Why is the Flow of Transportation important to the Real Estate Sector? Well, because every thing that the civilization needs comes from other places, even the people themselves have to get around. Without proper transportation, there is no quality of life, and I guess the Romans figured that out when they built their civilization, and system of roads. Let us face it, one of the most important things in any civilization is the flow of transportation.  People have needs to transport themselves around.  And since we do not have those nifty Star Trek transporter machines yet, we need to find efficient ways to move our bodies in linear time to other places of interest to fulfill our needs and desires.  People have places to go and people to see, for instance; commuting to work, taking a vacation, having some fun, going to the doctor, getting to school, going to church, picking up materials to finish a project and of course picking up necessary supplies like groceries, clothes, hygiene items, etc. 

Think of all the things in your household, all of those items, TV, refrigerator, sofa, plants, items in the garage, etc.  Where did they all come from?  Well they came from destinations all over the globe, even if you are careful to buy local or buy American, many of the movable parts inside those items came from other countries many thousands of miles away. Now all you had to do was to have thought, grab your car keys, jump in your clean car and transport yourself to the store.  But that is not where the journey begins consider if you will how all those products got to the store in the first place. Ah ha, now you see the importance to the Flow of Transportation!

You see, the items in the store were produced, whether they are agricultural products which were grown, raw materials which were collected or whether they were manufactured - all these items of course came from where they were produced or collected.  Then they were transported by truck, train, ship or most often a combination of these methods of transportation.  Sometimes the products come to you from B2C websites; such as Online Grocery Sites, books online at Amazon, or something you bought on Ebay. Perhaps you bought something for your home business SOHO office supplies from Office Depot, as these companies have over 45,000 products. Even if you ordered it online the product had to be transported right?

If you order a Dominos Pizza just in time for the game, still it has to be transported and such items and products come by delivery services, smart and innovative leading edge companies or those who specialize in getting it there Absolutely Positively Overnight such as FedEx Home Delivery, UPS, Emery, Airborne or regional expeditor. So, products can either be picked up by transporting yourself or by having them transported to you.  There are many theories of methods which can be used to transport products to your home, some are good and some are merely wishful thinking, such as Santa Clause utilizing chimneys and roof tops.  

Then there are services that are available to you, where you might transport yourself to get a haircut, Karate Lessons, consulting assistance, etc. using a bicycle, moped, skateboard, passenger car, taxi, bus, motorcycle, a new Segway Scooter or your feet and tennis shoes.  Or you might hire a service to come wash your car, put a coating on your deck, clean you windows, since you don't do windows or have your pool cleaned, dog groomed or rain gutters cleaned out. Perhaps you might order home repairs or god forbid you might people repair in time of need; emergency services from professionals such as paramedics, firemen, animal control team, refuse collector, AAA Tow Services or police. These types of product delivery companies, service companies, everyday needs and emergency professionals have to stay efficient to conserve costs and operate on a strategic grid plan to insure proper service to all on a timely basis.  http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0703/0000005c.htm   

This of course is essential to good quality prompt service and for safety of our people.  If you think of a Football play, Net-Centric Warfare Event http://www.carwashguys.com/050802_1.shtml , a disease vector using the blood stream to transport itself and then transfer to another host through the natural flow of species interaction http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0803/00000055.htm or even something as simple as delivering the mail, milk or newspapers every day to the same addresses, everything involves transportation. All these transportation systems can be studied and controlled by use of computer programs such as the ones designed by ESRI with hundreds of vendors who design add on systems. 

Transporting energy, water, fuels, cable TV, etc also work on a grid theory in order to make delivery possible. No matter what macro or micro system of transportation you are describing, the key to survival is in simple redundant systems and logistical processes.  And although we now have high tech tools, really this is nothing new to human beings, the history of the species as described by Evolutionists discuss the theory of hunter-gatherer tribes roaming around, having seasonal patterns knowing where to find the food and transporting themselves by walking.  Later agriculture based became prevalent as the most recent activity and we know from written history of the last 10,000 years that mankind transported themselves for water, food, battle and later trade on the backs of animals, in the hulls of boats and on people powered apparatuses. 

The first pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock to set up that first colony by way of boat, as did Columbus to the West Indies before in 1492.  Leif Erickson is said to have come over 1000 years earlier.  As the colonies grew they built up the area, by building trails and roads.  Later on we built inter coastal boat transportation, then trains, trolleys, barges, submarines, cars, trucks, buses, blimps, aircraft, helicopters, etc.  Today transportation impacts every single part of our daily life and it is the Flow of Transportation, which is the one of the most important flows to insure quality of life and higher standards of living. 

If you ever have the opportunity to visit some of the Transportation museums in the New England States including the Trolley Museum in Maine; http://www.trolleymuseum.org/   and The Land Cole Transportation Museum in Bangor Maine; http://www.colemuseum.org/ . Danbury Railway Museum; http://www.danbury.org/drm/museum.htm and The Golden Age of Trucking Museum;    http://www.goldenagetruckmuseum.com/ you will certainly conclude that, we have come a long way.  As a matter of fact after visiting nearly every truck, aviation, railroad, trolley, ship museum in the country, one would have to say that we have put a huge emphasis on transportation in this country, from day 1. 

