CARBON KILLERS

Mothers and other good citizens in fracking country -- New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and beyond-- are ardently protesting the dangers and foolishness of violating the earth and its precious groundwaters to squeeze out the last of once vast oil and natural gas resources that we have burned through over the last century.  Little reported in mainstream media are mothers who have gone to jail over deep convictions that we need to get off fossil fuels ASAP.

DC-based World Resources Institute (WRI) points out how growth-stimulating it will be to aim for a world “net-zero” on carbon emissions by mid-century. That’s a dazzlingly bold assertion in the US. WRI is speaking to world leaders who are expected to conclude an agreement next fall in Paris. Some question whether even so radical a shift is enough. The damages of Climate Chaos are already upon us!

The Top 10 emitter countries account for 70% of the world total.

Getting Our Heads around the Problem

How do we as individuals understand this? Here’s a dimensioning game to help bring it to daily personal life.  Imagine a ton of carbon dioxide. It fills a balloon of 32 feet (10+m). Each day, about 60,000 of them are added to Father Air, who loves Mother Earth so passionately, for each and every American! (That’s based on UN estimates of world annual GHG production at 49 billion tons. World per capital estimate is 20,000. Americans are voracious energy users, although others are worse. Tripling the world figure gets a fair guess of 60,000 for the US average.)

 That’s a lot of bubbles in the sky! A progression Southern California clean services company is helping us this by its Emissions Time Bomb. It is a 32-foot inflatable balloon by EcoMotion.

Transportation is only part of this world-transforming upsurge in greenhouse gases that is altering  our climate in ways that are already costly.  Power generation dominates GHG generation. Estimates for the share of all modes of transport are in the low twenties.  So urban transport accounts for “only” about one-fifth of total GHG generation.

Will we look up to a sustainable future?

Seeing a Way Forward for Podcars

If WRI has its way, all GHG generation will need to be phased out.  Clearly that includes transportation, and more specifically urban transportation.  More travel should be walking, biking and shared modes. All vehicles need to be electric and the power source cannot be fossil fuels.

Cars are already getting smarter and cleaner. SUVs and all kinds of road hogs may soon follow. Batteries are a big deal due to their weight and range limits. Inductive power from roadway infrastructure to vehicle may solve the problem, but it’s not here today.  

A Bubble A Day

Today we have lots of cars. In years to come, they should increasingly be electric. That does mean battery weight and chemical disposal needs. It also brings on operator recharging or replacement needs.  Future electric vehicles will be thirsty for easy recharging options.

The guideways needed for classical PRT - secured with its own exclusive powered network of “track” of some sort - can make money if it is open up to non-system vehicles by purchase “dual-mode” mileage. How many fewer 32-foot bubbles will pollute our atmosphere?

IS LONDON SMARTER, OR PARIS?

RATP transit leaders in Paris brag that they have reduced staff on Line 1 from 250 when it was in classic mode with drivers (or operators or conductors) aboard each train. Today the upgraded driverless line needs a staff of only 40. There similar driverless systems at CDG and Orly airports, in addition to driverless Line 14 that opened last century.

In London, all three airports have APMs, but none of the Tube lines are fully automated. When plans to retrofit them to driverless were announced, unions shouted that it would compromise public safety. Today they kick and groan about an order of new Tube cars that will be capable of unmanned operation, maybe by 2030.

In London, leaders are excited about CrossRail -- a mega-project to create express east-west service for Greater London.Paris did this thirty years ago with the first RER line. There are now three lignes of the Reseau Expres Regional (regional express network) elaborated with several branches. Happy catch-up, London!

Aramis was tested outside Paris in the 1980s.

There are, however, no automated transit networks (ATNs) in Paris. RATP ran a test track in the 1980s, dubbed Aramis, but abandoned the concept as too sophisticated and dismantled the track. London at least has a shuttle at Heathrow Airport with one end a two-pronged fork that in theory has ATN functionality.

Podcar-Fed Metros?

One London driverless transit project stands out as an outstanding example of staged development coordinated with massive real estate construction, While without off-line stations and the non-stop service that is the hallmark of ATN, it catalyzed redevelopment in the old port district downstream from Parliament and the Financial District. Known as the DLR (Dockland Light Railway), it is a huge success by most measures. One wonders why there aren’t more DLR-like projects all around the English capital, including less dense districts where ATNs make sense.

