PRT in the suburbs - a good idea?

[Jerry Schneider]

<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/2010/08/prt-and-suburban-sprawl.html&ct=ga&cad=:s7:f2:v0:i2:lt:e0:p0:t1280727471:&cd=h73ielc1_gQ&usg=AFQjCNGrRt50YJD3kUl4mQccvPHs35dOcg>Open
PRT specification project:
PRT<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/2010/08/prt-and-suburban-sprawl.html&ct=ga&cad=:s7:f2:v0:i2:lt:e0:p0:t1280727471:&cd=h73ielc1_gQ&usg=AFQjCNGrRt50YJD3kUl4mQccvPHs35dOcg>
and Suburban Sprawl
By Dan
Will PRT, if extended out to the suburbs, exacerbate, or even amplify
this trend? I have been a proponent developing PRT systems that have
utility outside of the city centers, systems capable of higher speeds
and longer distances. ...
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/&ct=ga&cad=:s7:f2:v0:i2:ls:e0:p0:t1280727471:&cd=h73ielc1_gQ&usg=AFQjCNHqj07W2im0YGPX09df9rWsF8W_Rw>Open
PRT specification project - http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/

[Lee S. Walker]

The main problem with suburban sprawl is traffic/pavement. PRT will
definitely make it more practical for people to live in wide-open
spaces where they can grow their own food and enjoy many other
benefits. It was pointed out in a previous recent discussion that
automated trams can efficiently carry grey water back to higher
ground, also solving the water crisis blamed on suburban lawns.

Disparaging suburban sprawl is a knee-jerk reaction from some
environmentalists who are too timid too attack the real problem, auto
dependency.
-lee

On Aug 2, 11:35 am, Jerry Schneider <j...@peak.org> wrote:
> <http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/201...>Open
> PRT specification project:
> PRT<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/201...>

> and Suburban Sprawl
> By Dan
> Will PRT, if extended out to the suburbs, exacerbate, or even amplify
> this trend? I have been a proponent developing PRT systems that have
> utility outside of the city centers, systems capable of higher speeds
> and longer distances. ...

> <http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/&ct...>Open
> PRT specification project -http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/

[Dennis Manning]

Very interesting discussion. I brought this question up over 10 years ago
and concluded that it depends on how the PRT network is laid out. If the
city core has PRT and the suburbs don't it should tend to pull people to the
core. Not to spark an SM/DM debate as we've been over that ground, but it
seems clear that if PRT tends to foster sprawl DM will enhance it more than
SM.

I've always liked the large auto free zone potential of PRT. As Dan says in
his piece - deliver people to the cores not cars.

Dennis

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Jerry Schneider" <j...@peak.org>
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 9:35 AM
To: <transport-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [t-i] PRT in the suburbs - a good idea?

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[Jerry Roane]

Jerry

"But nudging ourselves back toward urban life is a must, because energy and environmental costs are just to high to do otherwise."

This guy has not heard the good news.  Transportation can run on sunshine that is now wasted 100% of the time.  Rather than waste this sunshine we can power the transportation network and it totally negates this article's premise.  If you take the above quote literally and there is a solution to goods movement then the whole urb, sub or otherwise disappears.  What is hidden in this article is collectivism and not anything to do with energy.  Those pressing for collectivism are free to enjoy that lifestyle if they choose.  More power to them.  Right now they are hijacking transportation as the whipping boy for why all surfs must now go to the internment camps at TOD developer's property.  Imagine you bought into the urb thinking and you focused your nest egg toward buying up slums around old burned0out TOD of the past locations.  Now you are stuck.  You have to create a flight from the suburbs back to the unbane urbs or go broke.  What better logic too sell your real estate investments than to use energy for mobility as an excuse.  That was locked up tight until a few inventors came along and destroyed the link between mobility and collectivism.  Once confronted with this new development the easy way is to confront the inventor for screwing up your deal.  Ignore the facts and truth and proceed on like nothing has changed. 

