PRT Open House
Attended a great open house for PRT (cprt.org) at the Taxi 2000 office last night. Rode in the demonstration car, read the project charts, and saw the layout for the new miniature scale model proof-of-concept track planned for next summer.
posted by Tom Cleland @ 3/23/2005 07:32:00 PM
16 comments
16 Comments:
This is the system everybody
ought to be looking at:
www.ruf.dk
Better than all electric, better than hybrids.
Carl (Shery's dad)
Looks cool. While I think the PRT cabs would be lighter and more efficient, these RUF cars would let people pass through town and then debark to get out into the country. Here we have "park and ride" lots along the light rail line, but those don't help you if you're just passing through.
I think it's great if other cities want to try out RUF, especially in the UK where urban areas are closer together, but I still like PRT for Minneapolis. I like the aesthetics of the PRT cabs, with their elegant simplicity and modest profile.
I wonder how the energy consumption compares. I should ask my friend Charles. He's read up on this quite a bit. I think I'll forward your link to him.
I generally think light rail is a great idea, though for the forseeable future in the US, it will require subsidy (which is fine with me) and is not likely to make much difference (in energy consumption, CO2, pollution, etc.) because it's not likely to handle a very high percentage of transportation. Most people do love their personal transportation, and they can and will cut the cost in other ways to keep it for the forseeable future, i.e., the next 20-30 years.
As to different light rail systems, that gets way beyond me.
I've been planning to write a blog about "the End of Suburbia" which I saw on Sunday. I very much liked and enjoyed the film, and I think there's little doubt that oil, natural gas, and gasoline are going to be getting way more expensive in our lifetimes, if not starting this year, and that was one main focus of the film. But I think it's a fantasy to believe this is going to "end Suburbia" anytime soon, though it might have other far reaching consequences.
I start first by considering my own situation, which I think is not unlike that of many other people. For me to sell my house (value $50K, remaining debt $15K) and move to the west side of SA, nearer where I work, would like mean taking on about $100K in additional debt (increasing my debt from $15k to $115K). By most people's standards, this isn't a lot, but I've gotten used to low house payments, and this would likely quadruple my house payments (along with increasing my debt over 6 times). For most other people, the numbers would be much higher. For example, houses not unlike mine are now selling for around $450K in San Diego. And that's for a small house in a poor neighborhood! Usually moving closer to work means having to pay a lot more for something equivalent, or accept a lot less.
So, now, consider how much gas prices would have to increase in order to make it worthwhile for me to take on $100,000 debt, or additional payment of about $600/mo. I drive to work about 20 days a month, that would be $30/day. My car gets about 40mi/gallon, and the one-way distance is about 22 miles, so say I could save 1gal/day. The price would need to rise to $30/gallon in order for it to be worthwhile! At $30/gal, our whole economy is going to be turned upside down, but we'll probably still be living in suburbia. There may be a movement away from suburbia (and especially, exurbia) but it's going to be a slow process, taking about 50 years for our cities to be substantially different in geography from the way they are now. That's about how long it took to build the suburbia that we have now. There's a lot of inertia in these things.
Now actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the price does rise to $30/gallon by the time I'm retiring (at age 67) in 2022. But for all the preceding time, it's going to be much less, but to move now I'd have to take on $100,000 extra debt and corresponding interest and payments starting right now, and the actual long term cost (including interest) is going to be way more than $100,000. So I just don't see how it's worthwhile for me.
(Note: all these number are just wild guestimates, but I think the general truth holds.)
For the forseeable future (next 20 years maybe) it's going to be a lot more cost effective for people to find some other way to make do than moving out of suburbia. Many people drive gas guzzlers getting only
10mi/gal. The could cut their transportation fuel costs in 1/5 simply by getting a 50mi/gal vehicle, which are available now. By 2023, it's likely that 5-person hybrids like mine will be getting 100mpg. Possibly
there will be 1 person vehicles getting 200mpg. Once again, of course there is inertia in these sorts of things, and it may not make (economic) sense for everyone to buy a high mpg hybrid right now. But
over time, the appeal of high efficiency vehicles will get relatively higher. At some point, the planned obsolescence will revolve around higher and higher mpg rather than higher and higher horsepower. (I've
sometimes wondered if automakers haven't figured, we'll sell them the high horsepower low mpg vehicles this year, then in a few years they'll be coming back for the high mpg vehicles...yet another form of planned obsolescence!)
