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Transportation (an Economic Issue)
In the United States, most of us own, lease or have access to some sort of motor vehicle, which they use to get to work, to go shopping, to run errands, and to get to entertainment venues. With our mostly suburban lifestyles, it would be difficult for most of us to get along without a motor vehicle.
In fact, many locations do not have the sidewalks or paths needed for walking and most things are too far to walk to. Most locations do not have many, if any, bike paths or bike racks, and biking is not very convenient in bad weather. Mass transit is also scarce outside cities and relatively slow, and it does not always run at all hours of the day.
Most of our cars, trucks, airplanes, trains and ships are powered by fossil fuels, which release large quantities of pollution and produce a lot of noise. The fuel for most of our vehicles comes from oil. In fact, our vehicles consume about 70 percent of the oil that we use. This dependence on oil to fuel our cars and trucks has at times forced us to import almost 60 percent of our oil from other countries. This meant that we needed to send large amounts of our money overseas, which left us vulnerable to disruptions to our oil supply.
There have been heated debates about raising the average miles per gallon that our cars and trucks must get. Of course, even if we could have doubled this average, we would only have reduced our total oil usage by about 35 percent. Without some other changes to our transportation system, we would still have needed to import almost 40 percent of the oil that we needed.
We have already seen some minor disruptions in oil production, which have already caused some fuel shortages and sharp price increases. With oil production near its peak and the world’s demand for oil still rising, we need to make some major changes, or we will suffer from major oil shortages within the next couple of decades. Without a massive shift to some alternative fuel or a major reduction in the use of our motor vehicles, we could inevitably see the collapse of our entire transportation system, which could lead to the collapse of our entire modern civilization.
In the early days of human history, we had to walk to get to most places. Therefore, everything that we needed had to be within walking distance. Even walking for 8 hours at a brisk pace of 3 mph, a person can cover only 24 miles. Over time, our ancestors learned to tame horses, to build boats, and to use sails and wheels, which allowed them to travel farther and to get necessities and luxury items from much farther away.
On horseback or by wagon, a person might have covered 30 or 40 miles in a day but would have averaged far less than that for long trips, since they would have needed more time to rest. For instance, in the late 1800’s, the approximately 2000-mile trip by wagon train from the Mid-West to Oregon or California took about 6 months, which was an average of only about 11 miles per day. Although a sailing ship is limited to water travel, it might have done 50 to 100 miles in a day. The invention of the train made travel quite a bit faster. Most early steam locomotives could do 20 to 50 mph, but trains were limited to where there were tracks.
For most of human history, it took a lot of time to travel any significant distance, so individuals rarely traveled far from their homes. Those individuals who lived on a farm, worked on the farm and had most of what they needed right there. A trip to town to get supplies or to enjoy some entertainment might have taken all day, so they probably only went when they really needed to or had the time. For townsfolk, it was usually a short walk to almost everything including work, shopping and whatever else there was in town. Although it was still a trek to travel to even the nearest other towns.
The individuals who lived in the cities were a little better off, since they did not have to walk far to get most of what they needed. Every neighborhood had little grocery stores and shops for clothes, furniture and just about everything else they needed. In addition, getting anywhere else in the city or even out to the countryside, which was not that far from the city center, would not have taken too long on horseback or by buggy.
In our more recent history, we invented cars and airplanes, and made improvements to our trains and ships. These new and improved modes of transportation made travel faster, easier and cheaper. We no longer had to work and to shop close to home. If we could get a better or higher paying job further away from home, our faster and cheaper transportation methods would have allowed us to take the job.
If groceries or dry goods were cheaper at stores a little farther from home, then we could go there to shop. With us being able to travel further and further from home, a store could attract more customers from further away, which would allow it to get bigger, to reduce its overhead, to gain buying power and to win out over the smaller local stores.
By the 1950’s, highways and better roads allowed us to move out of the towns and cities and into suburbs where we could get away from the crime and the noise that came with the crowds, and away from the pollution that came from the factories and the cars. With us becoming more spread out, businesses were no longer nearby, so we needed to travel farther, which meant the need for more and more roads and parking lots. This in turn, caused everything to be even more spread out.
