Public Transportation

Public Transportation

For public transportation to succeed it is necessary to fill the seats. Fill the seats and it is successful, fail to fill them and it fails. It is as simple as that. That is a sufficient, but absolutely necessary condition. The necessity is often overlooked. Liberals will resort to coercion, but ultimately, it comes down to a simple fact: if it is useful, people will use it, if not they wont, at least if they have any choice in the matter. Both the Japanese bullet train and the French high speed rail between Paris and Lyons are successful. The maglev line in Shanghai is reportedly only about 20% full, so it is not sucessesful and is sort of an expensive tourist attraction. Why not full, I don't know, but that illustrates the problem of providing public transportation and makes clear it is not just a problem with Americans loving their cars so much they refuse to ride public transportation. Somehow, the maglev line is not as useful as it should be.

Probably the biggest problem with public transportation is figuring out how to get enough people going the same place at the same time. I have ideas on this, for a little later. Another problem is the cost of setting up a system. I have two examples. California is proposing an 800 mile high speed rail line, essentially from north to south with a couple of spurs. Price tag, about 40 billion. That is about 50 million per mile. Pittsburgh is proposing a 54 mile line from their airport to downtown, then on east to Greensburg. About 3.1 billion, or 57 million per mile. That sounds like a lot, but is about what it costs for a 4 lane bridge about a mile long across the Mississippi. Also, to put it into perspective, the origional cost for interstate highway was about 1 million per mile, maybe about 5 times that in today's dollars. Also, consider that just one year of the ethanol subsidy would build 175 miles of maglev line like for Pittsburgh, and just the 2007 tax for Exxon-Mobile would build 640 miles of the California line. The government throws that kind of money around every day. You know what they say in Washington: "A billion here and a billion there, it eventually adds up to real money."

For either line, if they can fill the seats with frequent departures, they will be worth every penny. If not, they will be big wastes of taxpayer money.

Maglev (magnetic levitation) is a subject for a whole essay for it alone, but I want to mention a few things here. Maglev "levitates" or floats about 1/4 to 1/2 inch from the track using a magnetic field. The same magnetic field can be used to provide propulsion, so no physical contact is needed. This means no wheels, no dragging of a contact along an overhead electrified cable, so no friction, no wear, no noise other than a bit of wind noise, not noticable below about 120 mph. This allows higher speed, about 300 mph compared to about 150 - 200 mph for high speed rail and lower operating costs. It can climb a grade about 3 times as steep, so needs fewer tunnels. Also, since the higher speed and electrified track needs to be elevated, this means no fences, and little or no obstruction. Practically anything can cross underneath the track anywhere, whereas the high speed rail will require an occasional overpass, else it is an obstacle that divides the country it crosses. Except for the support pylons, maglev uses no land. All this makes the slightly higher cost per mile well worth it, and I think maglev wins hands down over high speed rail. Besides, it is high tech and quite cool!

There is another aspect of public transportation, and that is local. In large cities there is bus, and sometimes trolly. What can you do in a small town where there are not enough people going somewhere at the same time to support bus? If you can't afford a taxi, how do you get around? It is no wonder people like cars. They are practical. Can you design public transportation as flexible? Well, maybe yes. People are discovering golf carts.

Of course they have been discovered long ago. I remember some young Russians, probably here for an olympics, who were quite taken with them. Not interested in golf, but facinated with the carts. They rode them as much as they could. All across America, people have discovered they are rather ideal for getting around in small towns and quiet residential areas of cities. Quiet, easy and cheap to operate, no maintenance beyond checking the tires ocassionally. Police like them as they are not so intiminating as autos for pedestrians; less likely to run over kids. Many municipalities have responded by passing ordinances declaring them street legal provided certain requirements are met. So far, those are usually reasonable: adequate brakes, turn signals, and lights, and operated only where the speed limit is 35 mph or less, which turns out to be about the whole of any town, with the possible exception of the outer portions of the highway through it, or much of a city except for main routes.