Also, rezoning to allow more local businesses within "suburbia," and having trucks come around to deliver produce, milk, etc. (That's the way things used to be not long ago.) And likely I won't be eating much steak then. The cost of something like steak is possibly 80% fuel cost, so if the fuel cost goes up 15 fold (!) in 17 years, well, you do the math. (Actually I have no idea how much fuel cost is going to go up in 17 years, but I think 15 fold would be pretty much an upper limit. Other people are talking two or threefold, maybe.)
Much more of our "transportation" cost is actually in the things we buy than in where we live or drive to work. So the bigger changes are going to occur in the things we buy, and how and where they are produced (and for many people, where and how they work) than in where we live and how we get from where we live to where we work.
I have a copy of "The End of Suburbia" coming in the mail, so don't spoil it for me! :) There is plenty of well-researched and insightful information out there about the logistical problems of urban sprawl, global warming, and peak oil. While I agree that there are these infrastructure problems with urban sprawl, I think they are less profound than the psychological and sociological damage it does to our culture. Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that you had free energy and free infrastructure -- everyone can have hydrogen cars and live in 5 bedroom McMansions without global warming, smog, or expensive fuel. I would still argue that cities should be compact and highly dense.
Cities are built to scale. Some cities (Boston comes to mind) are build on the scale of humans -- the city is managable and friendly to something the size of a person. Most American cities, in contrast, are built to the scale of cars -- vast parking lots attached to hemegonous strip malls, more gas stations than parks, more freeways than greenbelts, and more cars than people. There are compromises that can be made, but you really can't design a city to be friendly for both pedestrians and large vehicles.
A dispersed populace promotes a culture of fear as the rich retreat to gated "communities", which are anything but communities. With center cities deprived of taxes from the vacated upper classes, the equalizing factor of public education is erased. Because public transportation is ineffective in sprawling cities, the poor are forced into usery to obtain transportation. There's something fundamentally dehumanizing about the consumption-oriented values of suburbia, where buying habits are passed-off as culture.
Urban sprawl pits farmers and ranchers against their own customers -- urbanites. With each generation of urban sprawl, the last generation is abandoned because of the impossible desire to live both in the city and the country. It creates rings of quasi-city which are neither urban nor rural. They are without the comforts of the city and none of the cerenity of the country.
There is another way. Cities need to take back their planning from greedy developers. The government should stop subsidizing sprawl by building freeways and subsidizing the oil and automobile industries. Cities should be unique places with their own cultures. They should be of diverse incomes, ethnicities, and lifestyles. Smaller cities don't need overly complex transportation systems -- streetcars and sidewalks will do just fine. Take a trip to Portland, OR or Boston, MA and walk around on foot. I think you'll notice how these cities have managed to resist the onslaught of foolishness that most American cities subscribed to far too long ago.
I believe, that in historical context, the urban expansion following World War 2 will be seen as the worst blunder of the American experiment.
Further reading:
Sleepwalking Into The Future (article on urban sprawl)
A Patturn Language (discussion of to-scale architecture)
Great thoughts, Charles and Ken, thanks!
Hey Ken,
It almost seems like you are connecting the polarization of wealth in this country to the way we design our cities. Am I reading you right there?
Thanks for posting guys!!! Very interesting.
I absolutely am. There are direct and indirect connections to be made. Something I've noticed among the people who have been in long retreat of the center cities is an irrational fear of the poor and homeless. In reality, the vast majority of violent crimes are committed by people who know each other -- random acts of violence are extremely rare and the only real danger of crime in the city is property crime.
The more indirect problem is that of equalization. When rich and poor share the same government services, those government services maintain a certain level of service that doesn't exist -- in things like education. Although that can still be thwarted in the city with private institutions that replace public ones, such as private schools and private security firms, the equalizing factor of shared services can't be overlooked.