Today, the average person in a developed country now needs to travel many miles to get to work, to go shopping and to get to all the other things they need or want to do. For instance, one estimate that I saw included round trip averages for work (13 miles), school (3 miles), grocery store (3.5 miles), cinema (6.5 miles), restaurant (8 miles), and shopping (8 miles). Of course, average and actual distances will vary greatly by location and by individual, and these things in the United States are probably even further away than in many other countries.
The faster speeds and lower costs of transportation have also made it cheaper to produce many goods in lower cost locations and then to transport those goods hundreds or thousands of miles than it is to produce them locally. Most of the goods that we buy today have traveled great distances to get to us. Even things produced locally will often have components or ingredients that have been produced and transported to the local area from very far away.
The cost of our new modes of transportation may look cheap. However, their costs are quite high and are getting higher. The problem is that most of us do not consider all the costs associated with our current transportation system, since many of these costs are not directly associated with our means of transportation. Let’s look at some of the direct, indirect, and intangible costs that are associated with our transportation system.
First, there are the direct costs of owning and operating a car. For an average person that drives a medium sized car about 15,000 miles a year for 5 years, the cost of depreciation, insurance, taxes, maintenance, and gas (excluding parking and tolls) would come to about $7,500 a year. Of course, this does not include the recent rise in prices for gas and cars, so this cost estimate is probably on the low side. For some of us, parking and tolls can add additional hundreds or thousands of dollars to our transportation costs.
Then there are our indirect costs paid for by our local, state and federal governments. These are the costs associated with building and maintaining our roads and bridges, and with other transportation related expenses, which are paid for by our tax money. If we ignore the local costs and just add up all the state and federal budgets for transportation, it comes to more than 150 billion dollars a year. Given the current population here in the United States of about 300 million, this works out to about $500 a year for each man, woman and child, or about $2,000 for a family of four.
For an average family of 4 with 2 cars, these direct and indirect costs add up to about $17,000 a year. With two wage earners, the average family income is around $68,000. This means that these transportation costs consume at least 25 percent of an average family’s income. Again, this does not include the cost of parking or tolls, and the current higher prices for gas and cars. Nor does this consider future gas price rises, which would increase transportation costs even farther. This also does not include the future higher transportation costs that will be associated with making needed repairs to our roads and bridges that are crumbling due to our government’s poor maintenance record.
Then, there are the intangible costs of our transportation system, which are hard to put dollar values on, but do appear to be enormous. First off, for some of us, driving is difficult or not an option. For instance, we do not allow our children to drive, and the handicapped, injured, sick and elderly may find it difficult, if not impossible, to drive. These individuals and those of us who cannot afford our own cars must rely on others for help or put up with the inconveniences and long travel times associated with using mass transit. For those of us who do drive, the average commute time is now around an hour a day. All this time on the road takes us away from being with our families and friends, and from doing other activities.
Each year in the United States, over 6 million motor vehicle accidents are reported. These accidents cost us about $230 billion, and cause about 3.5 million injuries, and almost 40 thousand deaths. In fact, motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of accidental deaths in the United States, at about 45 percent of the total. In addition, there are untold thousands or even millions of animals killed or injured each year by motor vehicles. Our cars and trucks also produce a lot of pollution, which is unpleasant, and adds greatly to our health problems and our health costs.
In addition, just in the United States, roads and parking lots cover well over 100,000 square miles (64 million acres) of land and more is being covered over each year. Nothing can grow on all this concrete and asphalt, which creates a virtual desert that would cover all the land in the states of New York and Florida combined. All our roads and highways also carve up towns, cities, neighborhoods and animal habitats so that we are isolated from one another, and many animals do not have habitats that are large enough in which to live and to forage for food.
Some additional transportation costs can be found in the price that we pay for goods. How much, or what percentage, of the price is hard to say, since transportation costs vary greatly depending on how and how far an item is shipped, and on its weight, size and shape. The important thing is that shipping costs are increasing and will continue to increase to offset rising energy costs. This means that the cost of goods, particularly those that are shipped the farthest, will also be increasing.