Already businesses have sprung up to provide conversion kits to make carts street legal and some are being manufactured street legal to start with. In Mexico Missouri there is a plant manufacturing a derivative that is the right idea, but a bit expensive, about $7000 to $11,000. That is getting up toward the price of a car and is missing one of the main objects. It also probably uses lead-acid batteries. Of course the market for carts is somewhat limited and they are sold to people who can afford a country club membership, so carts themselves are rather pricey, $5000 - $9000, and are powered by lead-acid batteries, so they may have a market to start with. Soon, if the market developes and millions are sold, the Chinese will get in and with their slave labor may market a lithium ion battery powered vehicle at a resonable price.

This would be great for small towns and quiet neighborhoods, especailly for older, less rambucous people. With practically no maintenance and low operating expense, a little old lady could own one and drive herself to the store, the doctor, and church, and not have to depend upon an Oats bus. She could go where she wanted, when she wanted. An overnight charge providing about 20 miles is plenty for most towns. and with the lithium ion batteries, probably 100 miles. A hand carryable battery could provide enough to get home or somewhere useful if someone ran down their battery before they got home, much as a gas can can do now.

I would like to see the states get involved and standardize requirements, and allow for going by back roads outside of towns and cities. I am very much afraid of the federal government getting involved as we would soon be faced with airbags, antilock brakes, and the whole smear that would make them as expensive as cars, ruining their advantages.Transportation without fuel would be good for the country and I would like to see it. The ability of people who cannot afford or drive full fledged cars to get around in their neighborhoods is highly desireable. These could even be used in cities to get from home to the station to catch a train to work. If you don't want to leave it there all day, someone could drop you off, take it home, and come back to get you in the evening, as is done now with cars.

I realize these would not be suitable for all weather conditions, such as in a snow storm and as such may not catch on quite so well in Minnesota as in Alabama, but for short range transportation, they would be fine in most. There would not even be any need for heater or air conditioning, just dress appropriately and put up with it. A top and a windshield would take care of most rain, though you would probably want wipers and might want side curtains. They could even have a light plastic body, but please, no heavy impact absorbing bodies such as are required for cars. A roll bar and an orange triangle on the back to designate it as a slow vehicle would probably be appropriate.

So what does this have to do with public transportation? Well, consider computer power and memory is now enormous, compact, and cheap. With just a few servos for accellerator, brakes, and to turn the wheel, and suitable sensors and programming, these things could drive themselves. If this sounds a bit too much like science fiction, please note that science fiction has already caught up with us in a lot of aspects of our daily lives. It wont take much that is not off the shelf now. And then you really have something, including personalized public transportation.
Please note that a lot of this is possible at 35 or less. At 70 in heavy traffic, it is a much, much more difficult problem.

It could easily have a data set with all pertinant information about the town or neighborhood, and could download by wireless any updated info, or the map for another town if you drove there. Don't believe that? Check the little gizmos by Garmin now found in many light planes that make navigating a snap. They even have terrain.

Now with this data base and someway to tell where they are, the rest, though not simple, is quite reasonable. GPS could tell them about where they are, or suitable beacons could be provided. Each street could be provided with a consistant center line that could be followed, staying properly positioned on the proper side. Digital cameras are now cheap and powerful. It could observe the center stripe using a camera and edge following software. It would know where the stop signs were, or/and they could be observed directly with the camera, or lines could be painted across the street as is done at airports to mark where you have to stop before entering a runway. The camera could scan both ways looking for movement before advancing. Stop if a kid runs out in front. Add a proximity sensor, such as ultrasonic, or just some good software using the camera, to keep from running into the vehicle in front, and with them knowing the entire town, they could find their way around.

Now you could drive it to work or the station and tell it to go home, and it could on its own. You could program it to return when you want to go home. This could result in a line of them faithfully waiting for their masters outside the station or the place of work each evening. "Home, James".