Paris, meanwhile, is charting out a grand transit-oriented future centered on a driverless metro ring (with branches) known as Grand Paris - usable in both French and English. Its technology will be like Line 14 or the upgraded Line 1 -- capable of carrying the high linear passengers flows expected of metros.

What will feed Grand Paris stations?

Grand Paris stations will handle large passenger flows, and many of them will benefit from local circulation projects that can capture increased real estate value. Next-generation Aramis projects, well planned and run, could make Grand Paris even greater.

Paris, London and the world will learn more at PCC9 next fall.

THERE IS NO PLANET B!

American tree-hugger Bill McKibben can take pride in the “landmark” global wakeup call that he and countless others organized September 21 -- start of fall -- in New York City. At first the number of participants was estimated at a little over 100,000. The next day the New York Times reported over 300,000. Now 400,000+ is accepted. 

The Times gave only token coverage to a “spectacle” that even blasé Manhattan had to notice.  The March ended in a moment of silence that exploded into noise - clapping, drumming, blowing trumpets, and shouts and screams in a myriad of accents and tones. The message was loud and clear: it is time to put the burning of fossil fuel into our past!

The establishment media gave almost no coverage to the March before the event.  It reminded many of the disconnect between that same “establishment” and anti-war protests over Vietnam in the 1960s.

Global Political Attention

The2014 People’s Climate March was timed two days before a high-level UN Summit on Climate Change, attended by Secretary Ban Ki-Moon. President Obama and scores of other heads of state from every continent attended. The Summit identified three areas needing immediate attention for consideration in a treaty to be finalized and signed next fall in Paris. In the US, it would then need Congressional ratification and ink on paper. Preservation of tropical forest and better ways to grow and prepare food are two of them.

Harvard's Chuck Harris saw PRT in the mix last century. He still does!

The third priority deals directly with transportation. Perhaps disappointing to many PRT promoters, it does not call for R&D to demonstrate podcars or ATN or whatever label you prefer. It does call for 30 percent of vehicles sold in 2030 to be electric and buildup of their enabling infrastructure, and also unspecified urban mobility options.

How modest this is to advanced transit thinkers and doers. No doubt McKibben and most of the marchers are all for better public transit, walking and biking improvements, and community-based ride-sharing schemes. This green urban vision needs to be fleshed out - with the color and flavor of Greenville’s Swamp Rabbit Trail and the new multi-modal station design on the Morgantown PRT in West Virginia.

Divestiture is the Start

The moneyed Rockefeller Foundation got almost as much attention from New York media when it announced just before the Climate March its decision to dump stocks in companies that pollute to peddle fossil fuels. Vermont and many universities are moving in that direction. The long-term goal is to sever the future from those who make profit on fossil fuels. That will lead to a better future with all electric transport, much of it on guideways that are really long electric plugs.

Planet A, We Love You!

Maybe Planet B will have unlimited sustainable energy. For now, we’re stuck with Planet A.  Our work is to cut out for us, and it’s not just replenishing the Highway Trust Fund ($206 billion over four years, with $72 billion for transit and $19 billion in the yet to be enacted Green America Act proposed by the White House. Where are ped/bike and ride-sharing projects? And where is PRT?

Planet A gets lots of sun. The People’s Climate March and UN Summit were meant as wake up calls. Earthlings, Unite!

PCC8 BRINGS ATN CLOSER TO PUBLIC TRANSIT

The 8th Podcar City conference just held near Stockholm's Arlanda Airport brought the 50 year old concept of PRT several steps closer to the reality of urban public transport. Small in size but rich in dialog, the discussions included a peek at the Assessment of the Automated Transit Network Industry soon to be released by San Jose University's Mineta Transportation Institute. One major conclusion is that the ability to deliver a 10-station network is within reach and that urban planners and transit officials can advance such plans with technological confidence.

ATN can strengthen conventional rail transit.

Ingmar Andreasson of LogistikCentrum presented results of sophisticated analysis of ways that ATN capacity can be increased to levels comparable to rail modes by coupling vehicles, using larger vehicles and allowing trips to be scheduled to multiple destinations. Bengt Gustafsson described strategies to gradually introduce ATN in ways that reduce risks.