With our current technology, we could start switching to mostly gas-electric, alternative fuel-electric hybrid, or all electric cars that have the option to be plugged in to be recharged. Hybrid cars only need their gas or alternative fuel engine to boost power at high speeds or to recharge their batteries on long trips. Since the 50 to 100 miles that hybrids can cover on fully charged batteries is farther than most trips that we take in our cars, the gas or alternative fuel might rarely be needed. Some electric cars can now travel more than 300 miles on a full charge, but they do not have a gas or alternative fuel backup.
If most of our vehicles were switched to these new more fuel-efficient versions, it may even be possible to reduce our gas consumption down to less than 10 percent of what it is today. If we can do that, it might be possible to reduce our oil imports to almost nothing, and it might save us from some major oil shortages that could have caused the collapse of our transportation system. In addition, since these hybrids and all electric vehicles would consume far less fuel, they would release far less pollution than conventional fuel vehicles.
We have made some progress in moving towards these vehicles that are alternative fuel, hybrid and all electric, but so far it has not been enough to make much of a dent in our dependence on oil. With rising oil prices, we will most likely make further progress in this direction. Unfortunately, by the time the car buying public really starts demanding more fuel-efficient cars, it could take years for their prices to come down and for car manufactures to produce enough of them to meet the demand, and many more years before most of us could switch over to them.
For alternative Fuel, hybrid and electric vehicles to save us from suffering through major gas shortages, we would need to switch over most of our vehicles to them right away. To get manufacturers to start producing more of them, the public would need to start demanding more of them. The best way to increase the demand for these more fuel-efficient vehicles would be to start increasing the gas tax. The government might also need to provide the right tax incentives for buying more fuel-efficient vehicles. For instance, a new tax could be imposed that is pegged to a vehicle’s average miles per gallon rating.
For many of us to be comfortable with switching to these new vehicles, they would need to be as convenient to operate as our current vehicles. To do this for the electric hybrid vehicles, gas stations might need to add battery charging stations, which would need to be able to recharge their batteries or to swap out their batteries for fully charged ones in just a few minutes. As an added convenience during the daytime, photovoltaic cells might need to be installed on vehicle roofs to add some extra power while on the road and to provide some recharging when they are parked outside.
Until it becomes easy to recharge electric vehicles, we could use electric vehicles for our everyday short trips. Overnight charging could then fully charge these electric vehicles for the next day’s driving. we could then rent gas or hybrid vehicles for longer trips.
We would also need to add capacity to the electric grid, because there would be an increase in demand for electricity to recharge these vehicles. Of course, we would want to use renewable energy sources to generate this additional electricity. Otherwise, we would just be switching our energy problems from our transportation system to our electric power grid. Although, generating the electricity to drive an electric vehicle a given distance would take less fuel than a conventional gas or diesel engine vehicle would use.
When we talk about transportation of goods by truck, train, ship and airplane, hybrids may not be the whole answer. In general, except for some local deliveries, these vehicles travel too far and too fast to run just off batteries, at least with current technology. Of course, they will need to be converted to run using some sort of renewable energy, or given rising oil costs, it would soon be too costly to ship anything over long distances. Therefore, we would need to invest heavily in and provide incentives for finding and converting to alternative fuels for our long-distance shipping.
On the other hand, rising transportation costs will remove some of the cost advantages of importing goods from low-cost foreign producers and provide an incentive for manufacturers to produce more goods closer to their destination. Therefore, it may be better for businesses to start shifting more of their production of goods to locations nearer their consumer. This would have the added benefit, especially in the United States, of creating more local jobs.
Unfortunately, switching to these vehicles that are alternative fuel, hybrid and all electric would only solve a few of our many transportation problems. On the one hand, we might just starve off having a gas shortage that would have collapsed our transportation system and reduce some vehicular pollution. On the other hand, these more fuel-efficient vehicles will do nothing to reduce traffic congestion, traffic deaths and injuries, the high cost of owning a vehicle or of maintaining our roads and bridges, or any of our many other transportation related problems.
