are we likely to see similar advances in other forms of transport? Dusting off the crystal ball, what changes might come in the way we get around? What big ideas are out there, and do they have any chance of seeing the light of day?"
I'd like to see more high speed trains in the US. It's a lot more economical than air travel, can be just as fast (with aiport wait times and all), and is just as if not safer than flying.
The last time I checked, commercial airplanes in the US weren't allowed to fly past the speed of sound to prevent sonic booms (which, incidently, growing up next to an Air Force base, I can tell you is really something you get used to quickly).
The way I see it, my getting across the country isn't a matter of airplanes not being able to go faster, it's airplanes not being allowed to go faster.
Now, a couple of Maglevs might be nice....
"Isn't that the sweetest little well-balanced undergraduate-level philosophy of life."
the jury is out on whether high speed rail systems are economical. the fingers are typically pointed at systems in Europe or Asia that aren't analogous to the geography and population density of much of the United States.
part of the cost and inefficiency of air travel is caused by our hub-and-spoke air network system. this forces a lot of connections and short hops that could be unnecessary.
James Fallows wrote an interesting book about the very-near future of air travel. He makes the case that we need smaller regional airports and smaller high efficiency jets. These would allow many of us to make direct city-to-city flights without the need to go thru congested hub cities.
Check out Fallow's Free Flight at Amazon. Free FlightAnd I'm not kidding about the 50 square blocks of nothing but the above. Literally, you walk several blocks in any direction and it's condo building next to condo building next to condo building next to apartment building next to condo building. No big yards. No single family homes.
What's the result? It's packed. If you don't have off street parking, try finding a spot after 5:00 pm on the weekdays, or on the weekends at all. (It's a hot spot for 4th of July, and my first year here I foolishly gave up my spot to drive (!!!) to the grocery store when I could have walked. It ended up that I had to park more than half a mile from my place upon returning.) It's populated primarily by college students and 20-somethings. Being in that demographic myself, I have no qualms, but my biggest complaint is that they're mostly renters so they don't give a damn about the area. So it's not uncommon to find several beer cans / beer bottles on the street/sidewalk after a Friday/Saturday night. Plus, it can be very loud at very late hours (thankfully I live on a cul-de-sac on the quiet side of town, so it's only noisy maybe once a month, when the folks in a neighboring condo unit throw a party).
I am here, though, because I love it. Not the noise, or pollution, but the beach (less than 1 mile away) and the feeling of the town. Everything is walkable. I walk to restaraunts, to the grocery store, to the drug store, to the office supply store, to Blockbuster, to the dry cleaners, to the bar, to the 7-11, to the beach, and to the basketball courts. I've had my car out here for close to four years now and have put less than 25,000 miles on it since moving here.
The point is, being crammed together does have its advantages, but it also comes with a slew of disadvantages as well (increased noise, pollution, etc.). Also, most Americans really like large living spaces, and who can blame them? I'd love a huge house with acres of back yard, but that's not affordable here (a two bedroom condo, 1,200 square feet, would likely go between $400k-$500k). I own a place in a condo building with 7 units. I have 1,050 square feet to my name. It's ok, it's just me and my fiancee for now, but it would be tough to raise a family in such cramped quarters. I fear we'll have to move further inland to more of a typical suburban type place once we start a family...
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
Setting aside the idiotic abbreviation "USicans" (hint: the proper term for citizens of the United States of America is "Americans", for citizens of the United States of Mexico is "Mexicans", etc.)...
Although its passenger rail system could be accurately described as "completely useless" everywhere outside the coastal strip between Washington DC and Boston, the freight rail system of the USA is generally considered amongst the world's finest. With its already developed state, and tight integration with roadway freight, it's difficult to imagine in what way commerce between disparate parts of the US could be "increased" by building more rail links.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
I think we're addicted to the wrong questions...
The question should be how are we going to support a world with 10,000,000,000 people in it, while maintaining some semblance of quality of life. This idea of half a billion people in the U.S. going anywhere they feel like, any time they feel like, each in their own vehicle, which if by current standards continues is 7 feet high, 18 feet long, weighs 12 tons, sleeps 10, and get's 8 MPG, is at best insane. It ignores sanity on so many fundamental levels, I'm not even going to bother listing.
Designing living habitats that provide people with clean, safe, lawful, aesthetically pleasing environments, that are high density and preclude the need to travel more than a few hundred meters to receive/deliver any needed service, would immeditely transform our society. At that point the edge of the metroplex, might provide a variety of transportation for folk going to and from other island cities. The metroplex is a three dimensional hive, with business, housing, and recreation all built tightly into an interactive, engineered space, with little or no impact on the surrounding land. This allows people instant access to everything they need from work to pleasure... while only being minutes away from wild spaces they can visit and enjoy. Literally tens of millions of people can exist in a tiny hive like city. A place that has been optimized for crime prevention, cleanliness, well lit open airy spaces. In short a perfect controlled environment.
