Building an Efficient National
Transportation System
[ This is not a new subject with me. There are two related essays in the environmental essays section of this web site. COMMUNITIES WITHOUT CARS and -TRANSPORTATION and WORLD TRADE were written in 1997.]
With oil gushing from the mile deep Gulf of Mexico, now seems like a good time to think seriously about conserving energy.
Let us begin at home. The two most efficient modes of transportation are bicycles and walking. The average able bodied adult can walk a half mile in about ten minutes, or ride a bike in less than half that time. With bus stops spaced one mile apart, no one would be more than a ten minute walk from public transportation. Additional benefits of this level of transportation will be a great reduction in obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
The next step in a transportation system is a hub where local and regional modes of transit can connect. I will briefly describe a small and mid size city hub with which, I am somewhat familiar.
Port Angeles, Washington has a population of about 20,000, people. Clallam Transit is the primary tenant of The Port Angeles Gateway Transit Center. They serve Port Angeles, Sequim, Forks, Neah Bay and a few smaller communities in between. Dungeness Line provides connection to Seattle, and from there to the world. Just across the street from the hub is a ferry terminal to Victoria, Canada. Five miles from the terminal is Fairchild Airport which also connects to Seattle.
Everett, WA has a population of about 100,000. Their hub is described below from their own website. It connects buses from four counties, commuter rail and Amtrak.
verett Station serves as a transportation hub as well as a higher education and career development center. The Everett Station is open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, including holidays. Everett Station is home to the Everett Transit Customer Service Center as well as WorkSource, WorkForce, The University Center and Espresso Americano. Amtrak, Greyhound, Northwest Trailways, Skagit Transit, Island Transit, Sound Transit and Community Transit also provide service from Everett Station.
Before we go on to major cities, railroads and airports; let me mention that the biggest impediment to efficiency in public transportation is urban sprawl. I have long known this fact, but only today, I found a little good news happening in our government.
"It's time the federal government stopped encouraging sprawl," Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan declared this morning before the [ Congress for the New Urbanism. ]
He'd announced moments before that the department would fund $3 billion worth of projects this year alone, and they'd henceforth use "location efficiency" (based on transportation access, residential density, and so on) to score grant applications. They'll also use the criteria of LEED-ND, the brainchild of CNU, the U.S. Green Building Council, and the National Resources Defense Council, Donovan said. It was launched last month to apply the green principles of LEED to urban development.It could turn out to be the first step in a sea change about how the federal government approaches urbanism, which in turn could lead to the end of sprawl. Or, to paraphrase Nixon, we are all New Urbanists now.
The implications go beyond funding for public housing. Last year, HUD joined the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency in creating the Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities, an effort to think holistically about housing, transportation, and quality of life when awarding tens of billions of dollars in federal funds.
To see the entire article, use the link below. It is worth a few minutes of your time.
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Transportation hubs in larger cities should combine air, rail and bus in one place when possible. When one single hub is not practical, there should be light rail or bus connections between all modes. There must be regulations that assure the best use of all modes. Air is obviously quickest for very long distance travel, but least efficient in fuel consumption, unless we consider lighter than air ships. Rail is the most fuel efficient in almost all travel, and can be fastest in mid distances up to several hundred miles, especially when we consider getting to and from airports.
Buses, while less fuel efficient than rail has the great advantage of flexibility; they can take you from any two points on the highway system. Rail's greater speed and to some extent it's efficiency depends on more widely spaced stops and not having to deal with highway traffic.
Our present system, depending so heavily on the private automobile and air, is the most inefficient of any developed nation on Earth. How can we expect to compete with other countries when transportation is such a large percentage of the cost of doing business??
We must build a nationwide high speed rail system that efficiently connects all modes of travel and freight, from walking, bicycles, buses, and all versions of rail to air and water.
If we get busy on this project, we could save many millions of barrels of oil over the next ten years; and create a million good paying jobs to help our sagging economy.
William McPherson
you get a star but they must be threw ground rail...........
ReplyDeleteAnd if it threw ground you don't need the rail:
ReplyDelete