I believe that some portion of people who like the urban collectivism when they see that transportation will not support their flawed assumption will simply jump to the farm myth.  If people move out of the cities to the country they will consume all the land for food production.  This is an extremely hollow argument but they will cling to it as a core belief.  had they taken calculus in their undergrad humanities degree plan they would be able to think through this with the concept of limits but the farm land being sucked up by humanity is flawed for decades if ever.  You can build a house on land that is presently unused because of mobility issues and if the energy link is broken and the time constraint is broken by high speed then wasted land can be the next suburb and fertile farm land quite often next to cities can remain farm land. 

Once you kick two legs out from under a three legged stool all that is left is they want others to do what they say.  This leg I cannot kick out from under these folks.  They will have to do that on their own. 

There is often a companion thought that humans are pollution.  One more baby on the planet and that constitutes human pollution.  This thinking is even more flawed if those subscribing to it have no offspring because they are so "smart".  It just means the smart DNA will drop off and the dumber DNA will take over in the geometric progression they all fear.  Geometric progressions are scary till you toss in some horse sense and figure out Amway cannot make you rich or any progression plan based on simple-mindedness.  The net result will be what is feared if the smart people talk themselves out of having human pollution in the form of babies and the hoards have as many offspring as there are mating seasons.  Moderation on both sides will yield a better world.  Humans are why the Earth exists is one theology.  The Earth exists first and humans are here to destroy it is another theology.  Unless we back up the discussion to core fundamentals the arguing will continue and produce no fruit.  Transportation running on sunshine changes this argument if theology does not trump it in the individual's mind. 

Jerry Roane

[Jerry Roane]

Lee

If cars are made clean and energy independent how is "auto dependency" a fundamental?  If there is no side effect to auto dependency where is the rub?  I could easily go along with the current design being a problem but the days are numbered for the present configuration.  Hummer is dead!  the rest soon to follow.  The auto just needs to evolve so the negatives go away. 

As for lawns just plant native grass and mow it with an electric mower every other week.  My grass at the farm is healthy as it can be and no one ever planted it or watered it.  It just grows and my farm is in a semi-arid area.  I try to stunt its growth by mowing low but it grows fast and is green most of the year.  Over watering lawns is cultural. 

Jerry Roane

[Jerry Roane]

Dennis

You bring up a good point.  What if a unified version of guideway car delivered people to the core and delivered cars to the rest of the city?  Within some arbitrarily picked boundary around the downtown district defined by money interests only people were left off and outside that line cars drove to destinations?  Any good guideway system should be able to do both people only and car/people delivery on its infrastructure hardware. 

Auto park makes dual mode the same as people only delivery and the cars to be parked are pure PRT.  Blurring the lines between the traditional battle lines is probably a better way to go.  The level of sophistication to get the right car to come back to get you is simply a logistics problem for the system to solve.  If the hardware and control computer is smart enough then it should be able to offer the users anything they want.  If they want a private car interior then that should be available.  If they do not care about what car they end up in that too can be made available but I think if the system can handle private car reservations there would be no savings of any consequence to bringing any car from inventory versus bringing the right car from inventory.  The self parking part is pure PRT and delivers people to the core leaving the entire street level to be safe from the dangers of car traffic if fully implemented.  Any further blurring of the lines might help rather than hurt our effectiveness in communicating the mission.  Most of the gains are from the conversion to electric power only for transportation.  The second gain is orchestrated movement in the city including self-parking.  In our IP we have the pure PRT of the battery mules positioning themselves to the pick up points in the city.  The mules do not touch any part of the car the customer touches so it can be pubic in nature and the very next one in line gets used.  This is the traditional pure PRT to handle battery mules.  Whether the mule stores battery energy or CNG or gasoline is up to the system operator to decide.  Any fuel can be instantly filled when the car comes down onto the battery mule.  If other fuel sources are in the system the battery mule PRT network would need to be sophisticated enough to get the correct mule to the car depending on the fuel required in that car.  This would blur the line in the battery mule PRT network to have multiple types of mules available in the order necessary to go under the cars as they come down off the guideway.  This would make the battery mule network more similar to the personal car network where the right mule would need to pair up with the right car.  It is possible that battery mules could be private property and the battery mules travel as necessary to keep your personal car powered.  This would require more mule network but it is cheap.  I am saying this is a good idea for early implementation but it is an option to ponder trying to blur the lines of pure and not so pure PRT but all using guideways not surface pavement for mobility.

