Changing Transportation Options

It’s been stated on this blog before and is worth repeating.  How can people improve their environment with the continuation of unsustainable patterns? 

Studying transportation aspects of urban development in Western society provides an explanation as to how we’ve reached such a level of societal chaos, to skeptics; the study offers an explanation that at least contribute to behavior patterns in Western Society.  In studying the past, one recognizes every urban development must accommodate a standard form of transportation.  Anthropological studies of civil increase prior to the industrial revolution entails research into an individual’s needs and group actions with municipal development, however, for the topic of this writing: concern is the problematic nature of unsustainable urban growth as it relates to transportation, specifically Western society beginning in the 19^th Century.

The current status of modern Western society began with a race from automobile manufacturers and the oil industry to produce as much profitability as could be obtained.  Prior to the arrival of automobiles in the 20^th Century, societal expansion of urban growth was provided for by 19^th Century train technology and development. 

In original Western society urban development used privately funded train systems as the base of its growth.   Automobile centric urban development is funded through government hands of ever increasing taxation. 

How does one change the method of transportation when our culture, beginning in the 20^th Century, was based on and is completely dependent on the automobile?  Useable modes of transportations are restricted to what is available.  Land-use design coincides with an area’s available transportation mode.  The question then becomes: what form of transportation is available?  In the automobile centric society a transportation mode requires an integrated technique to accommodate individualized destinations.   Street cars and passenger trains carry large groups to travel routes of pre-determined destinations; this type of transportation is compulsory to transit oriented land-use and inadequate for automobile centric land-use.

Traditionally, change of governmental procedure doesn’t happen by hope.  Political incest and a superfluity of public policy force the bureaucracy of governmental agencies into regimented compliance which proliferate unsustainable urban growth.  As an attempt to thwart tradition that perpetuates urban sprawl, California Legislators in 2006, provided a bill to grasp environmentally sustainable urban growth.  AB32 set greenhouse gas target values of 1990 air quality by 2020. Two years later SB375 legislation mandated Metropolitan Planning Agencies to create a sustainable community strategy for achieving AB32 goals.

Originally SB375 had a strict mandate which was later softened to pacify the incoherent pleads from the MPOs (metropolitan planning organizations - who are tasked with the responsibility to design urban growth) due to their inability to figure out a way to comply.  This is a loud statement ratifying automobile centric urban growth is unsustainable and bureaucracy perpetuates unsustainable practices.    

The potential which provided opportunity for modern modes of sustainable transportation systems was squelched by the atrocity of selective ignorance.  This dilemma is resolved by embracing sustainable transportation infrastructure development with private sector investment.

In psychology basics, humans possess an inherent hostile attitude against the unknown of disruptive technology.  Government policies require staff cling tightly to the rigid procedure of maintaining status-quo.  Again, a transition to advanced transit system technology requires private sector implementation prior to New Technology Transit becoming a mode of valid transportation alternative.

Available New Technology Transit systems can be implemented and intergraded into a format that meets an area’s modern transportation demands.  Most of these technology systems, however, are in development phase; lacking system wide implementation.  The advantage of these developing systems is their use of existing off the shelf technology to provide sustainable alternatives from the automobile.

In the tradition of publicly available transportation, the complication to implementing these sustainable transportation solutions is cost. 

There is an existing model which shows financial success with private sector involvement into large scale transportation infrastructure.  The example illustrates that sustainable urban growth requires private sector enterprise and can be without political ties of intrusive government subsidies.  Sustainability is measured in financial value with environmental justice and holds to the merits of social standards.  

The Political Process of CA's HSR Land Acquisition

There was a recent article (Feb 16, 2015) that provides an explanation of the land acquisition process for California's proposed antique technology high speed heavy rail electric train project.  

