Transportation problems and thoughts of a new Transportation System

Transportation situation in dense urban area is not the best at the moment… I write this comment because it seems to me that the proposed ideas are lucking basic vision.

I’m living in the San Francisco bay area and have to commute to school more than an hour each way, every day. If I try to commute using public transportation, my commute time will double or triple!!! (I did try it) so no electric car or fast train to SF-LA or bicycle routes cannot help me.

When devising a plan, we should concentrate on what we are trying to achieve. It seems to me that current plans are lacking this concept.

What do I mean…?
Things I think most people will agree on:

• Life in the larger San Francisco bay area is dynamic and complex both economically and socially. We like it and want it to stay that way.
• The larger San Francisco bay area is large!
• Quality of life can be improve allot if we could spend less time getting to places and more time at the places we want to be (Work, home, park, school…)
• We like the ability, the freedom, to go where we want to, when we want to.

• We are concern about transportation effect on the environment

Current ideas:

Fast train between SF and LA:

I think that this is a theoretical nice idea. But, if we will not solve the regional transportation issues first, the fast train will give us very little more than what Southwest gives us today. If we take into account the project cost, the additional land that need to be diverted for new train system and the time and effort  that will be diverted from dealing with the real core issue, than you might get to a conclusion that this idea should be delayed.

Electric cars:

again a nice, good feeling kind of idea, but in the core of this idea is replacing huge number of cars with cars base on new technologies, new infrastructure of energy delivery to those new cars, and all this effort for very little improvement in transportation.

So what can we do…?

I think that a solution will probably include new cars concept and new energy delivering infrastructure, but we can do it and make real progress towards significant improvement in transportation, we can do it with a new car design, but without the need for some new technological brake through. I think the solution should be something like a light rail system that is imbedded in the existing roads and a hybrid car that can run on its own but can also go on the rail system. Once on the rail system the cars can get the electricity from the rail and a computerize navigation system can control the car and take us to our destination.

Some advantages:

•  While in commute, we can do things other than driving, sleeping, working, talking…
•  On the rail system, cars can be much closer together; traffic can be controlled much more efficiently, so we will be able to avoid large delays and traffic problems.
• Public transportation can be on-demand or at least very frequent since we will not need large busses or trains but smaller driverless carts.
• We will still be able to go when and where we want.
• We will be taking care of environmental concern at least as good as any other proposed solution.
• We will not need to take more land for transportation use

And this is all doable in today’s technologies; it is only limited by our open-mindness…

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