Jerry Roane

[Jerry Schneider]

At 11:33 AM 8/2/2010, you wrote:
>Very interesting discussion. I brought this question up over 10
>years ago and concluded that it depends on how the PRT network is
>laid out. If the city core has PRT and the suburbs don't it should
>tend to pull people to the core. Not to spark an SM/DM debate as
>we've been over that ground, but it seems clear that if PRT tends to
>foster sprawl DM will enhance it more than SM.
>
>I've always liked the large auto free zone potential of PRT. As Dan
>says in his piece - deliver people to the cores not cars.

Isn't that what radial mass transit systems are largely designed to
do? At least to the historic downtown, which has been losing
relative market share (of regional jobs and other activities,of all
kinds) for several decades. In some metropolitan areas, the historic
downtown is growing in absolute terms but not in it share of total
regional activity. A main feature of the suburbs is dense traffic
to/from other suburbs. In some cases, the host debilitating
congestion on non-radial routes, due to auto traffic that has no
interest in the historic downtown. If this is the main all-day
"suburban" problem, what can PRT do that will help?

- Jerry Schneider -
Innovative Transportation Technologies
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans

[Dennis Manning]

I can't answer that question. It all depends on how PRT is laid out in any
given city. Done right I believe in can do a lot to enhance the viability of
downtown cores.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Jerry Schneider" <j...@peak.org>

Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 5:34 PM
To: <transport-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [t-i] PRT in the suburbs - a good idea?

[Jack Slade]

Jerry, these are good ideas. Where I get off from it is this: Is it a good idea to demand this of the first system? Don't you first have to make a start wirh a more simple system, and then let the process of evolution take it's course?
I can think of a couple of dozen things that would be desirable in a first system, but I don't want to wait long enough to get it all done. We should have been able to get started 20 years ago, do you really want to wait another 20 for a system that pleases everybody? Most of us might be limited to walking distances by then.

The other point is that it doesn't have to be used by everybody. If it is used by only 35% of the population then it would be a success beyond our wikdest dreams. If we can achieve that, can't we wait for the rest to happen? It will happen, when all the other inventive minds on Earth get working on it.

Jack Slade

--- On Mon, 8/2/10, Jerry Roane <jerry...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Jack Slade]

I bet Tad can answer it. I recall that 15 years ago he was saying "Suburb to Suberb Faster" was where he wanted to start with his Higherway.

We all seem to have our own ideas of where we would like to begin. That does NOT mean that our systems will be useless everywhere else. I personally want a beginning where I can expect the highest usage, which will mean highest profits to use in expanding the system EVERYWHERE. This is exactly the way our present roads were built.....high density places first, lower densities later. It worked then, why fix it?

Jack Slade

--- On Tue, 8/3/10, Dennis Manning <john.m...@comcast.net> wrote:

[Bruce McHenry]

Going to the core is unappealing because of (parking) costs and congestion delays. Remove those and urban vitalization will follow.
BACM
Sent from my iPhone, 310 751 4336

[Jerry Roane]

Bruce

That is why self-park miles away gives the best value.  When you get ready to go much like you sent this by iPhone you summon your car to meet you at the door and if the city is too crowded the door can be on the third floor of the building as well as the second floor.  No congestion leaving revolving doors that cannot handle the load of the building occupants.  By opening up three times as many doors to exit, the building can dump faster.  The world trade center took something like 20 minutes to run an evacuation drill if I remember correctly.  If dual mode self-park cars were available on two more levels that evacuation time could be cut in half and you would not have thousands of people running just under the disaster but far away traveling at 180 mph. 

