MODE SHIFT

In previous centuries, change came with the new generation. Today, for the first time in history, change is coming to all generations. Adults and seniors are adapting to their new environments with life-style changes born of necessity. Part of that is their mobility, and a big shift just happened in Boston.

Twenty years ago, everyone with common sense, a few bucks in his or her pocket and self-respect owned a car. From 1960 to 2000, it was unthinkable that state and metropolitan officials would adopt a major public work plan for pedestrian and biking infrastructure with excellent prospects for funding.

Hiking and Biking in the Future Hub

A bike/ped shift has happened in Massachusetts, not just the City of Boston, but with Cambridge, Somerville and scores of suburbs that make up the larger Hub of Massachusetts Bay. It’s totally awesome!

Modes and Modalities

In the world of government budgeting, the elevation of biking and pedestrian amenities on the modal menu with highways and conventional transit is significant. It was powered by the cooperation of strong pedestrian advocacy, active cycling interests, demanding transit users. It happened in a Federal context changed by former USDOT Secretary LaHood who opened doors to funds for biking projects.

Massachusetts has flung them wide open! This shift is likely to spread to others cities and urban regions across the USA. It already has.

A growing number of people of all generations willingly choose not to own cars. With Zipcars and carsharing, there’s a new calculus in mobility thinking. Those who don’t own cars save, on average, $8000 a year and are healthier because of aerobic mobility. They burn less petroleum and add fewer molecules of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. By and large, they don’t know about, nor do they care about details of PRT or podcars.

Professional Shifts for Life-Style Shifts

A growing tide of life-style shifts is upon us. It is here. Hail to Boston Livable Streets, who beam visions of greenway paths throughout Greater Boston, and the new generation of city walkers who have turned throw-away neighborhoods into thriving communities where not having a car is cool. Where will new generations of architects, engineers and planners take this?

ATN infrastructure brings several new variables to the financial formulae that will be used for the cost/benefit analysis of ped-bike and transit projects. Fare revenues may be substantial - although taxi drivers may not be happy. ATN guideways can carry conduits for wires, cables and tube systems, adding value to the project. Whether in the public or private sector, the more return there is on an investment, the more likely that it will go forward.   Designed with karma-comforting solar power collectors, elevated ATN may be acceptable to community groups. In quiet spots, ATN guideways can run alongside bikers, joggers and walkers. In congested areas, sections can go underground.

A new ATN planning resource will soon be published by the Mineta Transportation Institute of San Jose State University. Stay tuned!

COMMON GOOD at PCC-2014

If government is supposed to be about the pursuit of common good, then public officials should be thinking of ways for us the people to live in harmony and promote a sustainable general welfare.

Many of them are already doing that, some quite eloquently so. We need government to satisfy public needs (such as rubbish removal, road maintenance, etc.) and to promote commerce opportunities (e.g. education, public works, transit).  Government should provide the framework in which individuals, communities and societies do most of the work. US “conservatives” want minimal government, whereas “liberals” don’t fret so much about public “bloating”.

Auto De-Addiction

Our transportation infrastructure, so heavily weighted to auto addiction, is sadly unsustainable.  Do we need an unending stream of new cars, vans and trucks?  Whether powered by gasoline or propane, vehicles across the USA generate millions of tons of carbon dioxide every day. Road costs keep getting higher. We hardly have funds to maintain the existing 50,000 miles of Interstates and 2.6 million miles of paved roads -- a total of 8.6 million lane-miles. And don’t forget the thousands of acres of parking lots and garages. Few doubt that car costs will continue to rise.

What a climate-challenged mess!

US Government statistics show the continuing marginalization of transit in US life.

A Pod-Way Out of Our Dilemma

We, the People of the USA and the World, need preemptive policies to get us out of our auto addiction. There are very strong arguments that investing in pedestrian and bikeway networks provides more benefits per dollar than highway improvements.  Wisely planned, new ped-bike infrastructure will make mass transit more viable by feeding into it.

Automated Transit Networks (ATN for short) has emerged as an interesting new option for community-scaled mobility services that can also feed existing transit stations from places more than most people’s walking range.  A study by San Jose’s Mineta Transportation Institute recommends modest ATN projects of ten-station networks, maybe more. Rapid advanced in automation on road vehicles means that robo-cabs and robo-vans may provide ATN services without costly guideways.  

Sadly, ATN is not being designed into huge road projects. Witness New York’s $4-billion replacement of the cross-Hudson Tappan Zee Bridge north of NYC. ATN is light and would not impact the bridge’s structural requirements the way rail would (it was dropped for that very reason.).

We have a huge task ahead of us. It is not easy to re-orient personal attitudes and habits. But we do know that things sometimes do change -- sometimes quickly and visibly, but sometimes slowly -- like the decline of cigarette smoking. According to Harvard’s Professor Emeritus Charles Harris, in 1850 eighty percent of the land in southern New England was directly used by humans: only 20% was forest.  Radical change came over the course of a century as the USA expanded westward. By 1950, agriculture and industry had dwindled in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island so that 80% of the land is today in forest!