Now you see where this leads? Driverless taxis. Call for one and give your address. The nearest one available is dispatched by wireless and finds its way to your address. You get in, insert a card (credit or special charge card like one} to activate billing, then speak the address you want. Voice recognition decodes it, the cart knows where it is and how to get there, and after it stops, you pull your card out to end billing. It reports the charges, by wireless, to the dispatcher and either waits there or is directed to go somewhere else. You could have a drive yourself taxi. It moves around on its own between fares, but the fare can drive it, maybe at a higher speed than it travels on it own. Lower speed would be easier for autonomous control and although it would take it longer to get somewhere, what is time to a pig?

Now with cheap vehicles and no driver, most anybody can afford to use them, and you have public transportation going where you want, when you want, and the seats are at least half full. You do not have to own a vehicle to get around and old people who no longer can drive can still get around. Energy usage is reduced and it is from the grid, not fuel. Looks good.

On an unrelated note, though I suppose it is as it all comes down to energy. You may have heard of the Pickens Plan. Maybe even heard an advertisement. In case you haven't, a Texan is purposing to build enough wind generators up and down the great plains to supply 20% of our electricity. The natural gas saved by that will then be available for transportation. He proposed to do this as a private venture, wanting nothing from the government other than the right of ways needed for transmission lines. Sounds good until you look a little deeper as I did. Turns out he owns a lot of water rights and Dallas needs water. He may own more water than anyone else in the country, and he needs to move it. Those right of ways may be used for more than, or in place of, moving electricity.

Wind power sounds good, but remember it is often not available, thus all those transmission lines to try to move it around from where the wind is blowing to where it is not. A typical wind generator produces about 1 megawatt, when the wind blows, but you better not count on it for more than 20% to 35% of the time, depending upon location. A typical nuclear plant is available well over 99%, meaning it is almost always available. It will also be rated at about 2 or 3 gigawatts. Do the math and you will see it takes about 5000 to 10,000 wind generators to match one nuclear plant. If you are a wind power enthusiast, sorry, but that is the way the world works.
Now the thing that caught my attention was the natural gas saved would be available for transportation. Natural gas is not used for transportation to any extent in this country, and is only used for electricty generation in the peaking plants, as it is about 4 times as expensive as coal. True, the peaking plants are being grossly overused (something to worry about for the next heat wave) and additional electric supply could reduce that, but use it for transportation?

A natural gas fueled ICE produces about 10% of the CO (carbon monoxide) that a gasoline fueled ICE does. As a result, it is sometimes used where the air is restricted. I have worked in a larg warehouse where a natural gas fork lift was used when the electric one was busy and an order needed to be gotten out. It could be used for a little while without poisoning us. Natural gas is sometimes used in fleet or even farm tractors where it is available and cheap. It also reduces the engine maintenance. But there are problems using it, much the same as hydrogen, it requires a pressurized tank and has limited range, about 180 miles for a car and that is with a tank so big they leave out the spare tire so there is a little room left for luggage.

So what is this use for transportation he has in mind? Turns out he has some scheme that as near as I can make out is to get a large number of people to switch from gasoline to natural gas with him somehow making money on it. Now that will probably require government mandates, which will probably be justified on the basis that it is a cleaner fuel, and will help protect the planet form global warming or some such.

Interestingly, it seems Nancy Pelosi is an investor, getting in on the ground floor and standing to make a bundle. She also can influence the government, especially if the democrats increase their control of congress to veto proof majorities as they expect this fall. Now as a democrat, she wants high priced gasoline as the democrats believe high energy prices and a sluggish economy means more seats for them, but apparently she stands to personally gain too if she can keep gasoline high, as that will encourge more people to convert to natural gas.

This whole scheme has a fatal flaw: natural gas is in short supply and expensive, and the democrats are preventing increasing the supply. We may have to import more, but unless we can tap the methane hydrates, we are not going to have enough to support this scheme. And remember the wind does not always blow and it takes hours to get a coal fired plant up and running or shut down. Far from the natural gas saved from electricity generation being used for transportation, it better be reserved for the peaking plants that will need to be heavily used as peaking plants instead of base plants if we ever get up to 20% of our electricty from wind. If that happens, the supply will be going up and down and the peaking plants will be very active.