Bruce -- I am thinking I will propose $50,000 from NY to avoid long term entanglements on IP.  Their thought process was fine but defining theirs from mine when I already own the IP gets way too messy to ask for more than the $50,000 limit from New York State.  I looked at a guideway between Rochester and Buffalo.  After looking at these two cites growth or lack there of I was slightly discouraged.  I need to stay away from New York city for a starting demo so these high population cities seemed like a good choice.  Neither Buffalo nor Rochester have the parking problem you describe.  It appears they are looking for industries and people to move there to fill the parking spaces they own but do bot have customers for.  I do disagree that cities have cores.  They have rental space measured in square feet.  A company's physical proximity to another business is of no dollar value so I challenge the construct of calling the oldest most run down buildings core except for land constrained cities like New York City unique in New York State. 

Perhaps it would be a good discussion to define what is core.  NASA forms the core of Clear Lake Texas yet it is not in the geometric downtown core.  Other cities built around larger employers have their core at the company headquarters but large employers headquarters buildings are usually centered on their company campus.  The near by town would not be considered a core by any stretch with a couple antique stores and a bed and breakfast or two.  Do you have a definition of where the core edge is defined? 

Jerry Roane

[Michael Weidler]

Hence, the term Activity Center. Sound familiar?

[Brad Templeton]

I don't think people make the suburb/core choice based on transport
options so much as make it in spite of transport options.

I think the big driver that takes people into suburbs (aside from
jobs, which take people where jobs are) is children. They want good
schools for their kids, large yards, and quiet and safe streets for
their kids. They don't really want it for themselves that much. In
exchange they put up with having to drive everywhere, having to drive
their kids everywhere and sterile malls.

There are other factors that affect the decision and sway things here
and there but this is the big one.

On Aug 2, 11:33 am, "Dennis Manning" <john.manni...@comcast.net>
wrote:

> Very interesting discussion. I brought this question up over 10 years ago
> and concluded that it depends on how the PRT network is laid out. If the
> city core has PRT and the suburbs don't it should tend to pull people to the
> core. Not to spark an SM/DM debate as we've been over that ground, but it
> seems clear that if PRT tends to foster sprawl DM will enhance it more than
> SM.
>
> I've always liked the large auto free zone potential of PRT. As Dan says in
> his piece - deliver people to the cores not cars.
>
> Dennis
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Jerry Schneider" <j...@peak.org>
> Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 9:35 AM
> To: <transport-...@googlegroups.com>
> Subject: [t-i] PRT in the suburbs - a good idea?
>

> > <http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/201...>Open
> > PRT specification project:
> > PRT<http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/201...>

> > and Suburban Sprawl
> > By Dan
> > Will PRT, if extended out to the suburbs, exacerbate, or even amplify this
> > trend? I have been a proponent developing PRT systems that have utility
> > outside of the city centers, systems capable of higher speeds and longer
> > distances. ...

> > <http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/&ct...>Open
> > PRT specification project -http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/

[Jerry Roane]

Brad

If transportation solved the negatives with the driving then wouldn't that be the perfect scenario?  You could live anywhere you want.  Work anywhere they would pay the most.  Shop at the lowest priced stores.  All while keeping the planet safe.  Land use legislation (coercion) is the polar opposite of fixing transportation's problems. 

You nailed the kid theory.  My kids went to the best school we found in the greater metropolitan area.  It paid off too.  I cannot imagine if my kids had gone to a slacker school how different their lives would be and not in a good way.  Austin's condo community is focused on singles and geometrically centered around the bar district.  As these condo projects go bankrupt there is nobody willing to pay the money to buy the half built concrete hulls.  They will probably be torn down just like the office building that was started and then the major corporation decided not to move there.  It was turned into dust half built.  Perhaps planners should have planned better when they issued so many building permits for the same thing all at once.  Instead planners are busy thinking of ways to coerce people into buses. 

Jerry Roane

[Dennis Manning]

Brad:

I agree because now there is essentially only one option. PRT could shift
the options picture.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Brad Templeton" <bra...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 1:59 PM
To: "transport-innovators" <transport-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [t-i] Re: PRT in the suburbs - a good idea?