New US Transportation Secretary

'Let's go with promoting the status-quo' would seem to be the new administration's slogan for the upcoming Secretary of Transportation (Elaine Chao is transportation pick).  There is a tremendous lack of vision in establishment politics but, lots of room for the tradition of useless politically motivated pork barrel projects.  What tragedy will be burdened on the American public with more vision-less politicians adhering to political enrichment?  It is a sad and tragic step for the head of US Transportation to be one embraced in political corruption instead of holding a vision to know the economic value of efficient transportation.

One has to follow and participate in the advanced transit industry to understand the industry.  Maglev technology is a necessary part of successful US transportation.  Automobile centric land-use design is un-sustainable, repairing America's road infrastructure is as useless as a band-aid to repair a broken neck.

On a positive note: a seed has to die for it to transition into a living plant.  The US transportation infrastructure is on its death bed.  Perhaps this political appointment will result in the final death blow to the US transportation infrastructure and the result will be a new life to efficient growth with modern transportation technology.

High Speed Rail Curious

To the proclaimed cost of $68billion as the price tag for California's escapade into the past with the proposed 200 year old transportation technology, its promoters are still clueless on how to attain the money for it.  With the change of political regimes, who will now support CA's proposed HSR?  If there was a lack of $40billion and a vision to have the government pay the first $18billion, what is to happen now that the $18billion is soon going to disappear?   Dan Walters has an enlightened view with his article in The Sacramento Bee .

The Toll of Sprawl

A recent article posted at cnu.org/publicsquare raises questions about mankind's evolving intelligence in regards to transportation.

The leading cause of death in the US (according to the CDC)  is heart disease, followed by cancer, then chronic lower respiratory disease, with the fourth leading cause of death as unintentional injuries.  Of the 136,000 accident deaths in 2015, 38,000 were by the automobile (Newsweek) .

This raises a question.  As mankind population expands, has it always been normal for mankind to die as a result of the mode of transportation?  When the only form of travel was walking, was it normal to trip and fall, killing the traveler?  Then, as animals were used as a common mode of transportation, was it common for people to fall off the animals to their death?  

The question expands: is it common and acceptable for transportation to cause death?  Has transportation always been a common source of death?  Why then are train deaths and airplane deaths as a percentage of miles traveled so much less than the automobile?  

The conclusion of the unanswered questions is that the presumption shows more examples of the automobile being unsustainable.  In a related study, financial aspects to automobile wrecks were found by the NHTSA in 2014 to show an annual economic loss of $836 billion.  

A society based on an unsustainable foundation will collapse.    Philosophically, in a realistic way; the nature of growth is to expand.  The course of automobile politics has stifled advances in transportation innovation.  The automobile centric land-use design is unsustainable environmentally, economically and socially.  This political procedure has to end for mankind to grow.  It is the nature of man to grow and explore.  Confinement harbors restriction and control which is the nature of slavery.  

It Is Time For Innovation

In a recent transportation newsletter this statement was made: “The Hudson Valley is a centrally located region with abundant fresh water that could absorb millions of new urban residents. By 20th century thinking, this would mean more highways and parking lots to accommodate auto-dependent living. Nobody wants major urban growth. People prefer green valleys and hills with low-density development. So Cuomo’s staff aren’t even thinking about this, let alone devoting planning resources to an APM-centered future.”  Since; “Nobody wants major urban growth. People prefer green valleys and hills with low-density development” how can this type of urban growth continue?  The statement that followed “Nobody wants major urban growth” proves a very problematic conclusion that government planning staffs are doing the opposite.  How is this legitimized?  In the world of government, politic's campaign contributors are considered the players and receive favors for their contributions.  These favors are free deeded properties, grants and zero interest loans. 

California legislators have drawn attention to their environmentally strict policies while the status-quo of deteriorating infrastructure is a malignant cancer.   Rather than purifying the quality of the State’s well-being, it has caused a malicious growth of financial favoritism which diminishes its citizen health.  Under Governor Reagan the CA EPA was established to provide protection to the environment.  All public jobs are now required to adhere to a EIS (Environmental Impact Study) with a maximum 300-page report (EIR, Environmental Impact Report).  The politicians have twisted the significance of this report to make the inclusion that if the project is unable to comply with environmental requirements, due to a myriad of reasons, then it doesn’t have to comply, upon the approval of the project’s governing body.