The real answer to our transportation problems and many of our other problems can be found in finding ways to reduce our need to travel as much. This would reduce the need for motor vehicles and, in turn, cut down on the number of roads and bridges that we need. To do that, we need to create more compact communities where our home, work, school, shopping and entertainment locations are closer together. If we could bring things close enough together, we would be able to walk to most of the places where we would need to go. This would save us a lot of time and money and would help to improve our health.
The main concept behind a compact community is that it would put more things within walking distance of more of us. The hope would be that most of us could walk to work, to school, to shopping and to many forms of entertainment. When something was a little farther away, we could bike, skate, or use some other small personal transport vehicle such as a Segway or a scooter. When leaving a community, we would be able to use any of these methods, mass transit or, when needed, we could resort to using a car. Although we want to get away from cars and trucks as much as possible, there may always be a few places where they might remain our best option.
With more compact communities, current and new forms of mass transit would be faster, more efficient and more convenient, because there would be fewer places where stops would be needed. If we needed to get someplace in another community, we could walk to the bus or train station, travel directly and quickly to the other community, and then walk to our destination. Fewer destinations would also mean that other forms of personal transport would be more convenient.
In addition to solving many of our transportation problems, I believe most of us would find these new compact communities to be better places to live. I will talk more about this in an upcoming section on communities.
In general, mass transit can be a more efficient and less expensive means of travel than using a car, but it is often far less convenient. We often need to wait for the next bus or train to come along. A bus or train ride may take longer, since they may need to make many stops before they get us to where we are going. In addition, we often need to transfer between many different buses or trains to get to our destination. On the other hand, taxis are more convenient than buses and trains, but they can be very expensive and may not be able to go the full distance.
Cars are still generally the fastest way to get someplace. With a car we are usually able to come and to go whenever and wherever we want to. Of course, the downside to car ownership is that it can be very expensive and can take up a lot of our time trying to keep it in working order. At times, there can also be problems finding a parking space when and where it is needed.
It would be nice if we could combine the lower cost of mass transit with more of the convenience of a car or taxi. By combining the best features of a mass transit system with the convenience of a taxi, and the autonomy of a personal car, we could create a new kind of personal mass transit system that would be better than anything we currently have or ever have had.
My suggestion would be to create an overhead monorail system that has mini subway cars. Individuals, families or small groups would be able to ride in their own personal mini elevated rail car from one station to any other station in the system. By combining the idea of a monorail system and a personal taxicab, I decided to call these monocabs. Interestingly, I found that this term has already been coined by Arthur C. Clarke in his book Earthlight, published by Del Rey in 1955.
Every couple of blocks, there would be a stop where we could get on and off our monocab and where an attendant would be stationed to handle our questions and problems. These monocabs could have fold down seats and appropriate hand holds and could come in a variety of sizes. One size might hold two to four individuals seated or four to six individuals standing. Another size might be larger and could hold a larger group of individuals or could be used to move merchandise, packages or cargo. Another type of monocab might be used like a flatbed truck where containers, equipment or even cars could be loaded for transport.
These monocabs would travel on a network of overhead tracks that would reach every part of a community. One possible design might use moving cables like a cable car system and the monocabs would lock on to the cable. Of course, a much better approach would be to use magnetic levitation where alternating magnetic fields would move along the tracks to push and to pull the monocabs. A computerized navigation and control system would be responsible for routing the monocabs along the tracks between stops.
To use this personal transit system, we would go to the nearest monocab stop. There should always be one or more of each monocab size lined up in a departure queue ready to be taken. Passengers would get into a monocab, swipe a payment card if needed, key in or select a destination on a control panel, and press the start switch. Then, the monocab doors would close, and it would move onto the entry ramp and be inserted into the next open spot on the track. If needed, oncoming traffic would be automatically slowed down to open a spot.