We have attempted to build unbelievable transportation items and prototypes for instance the Spouse Goose, jet powered bullet trains, under water autonomous vehicles and those X-Planes.  Speaking of which if you have been to all the aviation and space museums you would have to be impressed with what we have achieved so far in air transportation, but we cannot stop here.  Here are just a few of the museums we have been to; http://www.aircraftwashguys.com/action.shtml  and look at these jet trains;   http://www.aircraftwashguys.com/tours13.shtml  down the street from the R and D, Department of transportation Center in Pueblo Colorado run by Bechtel .  It is essential that we should continue research on all types of new and improved methods of transportation such Magnetic Levitation Trains, Hyper-Sonic Aircraft and space craft, Pelican type super transports, Mega-Cargo Blimps, Air-Cushioned Trains, Self Driving Trucks, Smart Cars, Pilot-Less Trains, UAVs, Underwater Unmanned Vehicles, RLV-Reusable Launch Vehicles Space Craft, Road Surface Safety Materials, Warning Systems and Smart Traffic Controls. Indeed, I have discussed at length on our Bulletin Board, Blogs and in eBooks:

http://www.worldthinktank.net/pdfs/futuretrucktechnologies.pdf

All of these emerging technologies are the part of the transportation mix of future civilizations.  It is important as populations expand to work on the Flow of Transportation components that improve the flows without increasing cods in the wheel with over burdensome rules for operators, slow moving steering committees, long-term bureaucrat heads, confines on R and D, duplication of regulations by states, pet projects, linear decision making and pure partisan politics. 

When transportation fails us we are put into a very bad situation.  For instance in 1892 we saw the collapse of 4 railroads, right after the banks failed, 10's of thousands became unemployed and thus the panic of 1893.  If we study history we see that when transportation fails stability becomes uncertain and chaos can ensue.  We saw during the recent Blackout power outage of 2003 when the subways stopped, traffic signals stopped, gas stations could not pump and the transportation stopped.  Although people kept calm you can see the transportation issues with the movement of people.  On the day and days following the International Terrorist events on 9-11 (before they were eventually put on the run and wiped out from the surface of the planet) we saw the grounding of all commercial aviation transportation, taking out a major sector of travel. 

Many people who were stranded soon found out that there are a multitude of other methods of transportation.  These other forms of transportation included Amtrak, rental cars, Greyhound and Trailways, Tour buses, private cars, motor homes, trucks, etc.  These backup systems in place of air travel may not have been as convenient, but a heck of a lot more convenient that the expeditions of Lewis and Clark or great migrations of families in covered wagons.  Even the first automobile to travel across the United States set a record; it took exactly 66 days.  Today you can drive it in four or five if you have to. 

Think about it.  Having redundancies and today's technologies in transportation we have protected the system for nearly any eventuality.  Today in California, the BART train tram system is trying to figure out how to continue with mounting costs and California's financial debacle of the Davis era.  The idea to fix this problem has been pondered and they have come to the conclusion they need to.  This is linear in thought and sure to destroy the integrity of confidence with the riders and patrons.  Although with rider ship down due to less jobs in Silicon Valley, East Bay and in San Francisco raising fees to cover costs will mean even less riders, as a matter of fact when you surpass the cost that the average person is willing to forgo that unit of trade we call a "Dollar" for the opportunity to spend it somewhere else, there is a hyperbolic curve of people willing to continue to participate with the voting of that dollar.  Simple supply and demand comes into play. 

When the Bay Area in California was losing population and jobs after the collapse of Silicon Valley there was need for restructuring of the transportation system.  The BART system is one of the finest in the world, with tunnels under the bay, huge stations, which can handle huge volumes, parking and easy access, as well as a network of private shuttle services, corporate shuttles, city buses, taxi cabs, trolleys, CalTrain, Amtrak, Greyhound and private carriers with matching synchronized schedules.  But when the economies of scale cannot be supported in times of a weak economy we need to figure out how we can lower costs and go for the volume needed. 

Water companies ask us to conserve and then raise our rates because they have fixed costs and charge per unit used, this of course does not mean we should not conserve water only that the incentives to do so do not take into consideration the innate characteristics of mankind.  Obviously we should conserve water because it is a finite resource in a given drought year.  As new systems are built they will need ways to conserve costs and it's finite capacity.  For instance the number of commuters traveling into NYC is only 1% higher than in 2000 than it was in 1990 as per the Census Study done by the transportation department. 

Now a new super system which will be even higher tech than the BART system is being built in New Jersey by the same company, it will be a world class system, state of the art.  We need to figure out ways to save money on these systems through operational efficiencies.  One way to save money is to spend more in the technological capital constructing of these projects and stack the deck with the highest of high tech - for instance the use of pilot-less trains.  High Speed Trains have a great advantage over short distances that make standing in line bordering a plane and getting off a plane and finding a cab, shuttle or picking up a higher priced rent-a-car (supply and demand issues with decreased air travel). 