As an example; CA HSR project spent over $800-million to produce a useless and incomplete 12,000 page EIR.  The project was ruled by Jerry Brown to be exempt from CA environmental rules and regulations.  His friend and husband of CA’s Senator is the largest single shareholder of the firm that held the EIS contract.

The travesty is damage done to the decaying infrastructure.  Automobiles are fundamental to urban growth in the automobile centric design.  Within the government planning agencies there is a self- gratifying term used called: “Smart Growth”.  Lipstick on a pig.  When planners use this term they consider themselves smart.

    

Outside the spheres of the government’s malignant tumors is a tool called innovation.  It is time for a revolution in thought, creativity and fairness.  First task: modern transportation.

Time To Grow Out of the Car

As a society, we are at the point to grow beyond reliance upon the automobile as our single source of transportation.

To see what is ahead, there is a need to find where we are.  In the study of discovering where we are; comes an identification to the term: Car Culture.  Specific to that: the automobile is wholly unsustainable.  To build a society upon an unsustainable foundation predicts its outcome.

 

This picture illustrates that our automobile centric design provides for automobiles but, lacks the human component:

http://debily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/dallas-highway-interchange.jpgpicture

A road intense urban land-use design removes the social component for human interaction.  How much time does it take to walk across intersections like this?  Freeways are built for cars, not people.

       

LA set a bad precedent; the automobile centric land-use design isn’t designed for people. How many homes have been destroyed to build freeways?  How many neighborhoods have been shredded to build freeways throughout the country?

The automobile requires a land-use design mechanism of maintenance intensive roadways.  Land-use required for the automobile transportation system demands large quantities of vehicle area use which eliminates huge sections of land for any other use.  This transportation system is terribly designed due to its unsustainable land-use consumption, heavy economic burden, and negative social impacts.

When a person walks, the energy consumed is calories burned from food eaten.  For an automobile to carry a 200-pound load, this transportation system requires massive structures of roads and a 3,000-pound vehicle.  From a practical application of physics this is inefficient.

Of the argument that automobiles are used by people, the automobile centric land-use design in urban growth is a design strictly to accommodate the automobile.  The automobile that a licensed driver operates is not a single source transportation device.  It follows a specific design provided by the automobile centric urban land-use design.  This form of development is completely arbitrary with a Hodge-podge dysfunction whose sole purpose is set by individual land developers who seek profit in real estate.  More than conjecture, this is a statement of the way things are.

   

To the point again; we of this society have reached the point in our development to grow into the next step of transportation.

There are many new transportation alternatives, predominantly transportation systems in the category of PRT (personal rapid transit) show the most promise to meet society’s demands. 

All urban transportation plans require planning.  It is imperative for the government planning agencies to turn from their focus on the closed sighted demands of politicians and welcome alternative transportation sources beyond the automobile transportation system. 

Land Use

On the subject of land-use, this author in his search for relevance on the topic is dumbfounded by lack of interest from people.  Even the know-it-alls have no interest in a discussion about land-use of urban growth.  How is such a serious subject reduced to such a terrible state of ignorance?  The general look on a person's face is "Why are you talking about this or, this is beyond my perspective." There are those who listen with intense ears, never having heard such conversation; others slide into a mire of slumber.

Of the philosophical stance. observation is truth; majority stand not always maintaining factual reality.  Strength also not always allowing the reality of facts to stand as truth.

How does this relate to land-use?  The fact that automobiles are not sustainable and our car-culture is based on this unsustainable foundation.  This fact is problematic.

Legislative Questions

For people following CA’s HSR (high speed rail) there is another newspaper article April 6, 2016 in the LA Times.  The article is titled: “Senators share their doubts about bullet train financing with rail officials” and includes details of conversations with train project members. 

The first 29 mile section has begun construction.  So far there are more than 300 change orders, the price tag is an additional $100million.  Regarding government work, change orders often exceed the original bid price; that is, double or triple the original cost.  For a government project these change orders, just a few months into the project are minuscule in comparison to what this project has in store.  In the article, rail authority Chairman Dan Richard emphasized the agency does not necessarily have to pay them.  Then goes on to acknowledge that the state’s failure to deliver parcels on time to the contractor gives them “the right to charge for delays.”

One of the State Senators asked about the authority’s response to not adopt a higher cost estimate.  The story goes on to explain that declaring the mischaracterization is not in the public interest.

