PROLOGUE This book envisions a transportation system for people, massive numbers of people, all traveling their unique door-to-door routes, all with their unique timing, and all in the comfort of their private vehicle. No trucks, no buses, no SUVs allowed. No stop signs, no red lights, no intersections. No transfers, no congestion. A transportation of people with time efficiency, space efficiency, and fuel efficiency. Automated, safe, pleasant to use. The writing argues that each of the transportation systems developed to date for people is doomed to failure. Doomed to failure when measured against the criteria demanded: speed, convenience, safety, capacity to serve many, freedom from congestion, ecological soundness, and cost. Systems included are the urban surface street, the urban freeway, and the “public” modes of bus, train, and subway. What we have today can be improved. While saluting the automobile and the automobile-based society, triumphs of the 20th Century enabling unparalleled mobility and freedom for the individual, the text will lament their obvious limitations. The automobile, so amazing in the 20th Century compared to the horse and buggy of the 19th, is so pathetic in the 21st when fettered by urban roadway and then compared to advances which other machines have brought in the 21st. The automobile-based society is rightly accused of promoting urban sprawl, and of being incapable of supporting dense, livable urban communities. Freeways, consuming space and destroying neighborhoods, are clearly incompatible with a compact metropolitan landscape. Yet, worldwide, the automobile is on a path to quadruple in number by 2050. Surface streets and highways are categorized as 1st generation roadway largely built with modern techniques from 1900 to 1950. Freeways built with controlled access and interchanges to replace intersections are categorized as 2nd generation and were largely built between 1950 to 2000. While these roadways continue to be built in areas into which cities and suburbs continue to expand, virtually no new construction continues in existing cities. The era in which they symbolized progress is over. Proposed is a 3rd generation of roadway for existing cities and suburbs; superimposed upon existing infrastructure, and using existing right-of-way. Small structures, supporting vehicles weighing only four times that of a human being, replace the huge elevated structures of the 2nd generation, built for vehicles weighing 400 times their most common user, the average human. Full, high capacity interchanges, also tiny in size by comparison to those of the 2nd generation, are to be built above the footprint of ordinary street intersections, and thus allow ubiquitous penetration of the urban interior. All traffic flows without interruption. Reliable computer networks, redundant sensors, electric motors, and speed-of-light communications assume control from human drivers — those marvelously adaptive and versatile creatures also exhibiting variable, error prone behavior, with wandering attention and reaction times approaching a full second. The computer drives the new roadway; the individual drives the local streets.As the 2nd generation freeway is additive to the 1st generation street, the proposed system coexists with the 1st and 2nd generation structures. But with electronically controlled spacings, uninterrupted traffic flow, and very short Cars, the 3rd Generation Roadway can move roughly 50 times the number of vehicles that a city street can when configured to fit on the small city street, and by a similar margin of 50, for a given width, compared to that of a freeway when configured for high speed. Door-to-door transit times will be roughly half that of today’s typical surface street trip, or of a mixed surface street/freeway trip. Parking density for a ‘public’ garage will be 10 times today’s, and allow convenient parking for all commuters to, say, New York’s Manhattan Island. Nationally, replacing roughly a quarter of all surface travel, the new Roadway’s control will save roughly seven thousand lives and half a million injuries a year. Compared to today’s U.S. fleet average of 21 mpg, fuel economy for the “car” fleet will be approximately 200 mpg when slip-streaming at high speed within a “train” on the new Roadway, and approximately 100 mpg on city streets. Propulsion by an electrified Roadway will constitute a much desired distribution network, and empower electric vehicles with modest, inexpensive battery packs. The new Roadway motivates the driver to buy a small vehicle, and then isolates them both for protection.
Thus, the 3rd Generation Roadway will enable a car-based society to support larger cities with increased population densities and allow them to properly function with convenient transportation. Larger cities will be free to safely evolve without traffic congestion, with transportation for their very mobile citizens consuming only 2% of today’s U.S. per-capita total energy budget. Fast, convenient transportation will allow citizens to truly incorporate large metropolitan areas as their neighborhood.
