| My Vision for America |
[Dec. 2nd, 2008|07:17 pm] |
I intend to put this on Obama's change.gov site where it asks you to submit your ideas for changing America. Changing America is changing the world.
My vision has to do with transportation and the economy. We need to think about transportation in 21st century terms. We have the capability to create in our cities radically new systems of transportation, systems that leverage modern communications, the power of modern networked computation, and clean electric power, to make clean green cities. I have nothing less in mind that restructuring our major cities. I want to remove 90% of private cars from the inner city. I believe can we create a combination of public transport and on demand personal transporters that make ownership of autos unnecessary for those living in cities of 1 million or more. This will be a public works project on a massive scale, that will give work to many in our cities for many years. It will give GM, Ford, Chrysler workers jobs. It will reduce our green house gases, provide space for more trees further reducing carbon in our atmosphere while cooling our cities, and will make our cities into parks that we live in. At the same time we create more value and more living space in our cities.
How do we do it? There are three major components. A multi-modal system of light rails, monorails, people movers, and electric buses that crisscross our cities, and a large number of on-demand transporters. These will be so convenient that a personal car will be unnecessary and undesired for city transportation. The third component are a large number of parking structures that grid our cities. This being America we do not make use of the transportation system mandatory, but we do make it cheaper. Entry into a city with a personal vehicle would require a toll, and parking in a structure at the edge of the city gives an all day pass on the light rail. The cost of parking would be less then the entry toll. Parking structures would be co-located with light rail and bus terminals for easy access for city visitors.
There are other things we should do to make this system most effective. Two-thirds to three-quarters of the existing parking spaces are removed. They are replaced with trees, grass, outdoor siting spaces, etc. In the city center additional space can be made available for outdoor dinning, athletic activities, or other social activities.
How does it work? Here is the basic idea. When a person or persons wants to go from point A to point B they have several options. Using a web enabled device, cell phone, personal computer, or terminal at a light rail station they enter points A and B thereby booking a trip. There will be options, lowest cost, maximum walking distance, handicapped, fastest trip, etc. which are used by the transportations computational network to schedule the trip. The crutch of the system is that allocates system resources on-demand, finding a personal transporter, determining optimal route according to the users request, etc. The system will be smart, it will know customers preferences and previous trips, budget defaults, etc. This part requires a significant computational capability. Let's do some scenarios.
Ann lives in the city about a mile away from the nearest light rail station and she works as an office assistant in the city financial district. She does not want to walk because it is cold out. Ann picks up here cell phone and she selects the cities transportation app. She has already entered her home and work destinations. She selects these as origination and destination, and enters the time she wants to leave or arrive. She indications no walking. She presses the "Book my Transportation" button. The City Transport computer recognizes that two other people are requesting transportation to the nearest light rail station this morning, after determining that Ann's best route takes here to the nearest station than into the financial district with one transfer with a five minute lay over. It quarries Ann about saving money by sharing a transport. Ann responds yes. Fifteen minutes later a four person transport arrives at her apartment just after causing a text message to be delivered to her phone. Ann is charged for the trip automatically and twenty-five minutes late she walks into her office.
Bill is an executive at a high tech company. He values the morning commute as work time and is willing to pay a premium to get to work in a vehicle that affords a quite space to make calls or work on his laptop -- of course connected to the cities internet service. Bill likewise has paid for the voice recognition version of the app. He opens his phone and dials the service from his quick list, and when the line picks up with "Please say your service request", he say "Get me from home to work, leaving at 7:45AM." A few seconds of computation and a voice responds "Will that be the premium service.?" "Yes." Bill like Ann gets a text message alerting him that the Premium car has arrived; the Premium car may just be an unshared car. Fifteen minutes later Bill is in his office. The bill has already been paid by his company.
Charlie is a night watchman in the city port. He lives just outside the city and takes a train into the city. The rail stops at the city center. A few minutes before the train arrives, Charlie opens his phone which is connected to the trains wifi service and selects his origination as the train depot and his destination as the docks. He sees that he has fifteen minutes to wait. Charlie gets off the train, gets a cup of coffee and snack before idling over to the light rail. He stops to watch a street performer. Two minutes before the light rail arrives Charlie receives a text message, he hustles over to the light rail. Twenty minutes later he arrives at the docks and has a five minute walk. Charlie is billed less then the gas it have cost him to drive his own car, not to mention that he needs no auto insurance or car payment.
Dorothy is a home maker that lives in an upscale neighborhood. Dorothy has two kids and she wants to go to the zoo today at noon. In the morning she gets on her computer and books transportation for three. She selects low cost and personal transport. Five minutes before noon Dorothy gets a text message letting her know the car is about to arrive. She gathers her children and goes out the front door to find a six person transport with a mother and child already in the vehicle. They all arrive at the zoo fifteen minutes later after making new friends.
Eric is an artist and a waiter. His home and studio are in high density housing with shops, restaurants and grocery store all within a short walk or in the first floor of his building. His job though is in near the financial district. He works four days a week from 5PM to 1AM at a high end restaurant. There is a light rail that takes him within a block of his work, and other than occasionally checking the schedule to see if he can get a few more strokes in before hoping in the shower before work he does not schedule a ride to work. However, the light rail stops at 1AM so he can't take it home. Most nights he schedules a low cost transport back home around midnight, but some times the crew goes out for a drink after work. They all live near the other end of town and at the end of the night they schedule a multi-drop transport to save cost. Personal transporters are available any time of day or night.
The personal transports have no driver. They share the road with other vehicles. All vehicles, both transports and driver controlled, certified for the city have anti-collision sensors. Pedestrians are never hit and cars never collied. Transports drive very closely to each other in heavy traffic allowing for very dense traffic at peak hours that still flows smoothly. The actual density of vehicles in the city will be greatly reduced; little or no money and space spent on parking structures near places of work.
The system will use multiple scheduled multi-person transports, light rail, buses, monorails, people movers, etc., according to the needs of each location.
When people need to transfer from rail to rail or transport to rail the system will minimize waiting time.
An interesting thought is that most garages in the city will become rec rooms or in-law quarters. New developments could be built with minimal road access and no driveway; all that would be needed is the ability to have occasional access to delivery trucks or moving vans.
I believe a system built with this vision of a shared multi-modality transportation system is well within reach of modern technology and that it can be approached systematically and gradually. This should be a 20 or 30 year project. It would revolutionize and vitalize our cities as places to live, be, and have fun. It would create a clean beautiful and green place to enable a vital and energy wise system of commerce and livelihood. Its side effect would be a happier and healthier people.
[Edit]
Write me a scenario and I'll add it my document, not that it will go anywhere but just because engaging in hope seems useful sometimes. |
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