High speed rail, tube, or supercomputer networked controlled superconducting ribbon highways could easily manage regional transport. Ultra high speed air travel would be useful for travel to distant regions or other continents. Cable travel to geosynced space depots could carry passengers to cities on the moon, mars, callisto, europa, and ganymede. As well they might carry asteroid miners and their products to and from earth.
Even horseback becomes a viable form of transport into the natural spaces surrounding the cities (horses being highly efficient for that particular use... hover cars, like the Moller being viable for trips longer than a days horseback ride.) One might even relegate such vehicles to rental only since anyplace in the hive could be accessed in minutes by people movers and other metroplexs could be accessed by mass transit.
Any given form of transportation would only be viable depending on it's speed and efficiency. Each would inherently be designed and optimized to operate in a specific level of social/geographical granularity.
The tremedous advantage in societal cost, safety, improved environment, ease of living, efficiency, and quality of life would make living in such a place, a slice of heaven. Enhanced taxbase, with tremendously reduced cost of living, would allow money to be available for fantastic free schools, enhanced medical care, and a gorgeous, sparkling infrastructure. Who wants to move in? I know I do!
Genda
Current mass transit systems have serious shortcomings that prevent 100% adoption though, so what problems do we need to resolve for a public transportation system to be appealing enough that private transportation is no longer a desirable alternative?
1. It needs to get you there quickly. You shouldn't have to transfer between different lines and different modes of transport and arrive at your destination 45 minutes later when you could have been there in 10 minutes via car.
2. It needs to provide door to door service. You shouldn't have to walk a few blocks, hop in a car, or take a bus, to get to a station and board public transportation.
3. It needs to be cheap. Public transportation already wins here when you factor in all the extended costs of car ownership. Most of the time your car sits unused in a driveway, garage, or parking space, and in the bigger picture that's just money ticking away by the minute in terms of us having a *much* larger fleet of vehicles overall than we need.
4. It needs to always be available. It can't stop running from 12am until 6am.
5. Travel needs to be private/not shared between passengers. You should have a car/coach/capsule that is private for you or you and companions for the duration of your trip.
6. It needs to be comfortable. A public system could have many advantages here, not having to drive is one of the biggest.
7. It needs to be be ubiquitous and extend everywhere. You should be able to go anywhere using the system that you can with a car.
I think all of these criteria could be met by replacing our entire road system, down to the last street and cul-de-sac, with a tube or rail system and having numerous individual cars/capsules that arrive on demand and take you where you want to go, all routed by computers (kind of reminiscent of the old pneumatic tube message systems). The cars/capsules could be privately owned, but I think it would work much better if they were shared/pooled to dramatically reduce the costs. I can think of ways to combine/support both options.
You would only need private/off-grid vehicles for specialized tasks. They could be designed to connect to the grid to get to a location and then detach and run independently at the job site.
I wonder how, cost-wise, this would compare to the entire road and automobile infrastructure, including what we each pay for private car ownership and maintenance. There are lots of interesting implications to this. What effect does it have on the idea of a neighborhood? The commercial strip? What do we do with all of the reclaimed space if roads are replaced by something with a much smaller footprint (do urban homeowners all get their lots extended by several yards or do we create some new system of a public greenspace grid)?
Is this a bad idea? What kinds of systems are being proposed out there for this kind of a broad shift toward something that is more humane, convenient, and cost-effective, then the mess we have today?
I think that private transportation will remain the norm. The emphasis on ownership, of your transportation being your property, is very strong in the US.
One of the other problems with mass transportation is that we seem to have "mass transportation = government operated" embedded in our minds. This is a real problem in car-oriented places, as people who don't use mass transit don't want to pay for it, and gov't operation somehow seems to lead to collective payment/subsidy.
Maybe if we had some sort of efficient delivery method for packages, faster than the mail. So you could go shopping and your purchase would be home before/as you got back. Maybe then there wouldn't be such an emphasis on private transportation.
I'd like to see something that I've thought about for a long time -- different licenses for different roads.
:)
Here's the concept: You have one general driver's license that gets you anywhere, basically, on standard roads. But a new driver's license that allows you onto a type of super-super-highway to be built across the USA. This highway would be several lanes wide for ease and safety, and the speed limit would be high -- say, 150mph. The minimum would be at least 85 or 90mph.
The idea being here that if I am a driver with a good record, I can take a high-speed driving course and if I pass and install some standard, high-speed accessories in my car (3 or 4-point harnesses, etc), I am allowed to drive on the super-super highway and make a cross-country trip in very little time.
The fact is, there's plenty of morons who should never go over the speedlimit due to the fact that they can't even use a turn signal, let alone drive correctly. But there are plenty of safe, alert, attentive drivers who would benefit from being able to run their well-designed fast cars on a highway suited to their needs.
Plus, that way I wouldn't feel bad about kicking it up on a back highway because the day is gorgeous and 60mph is just too slow.
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