The United States is often more representative of a United Countries with our myriad of regulations and rules which change the second you cross the border into a new state, even though we really are one country. Obviously, when Snow was serving as Secretary of Treasury these issues had been studied on this grand scale, especially considering the decade of railroad consolidation during his time at the helm of CSX. With roads in need of repair and traffic getting to be a major issue and our expanding population, we need to look ahead on these serious issues. With magnetic levitation and air-cushioned technology there is no reason we could not build a great network inexpensively that would have the speeds necessary for rapid movement of people. http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0802/0000000b.htm .
Also with the latest technologies it could have WiFi wireless computer access so no one is out of touch during the travel time. This is being done now in Baltimore to NY trains and in Sacramento to San Francisco Trains thanks to Amtrak. After all we now have WiFi hotspots at McDonalds, Starbucks, Airports and hotel lobbies already. http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=42029 . By having these amenities we can get people to stay out of their cars and enjoy the commute and or take a high speed train on their next trip. Once the system is built the operational costs are relatively low considering the costs of expanding airports which tend to have cyclical trends during boom and bust years and thus hard to manage your ROI, with gates becoming empty and then new gates which need to be built in the up cycle.
One only has to follow the sector rotations of the airline industry and take a trip through the California desert and look at Billions of dollars of Airliners sitting hibernated which may never be used again. Between the cut throat price wars, Bankruptcy tactics and now era of International Terrorism we need to rethink our transportation strategy to include other redundancy methods which can deliver the speed and comfort that we use to have in Commercial Aviation. We have only a couple Nationwide Bus Companies that deliver people across the country. We need to insure buses are safe also in the era of International Terrorism and people feel comfortable with them again we should figure out how to make them safer and more efficient.
We know that the International Terrorists like the idea of attacking buses as we watch every week another attack in Israel. There have many ideas on how buses like Greyhound might protect the drivers through use of a high-tech ultra-strength plastic shields or enclosed see-through boxes. Lately Canada and the FBI in United States have been looking at tour buses traveling into the country, looking into the riders and drivers. I once had a call from a Tour Bus Operator in Ontario Canada on his way to Florida Coast with Tourists, he was going to stop in Columbus GA or Across the river in Phoenix City, Alabama for the night. Think about this they found a make shift training facility for terrorism up the road about 45 miles. The bus again was to be driven from Canada to AL, with no scheduled stops.
With large school districts sub contracting the school buses in this country and out sourcing though companies like Laidlaw, a Canadian Company along with the Greyhound Company owned by a Canadian holding company we need to be sure that our transportation system, which utilizes buses to deliver people to their desired destinations is watched closely. These buses travel along with private automobiles and share the roads, highway, freeways and toll ways. Having a strong bus sector for travel helps in that people can travel for less by bus and they have more options of where the buses can go. Some of these Greyhound buses go 500,000 miles between oil changes, the motors are never turned off, this is the level of efficiency and is rarely matched in public transportation systems. It is an integral part of our Flow of Transportation.
Without buses schools would have a trouble educating our kids. In the future we will have more schools using the Internet for the hard to get to rural areas. One option is to schedule schools on staggered schedules based on where you live. So if you live on the East side of town you might go to school on Mondays and Wednesdays only. This would allow for areas to spend less on schools and get more work done and lower class size without bankrupting states, it would also alleviate the problems of massive amounts of buses to deliver kids to somewhere else to be taught, here are some thoughts on how we might assist schools without disrupting peak flows in the transportation departments of the educational facilities. http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0803/00000044.htm .
Right now I see this being a method best used for those days when the weather is unacceptable to put kids in a bus and risk driving them to school through rural areas with unsafe roads for the conditions. Eventually those areas with over stressed budgets can look into the issues of large bus contracts or large bus fleets to move kids to schools which are not ready to accept such large temporary inflows of kids which might only last for a few years and then the school is under-utilized, thus might need to close and bus those kids even further in the future. Today many schools have set up modular classrooms in peak years as another strategy.
Not long ago we watched the Los Angeles Transit workers are on Strike and the RTD is not operating, this happens every few years. This disrupts the flow of people on their way to get food, go to work, attend college or visit friends. When the flow of transportation is disrupted it hurts our trust in the integrity of the system and affects our lives. When you design a city and have a transportation system to support the population and then turn it off you cause chaos. In Los Angeles they are having a grocery store strike this week along with a transit strike. So going to the store to buy food is irrelevant, because they are not open and you can't get there anyway.
Disruptions in flow hurt businesses in that their customers cannot get to them and their workers cannot come to work. This means businesses make less money, pay less taxes, might go out of business when times are already challenging and workers cannot get paid for working and therefore cannot pay their rents. Everyone loses. This is why we need additional choices of transportation. Shuttles, Taxis, private cars, buses, trains, aircraft, ferries, etc. The more choices and the more competition the better prices, level of services and quality. This means people can get where they need to get to, in order to fulfill their needs and desires or pursue their dreams, goals and happiness. Having public transportation breakdown is as bad as having roads in disrepair.
Another huge issue in the Flow of Transportation and one challenge we face are the roads in this country need more attention. What I usually see is construction projects that take years on major freeways, block traffic, slow logistics and make families traveling wait. This costs society as it is blocking or bottle-necking the flow of transportation costing the efficiencies of trucking, which is already stressed with over regulation, high insurance costs and fuel costs. Insurance costs in trucking passed onto consumers and vendors and after 9-11 there have been many other reasons for high insurance on the businesses, many smaller trucking companies are really hurt by this and regulations and fuel costs are tough also with increased competition from large super consolidated trucking companies;
One thing, which is becoming more typical is the piggy back on the flat bed rail car approach, where the trailer is delivered across the country and the tractor hooks up to it and takes it to its final destination. This means that fewer trucks will be on the road and the driver shortages that the industry is experiencing will not increase safety issues with newer and inexperienced drivers filling those jobs. Each time a truck is in an accident with a four-wheeler, the DOT does a report and this increases the costs for all trucking companies and adds to even more regulations.
As more cars are sold in the US and the auto manufacturers continue to make and sell more cars to keep the factories open and increase profits in the sector we are seeing the freeways and large cities have huge peak time traffic jams. We are seeing more accidents too. Much is being done to prevent these increases in accidents to protect the public, although we are also seeing less attention to the road with cell phones, iPods, DVD players, Surround a sound entertainment centers, etc creating sensory perception over load. The military has done testing in combat stress situations on this and the reality of the performance of the human brain with such distractions is all too real and can lead to accidents as well. http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0803/00000033.htm .
One idea came in to me today was to put a little light on the dash boards of cars so when an ambulance, fire truck or police car with lights and sirens was on it would flash on the dash board to alert drivers to pull over. This could very easily be done with a small network sensor in every car and a small light on the dash, which would activate automatically when an emergency vehicle was within one-eighth of a mile away. Clean windows of course help for visibility. Other ideas which are on their way to a car near you include such things as improved kids car seats and also innovations in air bags, radars and simple things you can do to protect yourself. Below are some background links, personal concepts, and potential innovations that you might like to read up on if this sub-topic to the Flow of Transportation interests you;
This concludes the end of Part II of The Flow of Transportation. **Part III will discuss our Nation's Airports, Road Infrastructures, Highway Safety and Innovations.
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