Hmm…… cigarette smoke is like instinctual driving. Maybe we can tell people the cost of the parking spaces that they think are free. That cost includes a few minutes of the end of their lives for not getting the great aerobic exercise that walking and biking are.

Reaching for the Numbers to Sustainability

Today over 90 percent of urban travel is by motorized vehicles, almost all burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases. Securing fossil fuels in the future has enormous political and environmental costs. US transit’s share is modestly 2-3 percent. Walking and biking are harder to measure, but at most, these three green modes make up 10%.

Is it not in the common good for us to push that green share to 25%, and then to 50%? What might the Sierra Club, the National Institute of Health and the League of Women’s Voters have to say such matters? 

Does it matter how Detroit reacts? More is happening in California’s booming Silicon Valley - hotbed of Google, Uber, and ATN. 

California is collaborating with Swedish officials, and the 8^th annual Podcar City conference will take place September 3-5 on Stockholm’s airfront. Come up to speed there!

SECURING THE AIRFRONT

Airports attract all kinds of traffic.  Yes, there are passengers, companions and workers, many coming be car. There are also taxis, limos, buses and shuttles from nearby hotels, car rental facilities and remote parking.  Unfortunately airports are frequent targets for terrorist attacks, so much attention is given to security matters airside, but also landside.

On an airport’s landside, what is more secure -- an unknown road vehicle with unidentified passengers and content, or a podcar that is video-watched as passengers in a station board it? Most of us would vote for the latter.  Roadway freedoms can bring mortal threats.

New Podcar Potentialities

A recent assessment of the ATN industry by the Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) at San Jose State University points out that few transport planners and land use officials understand the new, flexible design parameters of this now-proven (in small networks) mode of transit classically known as PRT.  Station location and sizing are fundamentally different from more familiar rail modes, including automated people movers without off-line stations. ATN guideway dimensions are significantly smaller, viable with one-way segments, and capable of sharper turns and higher grades. Station sizes can be minimal, enlarged only where there is demand. All this makes ATN design flexible in the third dimension, generically called “elevation” by architects and engineers, even in sections that are underground.  

An ATN-oriented development strategies waiting to be explored.

Visions of ATN-oriented airfront districts are few and far between.  Airport  districts are growing and attract private investment. Pressures to plan and manage them to be efficient and secure are increasing. ATN traffic will be easier to secure 24/7 than road traffic. With reduced parking needs, the airfront can be more compact, further reducing traffic.

ATN systems can more easily be expanded in the future by means of the flexible addition of guideway segments and stations. To make this bold, new development scenario even more attractive, GHG emissions will be significantly lower.

If Not San Jose, then Stockholm

The MTI report also pointed out that there is a disconnect between airport management, municipal zoning and land use regulation, and the general metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in place across the US. They have too little to do with each other -- to the detriment of land use efficiencies and competitive advantages in a global world. Outside the US, there are examples of better airport-land use coordination. Paris-CDG was one of the early ones to see the potential of commercial development beyond terminal retail on airport property.  Stockholm-Arlanda has interesting examples too.

The US Congress would do well to adjust MPO mandates to be more than passive recipients of FAA dictates. PCC8 at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport is organized with USDOT coordination in the framework of long-term Swedish-USDOT cooperation. The September 3-5 gathering will advance the vision of ATN-served airfront districts laden with many benefits, including a more secure airport.

AIRPORT SMARTS

Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport may be in the lead to de-carbonize its airfront transport with the current study underway with two adjacent municipalities, but it is not alone. Helsinki is not far away, and has a stealth PRT technology developer that took part in an application study in 2005 near Vantaa Airport. It was done by something called TechVilla Institute, a center of expertise for lifting, moving and logistic industries. The setting is a fast-growing airfront district that has already taken off. Called Aviapolis, it has many sleek green buildings filling up with world-oriented businesses.

It's a sellers market in Aviapolis near Helsinki Airport. Will there be buyers for podcar connections?

In fact, a new World Trade Center is underway, and apartments too.  Aviapolis brags that it is the “new heart” of the Helsinki region and, by extension, of most of Finland. It claims a “well functioning transport system” -- meaning mostly uncongested roads, for now. Maybe quality buses or shuttles -- but so far, no podcars.

Vanta-Helsinki Rail, A Year Away

Meanwhile, national and local officials are busy building an 18-kilometer, $1 billion commuter rail extension with 8km tunnel under the airport. The line will continue on to the main north-south line of Finnish railways. Ring Rail, as the project is known, will have five stations, plus three for later development. By next summer, service may be running to stations at the airport terminal and Aviapolis.

What mode split to transit will this bring to Aviapolis and the airport district as a whole? Maybe 25 percent?  If the rail service operates well, especially through harsh Baltic winters, maybe 50%.