Related to the story was another article about Gov. Brown's ceremonial performance when the official shovel hit the dirt to begin the proposed HSR process.  He disrespectfully attacked his opponents calling them: "pusillanimous".  So, according to him: anyone with a brain to recognize 150 year old technology; is lacking courage and resolution: marked by contemptible timidity?  Meanwhile engaged politicians filch profiteering by being married to project contractors and the silenced public is called stupid.  So engrained with cataleptic rhetoric and insensate lifestyles, liars and thieves accuse their opposition of wrong.  

California High Speed Rail

A recent CA HSR op-ed article in the Fresno Bee, January 8, 2015, drew heavy criticism in its comment section.  As an observer following the HSR project over the past 22 years, the project has taken a turn and now has reached critical political vitriol and no longer has anything to do with transportation or the environment.  It has now gained political correctness status that dictates the mantra of hysteria.  If you now disagree at all with the proposed project its supporters validate opposition with name calling and categorize all such people to a derogatory manner.

The facts, however, still holds the proposed project without funding.  The proposed project still remains in court as a deception to the California voters.  The display of excitement when the two opposing sides stage a victory is like watching the crowd at a ball game.  In reality, the politicians are very aware that there is a billion dollars’ worth of government waste to be immediately distributed.  Local politicians are crying that Fresno “needs” the money and are positioned in a euphoric state surrounding the proposed project with jealous rage.

Politicians and their loyal following are a predictable lot.  When a project such as this is embroiled in a fight which requires only emotional reaction, it verifies a deceptive premise.  While it is true that California has to revamp its transportation system, new innovation is absolutely required.

In 2013 Elon Musk proposed his Hyperloop concept.  Many months later he was introduced to the ET3 technology.  California has the legitimate option of building a transportation system that travels 20 times faster than the antiquated heavy rail electric train and build it for one tenth the cost.  This system uses off the shelf technologies and is ready to be built.  Testing is done for any system that is built.  Here is a particularly interesting you tube clip of  ET3:

Cap and Trade

Here we go with mystery money intake for the HSR.  So, according to a recent article in the December 21, 2014 Fresno Bee, the new cap and trade tax is going to generate $1.7billion annually of which the politically bloated gravy train is going to rake in 25%.  That’s $425million to be allocated for operations and capital payback.  The antique train technology system costs $70million per mile, so the $425million per year will pay for a little more than 6 miles per year to be built.  Politics, however, employs other methods than logic when it comes to public suffrage.

Towards the end of the Bee article it mentioned the goal of AB32 was to lower the greenhouse gas emitted in California.  In the planning agencies this is termed a reduction in Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT).  Who can tell the legislators that there can be no reduction to VMT in an automobile centric land-use environment without a transportation replacement?

There is only one practical way to realign our car culture, and that is with a transportation system alternative that can meet the mobility demands of our modern society.  This type of personal rapid transit system is less expensive to build and operate than the retired automobile highway system.  Transportation is the basic need to all urban growth.  Mankind has evolved intellectually over the past 100 years and transportation has to begin its necessary evolutionary growth.

New Urbanism

This blog asks a question: What is the process of attracting a following whom understand the importance of sustainable urban growth?  This understanding comprehends that transportation is the foundation to all urban growth and sustainable transportation is the basis for sustainable urban growth.

    

In recent years, popular discussion in community planning has produced many new terms, phraseology and ‘green’ legislation.  New Urbanism is the brain dead political direction which forces metropolitan residents into compressed living spaces with fatigued 19^th Century transportation.  Sustainable urban growth requires personal enrichment of all residents, rather than the profiteering of avaricious politicians and developers at the cost of the suffering general public.

There are three components to sustainable urban growth; environmental, economic and social.  There are elements of New Urbanism which provide some environmental and social sustainability, however, to honestly look at sustainable urban growth; the foundation of all urban growth is based on the area’s transportation.  As well intending as many of the participants of the New Urbanism movement are; Western society is a car culture.

Current Status of the Automobile Centric Society

There are visible signs of evidence showing the car culture has reached stagnation.  Ever noticed that all strip malls are a similar shade of brown?  Ever notice the stores are in the same place in every town?  Ever notice the same stores are in every strip mall?  Ever notice the same products are located in the same isles in the same stores?

