[sustran] More on Walton, Cowherd, Hook, Cervero, Dinesh, Obwon.. becak, bajajs, ojek et al

Obwon ob110ob at IDT.NET
Wed Sep 24 16:09:32 JST 1997


Wendell Cox wrote:
> 
> Agree with the underlyiing thrust of the Eric Britton comments.... Let the
> debate continue...
> 
[...]

 Oh goody! I have a couple of thoughts, in brief:

  I like elevated monorails because they cut CO2 emissions and provide
good entertaining views.  They also would allow us to release land
coverage (roadways) which have an auxilliary effect of dividing natural
animal habitats (and human habitats as well).  It's nice to have large
contiguous spaces/areas where we can roam as pedestrians.  Since HPV's
are relatively non polluting and because of their lower power and speed,
they can operate among pedestrians quite safely and without creating
expectation or perceptions of danger that interfere with the enjoyment
of locationg adjacent to carways.

  Tunnels for highways are good, but there's still large volumes of
gasses to be vented somehow, and particularly gasses which should not be
released at all.  It took hundreds of millions of years for coral and
dinosaurs and plants to lock away enough CO2 to make the world habitable
for the more modern species of life that then adapted this modern
world.  We are doing a good job of reversing that work.  Yet we don't
know what the world was like when that CO2 was still around in the
atmosphere.  We don't know what quantity of it was needed to be absent
to produce what changes.  

  Therefore, we are in effect, embarked upon an atmospheric
reconfiguration experiment, the results of which we can only hope to
imagine.  I think the 'experiment' should stop!  It not being either
reasonable or possible to ween ourselves immediately and/or absolutely
from automotive power 'on the dime', I don't think it's unreasonable to
mount smaller efforts to do so and where possible study and enlarge upon
them.

  So, for starters, I'd like to see tranportation authorities begin
supplementing/augmenting their vehicular services with hpv's to begin
picking up local travel slack.  This would allow us to move and/remove
autos to areas outside of recreational areas and historic districts and
malls to a great degree.  Then, by analysing the usuages that develop we
can figure out what to do next, via providing additional support
structures for various other situations like handicapped/aged persons
facilities.  

  Obwon



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