I recommend reading A Culture of Fear for an interesting look at this and other irrational socio-phobias: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0465014895?_encoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort_by=-SubmissionDate&n=283155
Another thing to consider is this: physical separation of the populace lends itself to wishful thinking. The assertion that only teenagers earn minimum wage seems far more rational in the suburbs, where it's largely true, than in the city.
I'm not saying curbing urban sprawl and returning the city life will solve all our social problems, but I don't think urban design plays a greater role in social interaction and cultural balance than most people are willing to let on.
-Ken
Sorry, that last remark should "but I do think urban design plays a greater role in social interaction and cultural balance than most people are willing to let on."
Hey Ken,
What you are saying reminds me of an interview I saw on Now a year or so back with this guy Richard Rodriguez, who had just written a book called "Brown: The Last Discovery of America." He seemed to be implying that society was actually becoming less segregated in recent years. Might make an interesting read for comparison sake.
He was talking more about the melting pot, and how Americans are starting to acknowledge the diversity of their roots more, and yet there does seem to be a historical correlation between ethnicity and wealth distribution.
It would be interesting to see some demographic data on that sort of thing relative to densely populated areas and otherwise.
I thought it was interesting when I was working my mostly white, republican precinct to discover that many of the democrats in my area were in fact hispanic.
You'd think by watching the republican party that as minorities become wealthier they all switch allegiance and go the Condoleeza Rice route, but that certainly is not the case in my area.
I think Charles makes a valid point when he says that in areas where urban sprawl is contained the prices shoot through the roof. When I was in San Francisco, I was seeing that. My friend's daughter was afraid to move from her apartment because they had granfathered rent ceilings for people who had lived in a place before Proposition Something-or-Other on rent controls. Basically the proposition was established to protect the natives from skyrocketing property values.) If she moved, she would have had to pay the non-regulated rates, which had absolutely gone through the roof. They have properties there that are between $1-50 million, and yet some don't look an iota nicer than my parents property here in San Antonio.
My friend's ex had bought her house for like $150,000 and her property is now worth about a million because of the changes in property values.
Part of that was the dot com thing, but I think Portland has had similar issues. Plus part of it is that is just the geography of San Francisco doesn't really allow as well for urban sprawl.
On the other hand, these are both nice places to live. But obviously not everyone can afford them, so I'm not sure that solves the polarization of wealth issue. But it does put rich people very close to poor people, although the segregation between rich and poor is still very real in San Francisco. I met some very elitist people in that city. I do like the idea of integratrion though. If nothing else, I think it is healthy for people from diverse backgrounds to get the cognitive dissonance you get from being exposed to people who have different perspectives from living in different conditions. It never hurts to force a little empathy on people who would rather lump people into the "other" class.
http://www.cprt.org/.
http://www.skywebexpress.com/.
That's odd. I thought my friend Oren emailed me back that he left a comment here. (I had forwarded him the conversation because he has discussed some of these issues with me before.)
Dad said one of his points was that the RUF system could be used nationwide for intercity transportation needs. Doesn't seem like he expressed that very well, but I guess it is something to consider.
Sounds good. I'm hoping to pay off my hybrid this year, but I've still got a ways to go.
RUF and other Dual Mode (DM) systems would be fine if all we're trying to do is create ways for drivers to avoid creating and avoiding congestion. But SOVs on guideways are an extension of the road system, not public transit.
From what I've seen, DM planners accommodate public transit merely by putting buses (RUF) or trains (MegaRail) on the guideway. I don't think that's a significant improvement in service--as experienced by the rider. Large vehicles need schedules; trains can't stop very often or they're too slow; buses would have to frequently enter and leave the guideway to pick up & drop off.
DM planners will say, "oh, we can have PRT vehicles in our systems that never leave the guideway." But one of the advantages DM claims is that it is more affordable than PRT because fewer DM stations are needed than PRT stations, because in DM driving takes the place of walking distance access to stations. PRT in a DM network would be ineffective because most origins and destinations would be beyond walking distance of DMPRT stations.
You would still need some sort of intermodal transit system, using buses or something to get people to and from the DMPRT stations. Transferring is something we're trying to eliminate with pure PRT.
Plus, how can you guarantee safety when you have unknown vehicles hopping on the system, not to mention the software complications of controlling congestion in an open-ended system.
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