Creativity has been replaced by replication.  The unsustainability of the automobile centric society is evidenced by many layers of inertia.

  

A high number of people who live in the automobile centric society have an affinity to their car; this inanimate affection produces a fear to be without it.  The inertia that resists change produces uncertainty and hostility against disruption.  Mental anguish can push away ideas which promote anything different or new.  New technology transit is disruptive innovation. 

New technology transit provides alternative methods of mobility but, does not remove the automobile.  It increases efficiency of travel time and eliminates traffic jams.  It is far less costly than the overall expense of the automobile and more efficient as a transportation system.

The clock is well into the 21^st century.  Trains of the 19^th century proved train tracks could carry loads of people and commerce.  The 20^th century gave a certain feel of independence with travel.  And now, as urban growth expedites instability, the 21^st century must prioritize travel demands to sustainable mobility.    

How to Reset an Unsustainable Society

Implementation of a sustainable foundation to an automobile centric culture

A community’s growth is paramount to its future.  Since the automobile is totally unsustainable, all automobile centric growth is also unsustainable.  By adhering to the claim “that’s just the way things are” and continuing to use automobiles as the foundation for community growth is the acceptance of willing ignorance for a destructive pattern of urban growth.  Urban growth in the US since the 1920s has altered its original transit oriented design from train and street car orientation to what it is today: urban sprawl; a conglomeration of unsustainable automobile oriented development.  To have a future that is sustainable, urban growth has to be re-established on a sustainable foundation with efficient mobility.

 

Many of the Western Society downtowns have lost their functionality as commerce centers.  To re-create commerce, these downtown commercial centers have to have a functional transit system to effectively use their original transit oriented design.  Throughout the country are examples of cities having patterns of land-use change by their abandoned street car system in the early 1930s.  Although these cities were built with transit oriented land-use designs they are now changed to automobile centric land-use design. 

Revitalization efforts in successful downtown areas include a mobility component carrying large numbers of people throughout the downtown areas.  These transit systems have served to reinstitute the function of the original transit oriented designs of downtown areas.  These revitalization efforts allow downtowns to once again maintain land-use positions of regional financial hubs of commerce.

The necessity of sustainable mobility is crucial to urban growth.

In the late 1960’s the federal government established National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), in 1970 California established the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  Although many people claim the laws are restricting and obtrusive, the intent of regulating guidelines creates a healthier environment.  It is an unfortunate consequence of politics that government regulations are manipulated by industries lobbying corrupted self-serving agendas of greed.

In 2006 California passed AB32 which set into law a target of air quality to meet 1990 measures by 2020.  In 2008 SB 375 was passed, which mandated the AB32 targets.  These mandate the MPOs (Metropolitan Planning Organizations) to find a way to comply with Air Resource Board (ARB) targets.  SB 375 augments CARB’s (California Air Resource Board) ability to reach the AB 32 goals by demanding regional greenhouse gas emission reductions are achieved from the automobile and light truck sectors for 2020 and 2035.  There are 18 MPOs in California the ARB will work with towards achieving its goal in the regional transportation, housing and land-use plans to prepare “sustainable communities strategy” (SCS) for each region.

 

These SCS plans were envisioned to reduce the amount of vehicle miles traveled in the most powerful way for California to lower its carbon footprint.  These newly enacted laws are designed to accelerate this necessary transition towards transit oriented urban growth, promote the rapid development of a cleaner, low-carbon economy, create vibrant livable communities; and improve the ways we travel and move goods throughout the state.