What if the reach of the Ring Rail’s future Aviapolis station were extended by integration of an ATN system? This would take transit access to every corner of the district. The mode split would go even more to transit. A half share seems doable. If things go really well, why not 90 percent? How many tons of GHG will that save? If it’s solar, will Vantaa’s ATN be self-sufficient and carbon-free?

There have been studies of airport district ATN applications in the past. Known ones are Seattle-Tacoma, Bologna and more recently, San Jose.

Airport car rental officials have learned the benefits of consolidation.  ATN will take consolidation of airfront development to a whole new level. Next stop: PCC8 at Arlanda Airport, September 3-5, 2014. 

We're losing our Garden

Reaction to the IPCC report is strong.

IPCC is the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. the world's best science is telling us that we need to ACT NOW. To limit our Earth's temperature rise to two Centigrade degrees, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to 40-70 percent of what they were in 2010. We as a planet need to shift gears. Our current ways of doing things are not sustainable. Do we really want to mess us Garden Earth?

Defossilization is now a new word, pronounced with many different accents, in the world vocabulary of environmental discourse. It means that we need to reduce the burning of fossil fuels to do so many things -- heat our buildings, move around, generate electricity, etc. It's just making it too hot in the Garden. We need to act.

While that threatens those making money in the oil, car and coal industries, it opens great opportunities for others to create new wealth in the transition to sustainable energy. "It's eminently affordable," declared 350.org to those who abhor next taxes to raise trillions of dollars for new infrastructure. Given the IPCC-documented costs that Climate Change is already bringing, defossilization is a compelling investment.

In cities and towns of the New Economy walking, biking and public transit are to be encouraged. Happily, solar powered ATN is a potent addition to the mix, reinforcing existing rail and spreading a fine mesh of service access to most districts and neighborhoods. What will the stations look like? What do they mean for architects, designers and planners? How will community life change?

TOOL UP: Urban and airport progressives will gather in Stockholm this coming September 3-5 to assess the options and take sustainable transportation to the next level at the 8th Podcar City conference. For more info or to reserve a place for your corporate or professional name in the PCC8 Booklet, email lfabian21@gmail.com.

Post-Car Urbanism:  Implications for Town & Airport District Planning

The 8^th annual Podcar City conference will advance the vision of sustainable urban transportation that reduces our auto-addiction and its high costs. Most modern countries are auto-addicted. Recent converts are in oil-rich areas and the choking cities and towns of India and China.

Auto-addiction is life when cars serve almost all everyday needs. On the whole, and especially from a community viewpoint, this degrades the quality of life. Whenever too many people want to gather somewhere, parking becomes a problem. If more people walked, rode bikes or came by transit attractive enough to make them prefer it, community life would improve. Automated Transit Networks (ATNs) do that. Planners, civic designers and landscape and building architects need guidelines. PCC8 will help create them by addressing issues head on.

Airports present special challenges. PCC8 will learn from professional studies of sustainable development underway near Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport. What efficiencies can be achieved to create good jobs for thousands of Swedes? Mark your calendars for September 3-5 north of Stockholm.

Conference Theme

Here are the themes to be explored in the PCC8 program:

·   Revitalization of maturing suburbs and inner neighborhoods

·   Rationalization of airport clutter into airfront development

·   Definition of the evolving range of ATN options including solar

·   Innovative remote parking solutions, robo-valets, and urban infill

·   How PPPs can finance and implement infrastructure projects

The  Icebreaker on Wednesday, September 3 will be close up and personal with the Podcar Station Display  already greeting from afar thousands of highway motorists approaching Arlanda Airport. The conference technical sessions will take place September 4 and 5 at the Arlanda Radisson.   

For current information on PCC8 and to register, www.podcarcity.org.

PODCAR CITIES TURN TO THE AIRFRONT

The 8^th Podcar City conference will be September 3-5 where breakthroughs in airport district planning are being made around Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport and adjacent suburbs: Sigtuna and Upplands Vasby.

Private developers and municipal officials want world-class, sustainable development. With the Institute of Sustainable Transportation, they are detailing out PRT as a brilliant way of achieving that. There have been uncoordinated studies in the past. This is now all coming together, this time under the leadership of Magnus Hunhammar. Sweden is breaking new ground. 

In the US, airport officials seldom collaborate with the cities and towns, suburban incorporated and not, especially when complaints about noise, fumes and traffic are so common. In Sweden, civic discussions are generally lively and informed, based on deep Scandinavian traditions of environmental stewardship, love of nature and appreciation of excellence in design.

PCC7 in Arlington VA last fall centerted on national policies and politics. This fall PCC8 will deal largely with Arlanda issues, comparing them to other airports where airfront PRT has been or is being explored and taking the discussion a big Swedish step forward, A podcar station mockup visible from the airport’s main entrance, is already starting a lively conversation. 

PCC8 looks to be airport hot. Sigtuna and Uppslands Vasby see benefits in airfront connectivity.