WE NEED SMARTER INFRASTRUCTURE

As Congress stalls in dealing with funds for crumbling highway and transit infrastructure, a sense of despair comes over the USA. A consensus that transcends Red/White, economic and racial divisions -- that our Federal system has become dysfunctional -- is upon us. Bernie Sanders’s plea for fundamental societal reform resonates in the heart of America. Is he the FDR of the 21^st century?

To move or not to move?

Our transportation planning process suffers. Highway interests fixed in 20^th century thinking control the many stages of project development that put new concrete and asphalt in our cities and towns. There have been modest gains in attention to walking and biking, sharing streets and accommodating app-based sharing. But on the whole, American life centers on parking lots -- despite the congestion, the pollution and the deadly accidents.

New York Large and Small

There are two New Yorks. One is the world city of 8.5 million residents surrounded by suburbs that make for a region of over $15 million. It is huge and bold and brash.

The other is New York State, and it is a vast network of hamlets, towns and cities nestled among majestically green hills and lakes. Here the scale is small. Bridges are designed in ways that obscure rather than enhance pedestrian life.

Upstate but huge in scale, the project underway for a Hudson River-straddling $5.2-billion Tappan Zee Bridge has no distrinct transit elements. Cost studies estimate adding bus lanes would cost $2.9 billion. Adding rail would require $6.7 billion! They were oblivious to ATN options that would add little to structural requirements.

TransitX sees podcars appended to the new Tappan Zee Bridge.

Jpods on the TZB?

An iconic opportunity has been missed under the watch of Cuomo, the Clintons and the host of New York politicians. With designer flare, light guideways could still be woven into superstructure aesthetics.

This is the same valley in which the more progressive NYS Public Consumer Commissioner hopes to make the Hudson the “Silicon Valley of Energy”.

Jpods has a base of operation in Poughkeepsie an hour to the north. Is it too late to fund a river-straddling PRT with networks on both sides of the mighty Hudson?

BLURRED VISION

New urban mobility options are here. Fleets of private vehicles now use the streets to provide transit- and taxi-like services. Is this the new dual-mode, dubbed DMT in the 1970s?  What does it mean to urban transport officials?

Increasingly smart cars and streets will make us safer.

Robocars are changing the modus operandi of citizens, government, businesses, especially food delivery services. It is already happening. Uber and others are transforming the taxi industry and impacting mass transit. Podcars -- automated on exclusive guideways at high complexity that off-line stations require -- are advancing on many fronts. What guidance is there from Washington?

Vision in Washington

“Silo mentality” is a term often heard in and about Washington DC. FHWA does it highway thing. FTA is a separate silo doing its transit thing. Hardly ever do the twain meet in DC. That maybe was adequate in 1975. 

Today we face a situation where silo officials have to blur there vision. Since 1975 private vehicles have dominated roads and highways largely funded by the FHWA. Public transit edged forward in a separate program and funding silo. Taxis and private buses lurched in the sidelines, with paratransit filled niche roles. It has remained pretty much highway versus transit.

Blurred Modalities

How ironic that we want USDOT officials to get blurry!

Multi-modal shared streets - sketch by Charles Harris

Uber and other ride-sharing groups now allow private vehicles to act as passenger-focused transit, blurring the line between public and private. For passengers with smarter and smarter phones, new apps make it easier to use mobility services from private vehicles operating on public roads.

With GPS someone knows where everyone else is. With the coming of shared cars and rides and robocars, the lines between public and private dim. Bring on dual-mode thinking!