Still the most astonishing aspect of CA’s train has to do with the recent judicial decision.  How could the State attorney build its defense by stating no one can make the assertion that the CA HSRA isn’t able to adhere to voter demands because they don’t have project plans?  That’s exactly the same thing as building a skyscraper without blueprints. 

Some people who closely follow this project are knowledgeable about the construction industry and related costs.  This post shows rising interest into the financial concerns that CA’s HSR project does not have the necessary funding to accomplish its directive.  Prior to the 2008 vote which initiated the $9.9billion bond, a Stanford peer group study was put together by industry and knowledgeable leaders.  Their financial estimate for the project is $212billion.  The state says it will cost $64billion.  Already, just barely getting started on the first 29 miles and only a few months into it, the 300 change orders come with the $100million addition.     

The Battle Continues

February 12, 2016 has another article in The Fresno Bee about California’s proposed High Speed Rail project.

It’s a case of the State of CA, represented by Deputy Attorney General Sharon O’Grady against citizens of CA, represented by an attorney paid by two farmers near Bakersfield.  The argument is distorted by twisting of facts.  The state has manipulated its project from a boondoggle to a devastating failure of promises.

According to the article, the private attorney argues that the people voted to have a train with its own separate track and a specific time trip time of two hours, forty minutes from San Francisco to LA.  The “blended track” concept was enacted by legislative procedure in 2012 and totally eliminates the possibility of such a trip time.  The private attorney also maintains the voters chose to have a financially viable train which covers its operating and maintenance costs once it is built and running.  He asks how the government is going to be able to operate it at a profit when they can’t even figure out how to find the money to build it?

In the State’s argument, its claims are contradictory, or at best: confused.  The State claims there is a difference in interpretation of the law’s requirement (“All (the opponents) are doing is disagreeing with the authority’s experts,”).  The State; in its argument, commented as its defense that the system has not been fully designed.  This raises a question.  Since this project hasn’t even been designed, how is it that it was even begun?  This is equal to the State building a tall building without a set of blueprints.

So it continues.  The contractor hired to begin the Fresno to Madera segment attacked Downtown Fresno and has successfully decimated Chinatown.   There is a position to gentrification which has justification in that the leveling of all structures in a certain area are replaced with structures of higher value.  This position maintains that the newer structures provide a better economic condition and thus a higher standard of living which allows a greater value of life.  What the CAHSRA is doing to Chinatown and Downtown Fresno is merely demolishing everything and not rebuilding any structures to which allow economic opportunity.

 

The major political push for the HSR in Fresno was to capture the HSR Maintenance Yard.  This would greatly benefit the land developer who is so deeply hidden that no one knows the name: Geil.  The vote on the Maintenance Yard is scheduled in May.

On the re-gentrification of Chinatown, what does Fresno’s interest on the HSRA board have slated on his drawing board?  Can Chinatown find economic success with an Amtrak station in ten years if the politics in Washington DC change and the flow of Federal gravy train dollars stop?    

A Statement From Voltaire

An article found at arstechnica.com headlines the US Department of Transportation endorsement of self-driving cars.  The January 15,2016 story states: “At this week's North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced that "in 2016, we are going to do everything we can to promote safe, smart, and sustainable vehicles. We are bullish on automated vehicles."

January 14, 2016 AP  hosts a related story: link: US government developing policies for self-driving cars

This post is to state that bureaucracy is a product of its academia training.  Voltaire sums it up nicely with his quote: “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”  The point here is only saying that the product of human conditioning when conformity is the dictate, people are deprived of ingenuity. 

This blog constantly makes the point that the automobile is NOT sustainable.  Our society is called the Car Culture.  For the top transportation official in the US Government to make such harshly untrue statement is symptomatic as to why freeways are crowded.  When all cars are electrically powered and fully automated, is Foxx saying there will be no more crowded freeways, poor economic condition and an improved social condition?  That is the ignoramus statement he is suggesting when he allocates $3.9billion towards the development of driverless automobiles into a situation that has based the unsustainable land-use problem to a further endorsement which proliferates the source of the un-sustainability.  The automobile IS the source of un-sustainability but, sustainability is a land-use issue.  Whether an automobile is electrically powered or driverless is irrelevant to its UN-SUSTAINABILITY.

Voltaire is correct.  How does change take place to encourage sustainable urban growth?