Presented is a vision. But only a vision. While sufficient detail is given to communicate this vision to the university academic, the transportation professional, the politician, the enthusiast, and to the average Joe stuck at a traffic light, each will read the book differently. To the academic it is a proof of principle or notional design. To the urban planner it is an idea to be measured against various proposals for future urban scenes. The politician or sociologist may see a daunting challenge with potentially massive impact. But to a local or regional transportation department the detail is utterly, totally inadequate. More than a dream, less than a plan. Perhaps the average Joe should simply ask, “When?” and “How much?” Formatted to engage the reader by illustrating societal impact, technical feasibility, and overall affordability, the proposed approach, although buttressed here with sound logic, will need further critique and study. The writing’s tone is that of an observant citizen, a veteran of the wars; a citizen who can’t do the politics, but can do the math. It is half commentary on a society wrestling with a difficult problem, half focused on first principles like a poor man’s Feynman physics lecture. Intended as an easy read, at least for the numerically literate — better yet for the numerically facile and empathetic — the writing guides the reader to see what the numbers mean, feel the driver’s plight, hear the din of the ensuing traffic jam, and then, to understand the changes the 3rd Generation Roadway would bring. It is neither an engineering text nor a scholar’s book, but comes without footnotes, generates simple models, and attempts to engender critical thought using traceable calculations derived from easily verifiable data. Harbor no doubts, the approach is futuristic. In evaluating impact on individuals, communities, and nations, many technologies and operational approaches are assumed at full flower. Paradigms need disruption. And paradigms do not fall easily. But the book details elementary examples of the necessary components and highlights a number of maturing technologies now emerging in use. How such a system would be operated is clearly outlined. Thus all but the most cynical of readers will find plausibility —and wonder, “Why not?” The dream is not new. Many mull similar thoughts. But though many a bored fourth grader, staring at the map on the schoolroom wall, cleverly concluded Africa and South America must once have been a single land mass, success for the Theory of Continental Drift came only with an understanding of its fundamental mechanisms, its profound effects, and the ability to see it happening today on the ocean’s floor. So too for the 3rd Generation Roadway. The trick is to understand its potential, to engineer it, make it real, to make it happen.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Prologue ................................................................ 5 Figures & Tables ........................................................ 9 U.S. Transportation Statistics and the Models to be Used Here............ 11 Chapter 1: An Introduction 14 Where we are today ...................................................... 16 A Brief History of Roadway .............................................. 27 Some Plans for Tomorrow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Chapter 2: The Intersection as Villain 46 Today’s Intersection .................................................... 47 Failures of the 1st Generation........................................... 57 Freeways: The 2nd Generation . . .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . . 69 Public Transportation ................................................... 83 Chapter 3: The Rail Car 94 Size, Weight, & Power.................................................... 100 Top Speed, Fuel Efficiency, & Safety ................................... 109 On the Rail ............................................................ 119 Chapter 4: The 3rd Generation Roadway 128 The New Urban Grid: Where do we Build it? ............................... 129 The Roadway Above the Streets: What do we build?......................... 148 Interchanges and Interfaces ............................................. 184 Chapter 5: Parking Structures 206 The Public Parking Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Street and Lot Parking . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. 212 Chapter 6: Automated Traffic Control 216 Sensors: A World of Capability........................................... 220 Distributed Control: Checks and Balances ................................ 226 Chapter 7: Anticipating the Cost 236 Acceptable cost.......................................................... 238 Probable cost............................................................ 247 Chapter 8: A Thousand Ways to Die 254 Opposition: Death by a Hundred Blows ..................................... 