Tom Vanderbilt, the author of Traffic, is launching a month-long “hive” project at Slate called Nimble Cities. It asks for suggestions to improve urban mobility: “we want your best proposals for solving an increasingly relevant problem: how to move the most people around and between cities in the most efficient, safe, and perhaps even pleasurable manner.”?Tom thinks Freakonomics readers in particular might have some good ideas — you’ve been well-trained, after all — so head on over to Slate and make us proud.[%comments]
Step Up With Your Best Urban-Transportation Ideas
TAGS: transit, urban planning
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I think rechargeable electric motorcycles are a great idea given that most people travel alone — especially if EESTOR’s capacitors pan out.
We have dying cities. For the first time it is not due to war and destruction but economic attrition. Ironically one of the greatest forces remodeling European and Japanese cites and permitting modern city design and transit was the US Air Force.
A wing of B-24 bombers clears out a straight vacant lot through city centers. When the cities were rebuild, transportation corridors were natural, involving rail, bullet trains, subways, and street cars. German and Japan cities were redesigned and are the best in the world in mass transit.
A dying city is an oppurtunity. New Orleans, Detroit, Cleveland are losing people wholesale. Make these experimental labs for modern city planning and transportation.
Buy up old land cheap. Make clear corridors where you plan to have commerece and business and shopping. Invest in modern transit system and have room to expand in the future. Give Detroit a Subway. Make New Orleans a hub of Monorails. Make Cleveland a Bullet Train hub for a model system and also for manufacturing.
We don’t need bombs to clear out transit corridors when we have the mother of all bombs, the economy imploding. And for once the Not-In My Back Yard, NIMBY’s, are on the retreat.
can i try this one out here first.
i think trains need completely redesigning. instead of having big beasts transporting hundreds of people at once they should be made to look much more likevehicles on the road – a mixture of everything from a one passenger vehcile to a coach type thing. they would be very light and (if practical) the pwer source would be external (they could attach/detach to a moving cable between the rails). at stations anythign wanting to stop would have to elave the main rail and go up a slip road. theyw ould of course be driverless (this is the advantage of rails surely)
the advantages would be: much more flexibility; more efficent (moving a higher ratio of passnegers to kit); more fun.
OJ has a great idea..redesign the trains (think about the size of buses) that run like a monorail.
Powered by electricity…which is generated by its own source. The electricity is generated by
SOLAR stations…WIND turbines and sections of the Highway that have rails that as the cars drive over it generates electricity…all to power the system. What do you think? Is it a possibility?
Two:
1) Tax the size of vehicles based on square footage occupied. Most vehicle taxes are based on value. Well, tax size. Spot every driver a vehicle the size of a smart car, and tax at exponential rates from there. Reducing vehicle size would increase flow, right? It would also save on costs for parking, considering a massive amount of vehicles sit idle (not idling, I hope) for most of the day.
2) What about some modular vehicles that could be coupled together when additional seats were required? If all vehicles were 2 seat vehicles, and addtional modules could be easily added, perhaps with a standard coupling, then more capacity could be added only when needed. Taking a long trip? Rent a rear module for the kids just for the week.
I think the ONLY solution is fewer, smaller cars (or “personal vehicles” if it isn’t a car per se)
The most successful multi-mode transit system in the America works 7 days a week and 365 days a year. It never has breakdowns, treats passengers politely, never has worker strikes, is litter and graffiti free, runs on time 99% of the time, has no revenue problems and is real as your own vehicle. IT has been operating for decades without problems. And it is also fun.
IT is DISNEYWORLD.
Let the Disney Imagineers have a go at a pilot city. They have more working experience with monorail, steam trains, ferry boats, canoes, street cars, double deckers, horse and buggies, people movers, buses and even helicopters…than any transit district in America.
I want a Mickey Mouse Transit System!
Light rail and decent buses? duh, nothing really more innovative since the 1890s – since GM lobbied to gut our public transport systems in the 50s most US cities are inefficent and congested disasters, real estate bubbles and fear of desegrigation created the suburbs which are incredibly ineffienct both in energy and land use – now we ask for new ideas? for what? so we can continue to live away from “other people” while still living in our suburban fantasy? move back to the city any pony up the financing for decent light rail and god forbid – live like europeans (who are twice as energy efficient per unit GDP) – oh the horror!
Invent a time machine, go back in time, as many times as necessary (may not get it right the first time, may need to assassinate certain individuals or intervene otherwise), to create a more intelligent development pattern and dilute the influence of the car, oil, and tire industries in the stupid way the U.S. has developed.
Serious suggestions would require enough Americans to grow up, and I just don’t see that happening. We have examples of what can work – Portland Oregon, Curitiba Brasil, setups in Europe and elsewhere where people don’t rely on cars as much, walk more, bike more, use public transport more, and use a lot less fossil fuels.
Inner city transportation requires 3 things; simplicity, efficiency, and availability.
The solution is as easy as looking down: feet.
Simplicity – requires no new equipment or design. Put on decent shoes and walk.
Efficiency – designed by evolutionary processes, walking is the most efficient biological method of getting from point A to B.
Availability – pretty sure that 99+ % of humans have feet. Those who don’t have wheelchairs, which are also very efficient.
And to top it off, there is no requirement for expensive government committees or funding.