If you consider the two hours ahead of time they require for check in and screening, the one hour to get off the plane and get your checked bags, stand at the curb, drive to the location or hotel you can see that a 200 mph train; http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0503/00000088.htm has the overall advantage, 3 hours at 200 mph is 600 miles.  Distances of 700-800 mile trips, would be much better served by high-speed train.  Distances, which are under 150 miles people usually will prefer to drive.  So those mileages between 150 miles to 800 miles a bullet train is best.  For those not wishing to fly for fear of flying, they may wish to travel up to 1500 miles or more by bullet train.  The length of California on the 5 Freeway is about 1000 miles (try that in a truck at 55 mph?), similar to the width of Texas. 

Driving across TX can be a living hell and cause you to want to kiss the ground at the first off ramps in Louisiana or Las Cruses, New Mexico.  Travelers have often made these "living hell" comments traveling from Denver to Kansas City.  The distance from between NYC and Florida is about 900 miles (not an especially satisfying drive when you throw in Florida's length), Salt Lake to San Francisco 600 miles, Denver to Chicago 900 miles, Detroit to D.C. 700 miles so you can see the benefits.  One reoccurring idea from soccer moms traveling is to; piggy-back on flat bed rail cars, like ferry.  The high-speed train could streak across the region and then you simply drive off. 

In studying this concept which seems more than relevant could be done by modifying the TTX Auto Hauler Trailers design for high-speed rail and put in a couple of portable toilets so you could get out and use the restroom.  Then you have your car when you get there.  Trains with no engineers are here and this is one way we can take out human error and reduce costs. Perhaps, with the strong union controls in New Jersey, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut. Maryland and D.C. it may not be feasible, but surely for cargo transport trains; http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0803/00000083.htm and    http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2003/09/01/smallb1.html .

We recently saw another ferry accident, this one in NY when the pilot of the vessel fell asleep, which may have been a medical situation or condition, but never the less, accidents like these would be prevented by pilot-less transit systems, this would be no problem with modern technology.  We know in the future this will be an accepted method and fully safe, today we will see a union propaganda road show with the media incited fear in our citizenry to protect their jobs through a blocking of these future technologies in the near term through self interests and political action committee donations to politicians and their decision makers on ‘K Street" this is unfortunate for mankind and the transportation advancements in this present period.  All too often such linear decision-making hurts the process of incremental betterment for all. 

We have the technology now and this will improve safety, prevent hi-jacks from International Terrorists, improve operational costs by a pre-controlled perfect trip setting and lower labor, energy and fuel costs.  With the increase of work place shootings of former fired workers, even if such technologies were set in motion, we might have displaced union workers try to sabotage these systems and then the first accident of a pilot-less train would get intense media coverage dwarfing the OJ Simpson, Kobe Bryant or Scott Peterson Court Trails.

We often see pet projects, which make no sense, which due to public outcry also adversely affect the public trust in vital transportation projects.  Causing one to wonder why we have lawyers and politicians at all.  one for instance is a Vermont bill to have a high speed rail from Boston to Montpelier the capital of Vermont, well this is absolutely silly considering only about 8000 people live in Montpelier, VT and most of them are lawyers, politicians, small business owners and crystal meth drug addicts. Talk about pet project ideas, spending the people's money?  Now if the project included New Hampshire's capital and the train traveled up to Burlington VT and the University and down to Boston, you might be able to justify it, but weather issues would be a big deal in winter, now it could seriously help Vermont and New Hampshire Tourism, but the distance is not great and a regular train would suffice. 

The projects across the country are worthy, but we should be doing more; http://www.parthe.net/_cwg1202/00000003.htm .  For years they have been discussing High Speed Trains, between Los Angeles and Las Vegas and from Houston to San Antonio to El Paso, Houston to Dallas, Dallas to Austin to San Antonio, Dallas to Amarillo, Amarillo to Denver, Denver to Kansas City to Wichita to Oklahoma City to Dallas.  Montana needs a high-speed rail and North, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska could all benefit from a high-speed rail system.  Connecting the Mid West to all of the Texas markets and Texas to Los Angeles and Florida to Texas through the Southern States could vastly improve transportation and travel in this country. 

It would not hurt airlines.  The discount airlines; such as Jet Blue, South West, America West, Air Tran; would continue to do well and time factors would be a reason to fly the coast-to-coast routes.  Discounters can cut price and stay in business due to the business model used as a major part of their overall growth strategy; http://www.parthe.net/_cwg0703/0000004f.htm . Greyhound Company might suffer in the beginning from a National Network of high-speed rail in the US, but that bus line is now owned by a Canadian Company anyway, eventually they will be able to work with the network to fill in the gaps and actually make more revenue for connecting people to final destinations.  More contacts, competition and intra nation trade means the increase in the flow of transportation would bring America closer together and stronger. 

This concludes the end of Part I of The Flow of Transportation.

In Part II we discuss: bureaucracy, buses, highspeed trains, aiviation vs. other forms of transportation and future innovations.

In Part III we discuss: Nation's Airports, Road Infrastructures, Highway Safety and Innovations.