256 Challenges: Road maps, Research, and Priming the Pump..................... 265 Commentary and Suggested Reading......................................... 280 Epilogue ................................................................ 286 About the Author......................................................... 288 TABLES & FIGURES Fig. 1–1 Truck on a Highway............................................ 28 Fig. 1–2 Automobile Platoon on the Intelligent Highway. . . . . . . . . . 31 Fig. 1–3 A-F Developments in Personal Rapid Transit...................... 37–39 Fig. 2–1A-C Intersections ............................................... 47-48 Fig. 2–2 Man and His Freeway............................................ 71 Fig. 2–3 Evening Traffic on the 405. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Fig. 2–4 L.A. Traffic at 5 pm........................................... 75 Fig. 2–5 Sixteen Hours of LA Traffic................................... 77–78 Fig. 2–6 Space Needed for Various Travelers............................. 79 Fig. 2–7 Miles traveled on US Roadways................................. 81 Fig. 3–1 Photoshopped Smart Car ....................................... 101 Fig. 3–2 A Small Second Model.......................................... 102 Fig. 3–3 The Volkswagen 1 L............................................. 105 Fig. 3–4 A-B Top Speeds and Accelerations............................... 113 Fig. 3–5 Car Profiles Showing Rail Adapters............................. 123 Fig. 4–1 Areas Needed for Interchanges................................ 130 Fig. 4–2 Local Rail Line Routes for Manhattan Beach................... 132 Fig. 4–3 Metropolitan Rail Line Routes for the Los Angeles Basin ..... 134–135 Fig. 4–4 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Generation Roadway Comparisons............. 143 Fig. 4–6 A-B A Simple Span Using Cables; A Suspension Bridge ......... 154 Fig. 4–7 A Concrete Skeleton Design................................... 157 Fig. 4–8 A Vertically stacked Roadway Span............................ 159 Fig. 4–9 A-C A Compressed Arch Design ................................ 160–162 Fig. 4–10 Another Suspension Type Bridge.............................. 163 Fig. 4–11 A-D Various Roadway Alignments.............................. 165–168 Fig. 4–12 Roadway Rails and Wheels.................................... 170 Fig. 4–13 A-B A Monorail Doobie & the Seattle Monorail ............... 172 Fig. 4–14 A Ski lift Doobie........................................... 173 Fig. 4–15 A-B Rail Interior Doobies: a schematic & a photograph....... 173 Fig. 4–16 The Railroad Switching Scheme............................... 174 Fig. 4–17 A Ski lift Switch........................................... 176 Fig. 4–18 A Rail Interior Switch...................................... 177 Fig. 4–19 A Gliding Supporting........................................ 179 Fig. 4–20 A Magnetically Levitated Support............................ 183 Fig. 4–21A-B A Round-about Interchange Schematic and Illustration .... 187 Fig. 4–22 A-B A Cloverleaf Interchange Schematic and Photograph....... 191 Fig. 4–23 Cross Sections of a Barrel Roll Interchange ................ 193 Fig. 4–24 A-B A Barrel Roll Interchange Schematic and Illustration ... 194–195 Fig. 4–25 Anticipated Accelerations................................... 198 Fig. 4–26 A-B A Four Level Interchange Schematic...................... 200 Fig. 4–27 A High Speed Interchange Schematic ......................... 201 Fig. 4–28 An Interchange Size comparison.............................. 202 Fig. 5–1 A Rail Car Parking Garage—Illustration ...................... 209 Fig. 5–2 A Volkswagen Automobile Storage Facility..................... 210 Fig. 5–3 Lot Parked Rail Cars—Drawing................................. 213 Fig. 5–4 Street Parked Rail Cars—Drawing ............................. 213 Fig. 5–5 Street Parked Smart Cars—Photograph.......................... 214 Fig. 8–1 The Chicago Elevated Rail..................................... 260 Fig. 8–2 A-B The Seattle Monorail...................................... 276 Table 1–1 The Automobile as Major Killer................................ 23 Table 2–1 Traffic Data for California Highway 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Table 2–2 Intersection Traffic Data..................................... 53 Table 2–3 Delay at an Intersection...................................... 53 Table 2–4 Average Speeds................................................ 54 Table 2–5 Urban Average Speed vs... Speed Limit......................... 54 Table 2–6 Small Town Street Capacity.................................... 60 Table 2–7 Big Town Street Capacity...................................... 65 Table 3–1 Specifications for Various Vehicles on the Road............... 107 Table 4–5 Travel Times Comparison....................................... 146
