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DOT Warns of Dystopian Future For Transportation
An anonymous reader writes The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued a 300-page PDF outlining the grim future of transportation infrastructure in North America over the next thirty years, and inviting debate on the issue. The report presents a vision of 2045 with LA-style traffic jams in Nebraska, trains too full to pick up any more passengers and airports underwater due to climate change — all in a climate of chronic under-investment, even at levels needed to maintain existing transport infrastructure. Among possible solutions outlined are self-driving cars using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2I) crash-avoidance technologies, such as those currently in development by Google — and in fact transportation secretary Anthony Foxx was joined by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the launch of DOT's "Beyond Traffic" initiative.
Use the money you earn through infrastructure and transportation taxes to actually pay for maintaining the infrastructure.
Does the report suggest any ways to eliminate journeys? I expect not. That's the problem - they assume that journeys are always necessary, and increasingly so. How about putting in place policies that incentivise people to live near their workplaces, don't have to drive to go to a shopping mall, reduce the need for long-distance business travel, etc. Not only would that improve "traffic", but actually make people's lives easier and better as a bonus. Worth a thought, eh?
Simple solutions to complex problems are always simple, but never solutions.
Hey, let's spot the libertarian with idealogical and impractical ideas!
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
Hopefully people will stop traveling so much so we won't need as much transportation infrastructure in 30 years. It has already dramatically decreased because of teleconferencing. Conventions have taken a huge hit because of this.
Hopefully products will stop traveling so much so we won't need as much transportation infrastructure in 30 years. We already have rudimentary 3D printing. In 30 years I hope we can print everything we need where its needed instead of wasting time, money, fuel, packaging and other resources moving stuff around. Then when you're done with that item you throw it in the de-constructor which recycles the parts. Need more raw materials? Shovel in a few scoops of dirt. Sure, occasionally you'll need to add some essential elements you might have but think of all those local landfills to be mined!
No, in 2045 we should not need much of DOT. The world will change.
Self driving cars are not a solution to the problem, and can't be the solution to the problem. If passenger trains are too full to carry people, then mass transit needs to be expanded. You know, the system we should have been investing in for half a century and ignored because it hurt someone's net worth.
Virtually zero US cities have a functional mass transit system. The most populated areas in the west are prime examples, and lets take San Francisco Bay as our example (since I live here and have first hand knowledge and experience). VTA handles "some" of the South Bay, but limited to North San Jose and Mountain View. Caltrain handles a single strip running North to south from North San Jose to South (not the city) San Francisco. Bart handles SF -> Oakland, and a straight line down to Fremont. These systems don't connect, use different payment systems, have different rates, and are _MORE_ expensive than driving. Example: I can take Caltrain from Mountain View to SF for 8.00 one way, so 16.00 round trip. Then I have to find another commute service to get from Caltrain to my destination, which is more money and time. Taking our "cheap" (said with a hearty chuckle) mass transit is extremely expensive and time consuming.
Lets not bullshit anyone, this is not our only problem. Industrial pollution is a much bigger problem. Generating electricity is a dirty task and a bigger problem. Plastic is a problem, and cheap "disposable" products are a problem. None of those get addressed by making "self driving cars" and some problems such as vehicle exhaust get worse.
Yet instead of addressing the problems with mass transit, California is dumping many billions into a train from Fresno to Sacramento. Go figure..
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
it's not FUD
American infrastructure is deteriorating: that's not controversial nor inaccurate
the FUD would be in denying that fact. like the kind of FUD some uninformed/ irresponsible people and congresscritters use to deny the funding we need to keep our highways, tracks, and airstrips from crumbling
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's pretty legit in this case. Not everybody who asks for funding is _only_ trying to enrich themselves. Hell, have you seen the state of our bridges lately? If I was in charge of them, I'd either want more funding, or to quit before I get blamed for them falling down.
By 2045 we'll be down the other side of the slope, most citizens of the USA and elsewhere will not be able to afford to own and operate a vehicle and a good chunk of the expected population growth will have died off due to measles and other preventable diseases. Boom, problem solved. You're welcome.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
thanks for your pointless sophistry
the simple fact is we do not fund american infrastructure enough, and this hurts our economy in relation to places that do
it's not complicated nor difficult to understand
here, educate yourself:
http://www.economist.com/news/...
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fa...
http://www.infrastructurerepor...
after you have some actual understanding of a topic, only then should you speak on the topic
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ok, so here's part of the problem:
In Denver, CO the elevated portion of I-70 is falling down. Literally. If you ever looked at the underneath of the elevated portion of I-70, you would NEVER drive on it again. We're talking about basketball sized chunks of concrete falling out, exposed rebar, nightmare stuff. So let's fix it.
You can put a $50,000,000 band-aid on it to keep it from falling down for maybe 5 years, or you can pay $500,000,000 to fix it right. But that's for Today's traffic. To do it properly, you need to model traffic patterns out years in advance. To increase capacity and fix it properly, we easily get into $2,000,000,000.
Remember, C-470 was called "The Highway Colorado Doesn't Need" when it was first built, and now it has traffic jams on it on a daily basis (Seriously, I remember when County Line was a dirt road and Highlands Ranch was actually a Ranch).
*BUT* that's not the only problem. When you build roads and expand them, you need Right-of-Way. You have to buy people's houses to buy that ROW. People sometimes don't want to sell their houses and complain. One job we were expanding a backwater state highway (2 lane road) that was seeing a large increase in traffic into a 4 lane divided highway. Problem was, a neighborhood developed around the road. People complained, and sued the DOT, because they knew their 70-year-old houses existed before the road. The DOT pulled photos from the archives, engineers ($$$) went to court to show the houses were not only built after the road was there and paved, but that was why the houses were build (a road was there). That's the kind of crap that happens EVERY time you need to do a major build or upgrade.
Now on to the Odometer problem:
People drive in multiple states all the time. And your little commuter car isn't doing the major wear-and-tear on the roads anyway (Unless you drive a hummer, or another large truck that qualifies for the Heavy Equipment Tax by weighing more than a tank), that's commercial trucks, many of which are overloaded for road conditions (Truckers routinely ignore signs for height / weight restrictions).
Also, some states pull stupid crap and don't QA/QC their asphalt mix before putting it into production (MODOT, I'm looking at you), causing huge problems with roads that crumble too early.
The weather problem:
Some states in the U.S. have a horrible freeze-thaw cycle that demolishes roads. Water is bad for fiber (Internet Superhighway). Water is bad for concrete (Regular Superhighway). Water is bad for fire (Burning Superhighway). Water is good for fish (Not a Superhighway).
Look at the problems a state like Nebraska faces: 100 degree plus summers, -10 degree winters.
Then you go into the East Coast nightmare. The interstate highway system was formed in 1956 (June 29th, 1956). No biggie right? Well, a lot of these are now eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (or getting their quickly).
Don't even get me started on wetlands (irrigation ditches, you know, the places used to collect and store water. Yeah, they formed their own little ecosystems in 40 years and are now considered wetlands, gotta work around that).
My $0.03 /We need another president like Eisenhower that will force people to invest in infrastructure //And NOT use the DOT to Force policies on states ///Federal Highway Funds are not provided to states that don't follow DUI laws, FYI.