Suppliers Vectus and Ultra reported on their growing experience with ATN operations in South Korea and at London;s Heathrow Airport. China's Tubenet presented their previously unknown concept that uses small vehicles running under guiderails and solar collectors and plans for a 4km, 12-station test line to be running in three years. Simulation of a 446km network for Xian (population 4 million) has been done. Given China's growing economic might, Tubenet introduces a new dynamic into world ATN developments.

The PCC8 program for the first included a debate of candidates from four parties vying for votes in this weeks elections in Sweden. All agreed that a pilot ATN project linking Arlanda Airport to five growth nodes planned nearby.

MULTI-MODAL SWEDEN

Sweden more any other country in the world has analyzed podcar applications in its cities and towns, comparing them to other modes. None has built. So far these visions has stayed at the thought level -- something to do to keep balanced during the short days of long dark winters.

Visioning community spaces is fun!

Being a nation of only nine million people with a third concentrated in and around Stockholm, Sweden has a long list of small towns where multi-modal PRT analysis has taken place. Umea, Eskilstuna, Varmdo, Flemingsburg, Upplands Vasby, Kiruna, Bolanderna, Gavle, V, Froelunda, and Sodertalje. They have also been done for Stockholm’s academic district and as a rail station distributor in Uppsala.  Much of this work has been done by Ingmar Andreasson and Goran Tegner, but there are many others who have contributed to these impressive efforts. Multi-modal analysis goes well beyond the study of whether PRT is feasible.

Andreasson is a native of Sweden’s second largest city, Gothenburg, where APM and PRT studies have been done, most recently for the campus of Chalmers Institute of Technology. Tegner residents on a lovely island suburb connected by rail, road and water to Stockholm.

Thinking through junctions in Sweden is serious.

Tegner and Andreasson presented a paper on one of the most advanced of these multi-modal studies for a Greater Stockholm big box retail district know as King’s Curve. Site of the original and the largest Ikea store, most of the 42,000 people who travel there to shop and work come by car. Bus ridership was estimated to be 5% - which would be impressive in the US, but low for transit-friendly Stockholm.

Forecasts of 50% growth in shopping and traffic  were in place. Local officials from the city of Huddinge had ambitions to preserve its community as a sustainable society.  A dense PRT network was proposed to connect residential and shopping areas to a metro station with 12 km guideway and 12 stations. Two remote stations were inside major parking structures to the north and south.  

With PRT in place, it was calculated that King’s Curve transit share would more than triple to twenty percent, seventeen percent using PRT. Andreasson and Tegner concluded that PRT would provide an environmental-friendly and attractive com­plement to the private car that would increase metropolitan  metro and bus travel.

Based on input from Ultra, Taxi2000 and the currently inactive Australian PRT effort Austrans, a per-km average of €6m ($8m at today’s rate), about one-third the cost of LRT.

What could have been outside Stockholm.

Simulations showed  a 8 percent reduction in car traffic in 2015 with PRT. Without PRT the growth in car traffic might be 40 percent. The social analysis identified that the following benefits:

• Travel time Savings for car users and for public transport users
• Reduced road congestion, both on regional roads and  inside King’s Curve
• PRT vehicle & station comfort & convenience gains
• Reduced air pollution emissions
• Traffic safety gains
• Increased land values due to reduced surface car parking 

Andreasson and Tegner ten years ago surveyed potential podcar suppliers and analyzed configurations for King’s Curve for Ultra, SkyWeb Express (Taxi 2000), Flyby (a Scandinavian-Korean venture that evolved into Vectus PRT). They found  SkyWeb Express the least costly but needing a full-sized test track.

BIG OIL’S LIES

The sweet sound of Big Oil (and Natural Gas) money regularly tells the American people not to worry any more about importing energy from rogue Venezuela, unreliable Nigeria or volatile Iraq. Seductive television ads spread a happy message that the USA will soon export abundant oil and natural gas resources thanks to “proven” and “safe” fracking -- a method of injecting chemical waters into the ground to loosen up reluctant oil/gas for consumption. Usually most of the chemical fluids are then sucked back up to be safely disposed of elsewhere.

Are we missing something here about side effects?  Does this sound like something you want happening in your neighborhood or near your water sources?

Is this China's road to prosperity?