However, most of the MPOs and city planners are staffed by schooled workers regimented with a strict policy of compliance orientation.  There is a disproportionate absents of thought capability to “think out of the box” when the voice of their choir is “the box”.   There also is a necessary requirement to garner changed perspective to replace automobile centric urban growth.  The MPOs are caught up in “mapping” and newly marketed computerized techniques of modeling.   It is ludicrous to use the word sustainability and continue urban planning based on the automobile; while considering that an adherence to transit oriented urban expansion.  The resolve of city planners in accommodating SCS legislative mandates is forcing smaller lot size requirements onto tract housing developers.   This is the receipt for oblivious acumen.

 

The transit oriented design is not acquiescent to automobile use.  The consequence to this nonconformity is a dysfunctional land-use design.

 

Philosophically speaking, there has been a suicidal tendency of US society since the assassination of President Kennedy.  Western culture once had a goal driven direction of striving to greatness and achievement for the good of mankind.  Over the past five decades it has been caught in the vortex of self-seeking gratification and politics that elevates a dictatorship government by psychopathic narcissists. The grandiose speech of President Kennedy when man landed on the moon; was the last grand speech spoken by a politician regarding man’s instinctive nature to seek and explore as their directive to achievement.  The dichotomy of politics is that a bird needs two wings to fly: a left wing and a right wing.  Politics of the left have created an impaling ultra conservative social agenda that fails in letting people strive for greatness on their own merit.  Politics of the right declare that government is intrusive while at the same time invoking the over-regulation of intrusive government.

Where is the US space program that required innovation and created the long list of products we use today?  What happened to the promised Moon colonies, Mars exploration, and the achievement of innovation?  Where are the startling innovations of our bright future?  They were lost into the stagnation of deceitful social blight.  We need the jobs created from manufacturing in weightless environments, new technologies and building parts for further space exploration more than feeding on the lies of racism controversy.  Whose idea was it that declared it is better to give welfare money and nurture the dysfunction of doing nothing rather than having self-worth with a job and providing for one’s self? 

    

The status-quo of a non-sustainable culture is problematic on every level. 

    

Capitalism is market driven.  Capital costs in building infrastructure for a community wide transit system are expensive.  The only way to reach sustainable urban growth is to use a new form of sustainable transportation.  To expend $hundreds of millions for unproven technology is not a risk bureaucratically compelled personnel could support.  Hence, the ongoing deterioration of problem oriented urban growth.

 

Building a sustainable urban environment requires sustainable transportation.  Capital cost infrastructure outlays for new technology transit are the most affordable of all transportation systems.  There are three factors to sustainable transportation: environmental requirements, economy need, and social demands.  All three expanses are directly related to mobility and within the ability of private sector development. Legislative mandate has established guidelines for the private sector to develop sustainable urban growth and yet it is the political pursuit of corrupted status-quo that stagnates and disrupts the progress of sustainability. 

Current environmental, economic, and social problems are directly attributed to the arrangement of unsustainable urban growth based on automobile centric land-use design.  Convenience of the automobile is offset by the intrusive increase to their numbers, exacerbating the problems.

 

The demand for transportation is proportionate to the population. As the population is growing, transportation needs grow at a proportionally greater rate. With the growing population, there is an increased demand for land and mobility. Gasoline price increases at the pump will continue to increase with inflation, and depletion of oil supply.

The importance of introducing new technological industries into the automobile centric based society is economic growth of job creation.  As the industrial revolution began manufacturing and computers have led to the information revolution, mankind’s next step in intellectual evolution is the field of mobility. 

The automobile is not a sustainable technology.  The societal impacts from our car culture have blemished many areas of our lives and continue as the current state of urban development opposes the legislative concept of NEPA and CEQA regulations.  The necessity of sustainable mobility is crucial to urban growth.

The automobile centric urban society is incapable of carrying its ongoing pattern of economic, social and environmental destruction.  How then does a culture reset?  Through a natural progression of entrepreneurial efforts without the insatiability intrusion of greed driven political self-indulgence.  A cultural reset happens from sustainable urban growth by implementing new technology transit systems which allows sustainable transit oriented urban growth.  The significance of this is growth; for in growth there is environmental justice and social opportunity.