These monocabs would be connected to the track in such a way that the monocabs could be smoothly accelerated or stopped. Using magnetic levitation and proper computer control, these monocabs could easily reach speeds of over 200 mph. Within a community, they would have to travel at slower speeds, depending on how the system was all put together, how closely together the monocabs were, how many monocabs were currently on the tracks, and the distance traveled between stops. Of course, even if they travelled at speeds of only 20 or 30 mph within the town or city, they could still get us to our destinations much faster than cars, taxis or busses could today, since they would not need to stop at any intermediate locations, stop signs or lights along the way.
Sensors along the tracks would read the identity of each passing monocab. A computerized navigation and control system would route each monocab to its proper destination using the best and fastest route. In case of an emergency, there would be switches or controls in each monocab that could be used to reroute it to a location where police or medical personnel would be standing by.
When a monocab reaches its destination, it would be directed off the main track onto an exit track where it would be moved into an available parking spot. There the passengers could open the monocab doors and disembark. The now empty monocab would then be moved to its appropriate departure queue. To prevent bunching, any extra monocabs at one stop would be automatically sent to other stops that needed them.
Along with the monocabs that could be rented for the duration of a trip, there would be ones that could be owned or leased and customized. For instance, there could be medical, police and fire emergency monocabs that would be outfitted with the appropriate emergency equipment and be parked at special restricted emergency stops or housed in special garages from where they could be called from. When these emergency monocabs reached a regular stop, they would get a dedicated spot where they could stay while the emergency personnel did their work.
Businesses could also have monocabs outfitted for business use and have things like plumbing or electrical supplies. They could also be set up to make mail or package deliveries and stops could have special commercial parking spots. We could also own our own personal monocabs, which we could fix up however we liked. These personal monocabs could be parked in special residential garages. We would be able to call for our monocabs from any stop. When we are away from home, we could send and retrieve our monocabs to and from public garages.
A version of this personal mass transit system could also be used to move us and merchandise between communities. One option would be to have separate inter-community and intra-community lines built, which would require transfer points within each community. The other option would be to have a national system where someone could travel from any stop within any community to any stop within any other community. With magnetic levitation, speeds of over 200 mph should easily be possible on these inter-community tracks. At this speed, even trips of several hundred miles would be faster and easier by monocab than by airplane, since there would be no travel to and from airports, and no flight delays or security check.
With inter-community travel, there would need to be rest stops built into the system, so that someone could stop for a bathroom or meal break. There would be controls in each monocab that would allow us to specify what type of rest stop we needed. At the rest stop, we might have the option to either have our monocab parked until we were ready to continue our trip, or to take everything with us and then to get a new monocab when we were ready to continue our trip.
Having overhead tracks for this personal mass transit system has a couple of big benefits. Except for the supports, the ground would be clear, so that we could walk or bike under them. In other places, plants and animals could live under them and they would not hinder animal migrations nor divide up habitat into smaller areas. These tracks would also provide a nice aboveground spot to install solar panels and wind turbines to generate some renewable energy that could be used to help power this transportation system.
With more compact communities and personal mass transit systems, our need for cars and trucks and a lot of the corresponding transportation problems would be greatly reduced. First off, most of us would save a lot of time and money by not needing to own, insure, maintain, and operate motor vehicles. We would also save a lot of time by having shorter commutes and we would get some health benefits from more walking and less smog.
Fewer cars and trucks, and less time driving would also translate into reduced costs, and far fewer injuries and deaths from accidents. There would also be a reduced need for roads and bridges, which would save us some additional money by reducing our taxes, and would leave more land for farms, parks and animal habitat. In addition, we would get many other financial, time, social and safety benefits. I will talk more about these in an upcoming section on communities.
In our increasingly wired world, another big benefit of a personal mass transit system would be our freedom to stay connected. Since there is no need to drive a monocab, we would not need to worry about being distracted and getting into an accident. We would be free to talk to our fellow passengers, to talk or to text on a cell phone, to use a laptop or notebook computer, to read a newspaper or magazine, to watch TV, or to do any of a multitude of other things.
Environmental Issues -
Introduction to the Environmental Issues affecting Our Future Path.
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