Common Scientific Sense

It shouldn’t take a PhD to read the growing data. It is clear that fracking messes up groundwater systems and causes earthquakes (so far only small ones).  There are regular reports on this on www.ecowatch.org. Most scientists - someone’s count says 97% of them -- acknowledge that documented climate warming is indeed caused by human activities affecting the natural ecology around us. We are the problem.

What folly is fracking, no matter how much money it makes for a few! Energy company executives make millions of dollars a year. Landowners in the right spots get bonanzas in the thousands. They, of course, want us to ignore the costs to be paid down the line. Their what-me-worry visions are all for their profits. We, the people, can continue our lifestyles addicted to fossil fuels that are giving us increasingly erratic and violent weather.

A Roadmap to Sustainability

Thoughtful people agree that we should lessen our need to burn fossil fuels. Civic people appreciate that this will require governmental policies and programs, not just individual adjustments. Informed people know that technologies are in hand to give us clean, sustainable ground transport. We can start demonstrations in campuses and managed districts. These can be extended into citywide and then into large metropolitan networks, interfaced with airports and high-speed rail of some sort.

A select group of international technical experts who are aware of the steady progress in designing, financing and implementing ATN in its many forms, will meet in Stockholm September 3-5 to plot out a roadmap for sustainable transportation. Come join us.

TAMPA AIRPORT INNOVATION - PAST, PRESENT AND ... FUTURE?

When Tampa International Airport (TPA) opened in 1971, a whole new way of configuring airport terminals took off. It changed the aviation world of airport planning. TPA is today adding a landside APM to car rentals, parking and transit. It is being designed in intermodal fashion to accommodate future ATN links to a thriving airfront district known as Westshore. This would likely unleash a new revolution in airport development. No wonder this airport regularly wins top ranks and awards!

The TPA terminal complex was designed to pamper passengers -- often elderly who walk with difficulty and fun-seeking tourists who have many choices. Parking-to-gate walking distance is less 700 feet, accomplished by pairs of APM shuttles radiating out from the Main Terminal to up to six airside concourses. Two decades later, a driverless monorail was built into a new large parking garage to adhere to the 700’ rule.

TPA's Main Terminal with parking garage

Car rentals take up several levels of that garage. To decongest the Main Terminal area, airport officials will move them to a a site near the roadway entrance to the airport. This is known in airport circles as a Consolidated Rental Car Facility (ConRAC). A third APM will make it work -- much like has happened successfully at much busier airports in Atlanta and Miami. 

Over the years, airside concourses have been added, modified and demolished, adapting to traffic levels and airline preferences. All the original APM vehicles have been replaced, and controls have been upgraded. The monorail is to be rehabbed or replaced in 2018.

TPA air traffic rose from 10 million in 1973 to 14m in 1979, 16 million in 1996, peaking at 19 million in 2007. It has hovered low due to the Great Recession of 2008. Last year it was 17 million.

PODS ON TPA’S FAR HORIZON

There is no immediate need to increase airport capacity, so TPA is investing in other improvements. One program will enlarge and improve the main terminal with Sweden’s Skanska as DB contractor. The plan includes relocating a few stations of the shuttles to provide more interior space. The other is the new 2.1km, 3-station APM for the ConRAC intermodal complex described above. It is targeted for a 2017 opening.  An intermediary station will serve existing economy (remote) parking. The ConRAC complex has plans for a new employee garage, airport offices, a hotel, retail and maybe planned metro and high-speed rail.

Satisfied with the driverless APM shuttles and monorail, both supplied and maintained by Bombardier, airport officials saw little reason to ponder PRT options for what has been designed as a high-volume link. Procurement is now active, with bids due September 5.

Concept of the Terminal station of the ConRAC link

The ConRAC complex is at the southern edge of the airport’s extensive property.  On the other side of the highway border is the modestly dense Westshore district of offices, hotels, retail and other facilities. This is all located strategically in the center of the sprawled Tampa Bay region, at the western edge of the city of Tampa across the bay from Clearwater and St. Petersburg. It is a prosperous commercial area with excellent long-term growth potential.

Airport officials have specified that the ConRAC complex be designed as an intermodal hub with the possibility to plug in, so to speak, other links, and here ATN may come into play. A visionary outlook is still alive and well at TPA.