we like to surf, watch movies, cook with friends, and adventure into our vast wilds. but tehy way things are, we wont be able to do it forever, and by doing certain things we deny our children that type of lifestyle.
we need to re-think our energy consumption habits if we want some semblance of our way of life to continue for them. allot of the reasoning why people want personal vehicles is an extension of that need for control; we want to have the ability to pick up milk at 1 in the morning; as teenagers, we want ability to visit our forbidden sweet hearts; and as adults we want to continue that freedom to get stuff done to profit.
but the problem is that the gas goes old in our lawnmowers, our under-used recreational vehicles, and our economy suffers to it- a bit now but much more later.
a train based economy would be much more efficient, thus effective, though the investment costs would require allot of infrastructure work to bring it up to speed.
people don't use trains because they are overwhelmingly:
- inconvienent
- unrelyable
- delayed
the lack of use ensures this and creates a feedback loop which leads to more cars on the roads and more congested rush-hours. but what if we optumized the system for Work? what if we used algorithms to use tracks around the clock and to have them at night be adjusted to move proportionally more freight, and during the day more people, with specialized cars for the peak times- so that at all times the engines would be running and moving valuable cargo from place to place?
if we made it so most distributers could rely on the trains to the same degree as the 22 wheel truck drivers (aka semi drivers). then allot of the trucks and cars would be able to kept more local generally and only go vast distances for recreational travel, which would free up the roadways- nearly entirely.
from an entrepreneurial perspective. if you could get a Semi worth of goods in the middle of the night, for nearly nothing, then you could share the semi driver you employ with other companies, so more goods are moved with less total labor.
from an young adult's perspective, if you could get to an interview without needing both a car and insurance, and were able to rely on trains to the degree that even if you miss one train you still could catch one and only be a couple minutes late (rather than 15 to 30 min) then continuing the behavior when employed you would have allot more discretionary income.
from a family perspective, if you could bring your kids on a train, and get to most general places a family would be inclined to go
from a youth's perspective, if a kid could get on a train and get around the city then with a group of friends they could celebrate joy and go to various malls or w/e
from a (young) ladies perspective, if there are major counter measures to make sure young ladies feel protected, or secure in their autonomy. through safeguards against various violent actions, then they would feel more inclined to travel alone and more safe in general.
... and the list continues. there are many many things to be gained by getting mass-public transportation functioning.
if you add in a few features like:
wifi
college style panic buttons
lounge style cars
business style cars with rooms for private meetings
freight cars
programs/applications
subsidized/free fares
station updates.
sound proof cars
and bathrooms
then with minimal expense one reshapes how common business takes place within the society, still keeping in touch with the fast paced, future driven ideal america is built on.
the wifi makes the freedom of autonomy relevant. so what if you can do whatever you wish if you don't have a constant internet connection? the selling point fails since print media is antiquated.
the panic buttons help people feel more secure, and wards off potential attackers.
'lounge cars' with larger, more comfortable chairs use classical conditioning to get people off of the rush-hour grind mentality by rewarding those who continue to use the transit for recreation and weird hours. it helps reduce the wasted power/work generated by ridiculously large engines.
business cars running just before the rush hour. allows people to have their morning meetings on the train, rather than only once they get to brick and mortar buildings, help the flow of ideas and reduce the innovator time the beurocrats waste.
freight cars which basically take semis and transport them around town with unused load capacity, allows the off peak times to still contribute value so that a single lounge style passenger car can be dragged along, picking up people at the off times.
having programs and applications in a server cloud giving people alerts and offering an automated tour or the sites allows people to get personalized alerts for when they are about to arrive, station news, places of business near the next station, and similar updates. allow personalized experiances to increase incentive to use the public transit.
subsidized (or even free) fares allow people to use public transport rather than burning oil, which allows oil reserves in the US to build up and can sink the price of oil for recreation, since the ecconomy isn't totally built on the resource.
stations updated (some already have these) to have when the next train in each direction will arrive will create a sense of reliability and viability whether one should wait or take a cab or whatnot.
sound proof cars would make the use of anything audio related more feasible. cause if the ride was as close to velvet as riding on brand new pavement, there would be more inclination to enjoy the ride.
bathrooms offer people the ability to get on the train they need to without worry of an 'accident'.
now all of this would be really expensive. the infrastructure in many places would need to be overhauled, and in some it would need to be outright created. but the return on this kind of investment would be many fold over because it would last. in some places in the US, there are some really great regional rails. but even these railways could be improved for the benefit of ALL the communities they go through.
something we need to take from the best of our railways is how many stations they have, and how demographically diverse they are. by having stations in all of the nearby metropolitan hoods so that people could easily get to the station then the use of the station will skyrocket.
so the problems with the network in the northwest are:
- that in order to get to a station you have to generally go 10 -15 miles. which is too far and you feel you might as well drive the whole way, which means you have ot get into traffic and you contribute to the clog.
- bad public exposure so that you don't know at every stop where every other stop is. or even when that stop next arrives- at the station.
- poorly designed number of stops to create a really inefficient queing system. solely because it would require automated computational support to help people know a less-intuitive quickest way to get to their station.
- not enough trains running to keep people within 5 or even 10 min of their projected arrival times.
- no exposure about what kinds of stops they are, or whether they have parking.
- no diversity of transport no matter the time you get the same service, and the only transportation of goods is basically limited to basically a backpack, suitcase, briefcase, and a bicycle.
here is an example of a great train system:
for comparison, here is the portland trimet system:
so there is a linear line, with a couple major branches off. the major branches hit most of the stops they need to. most of beaverton (one of the nearby towns) are near either the portland - hilsborro branch, or the hall nimbus station. except the hall nimbus station only runs on weekdays. so those near that line it still have to have a vehicle to get into the city on weekends.
and while ran by a 'competing' company the other major rail transit company, amtrak, isn't mentioned anywhere on the site.
http://www.amtrakcascades.com/Schedules.htm
(map wasn't easily embed-able)
the amtrak allows most of the major cities missed by trimet to be visited. which if made public, would decrease congestion tremendously and increase business for both companies.
note how the eugene train arrives in portland by banker's hours (9am-5pm).
the ridiculous bit is how people from eugene can get to portland anyday and partake in the local amenities for a day out, easier than people who live much closer. that convenience factor should be reversed, especially because it forces people into the common approach to a 40 hour work week which contributes to the clog.
beyond that there is a lack of investment in constant routes.
something like:
the map is okay as a spur of the moment sort of thing, but when you are having cargo going the exact same way day in and day out, there needs to be an optimized route to handle the flow and increase energy efficiency. tillamook has lost of products it ships around the northwest and lots of people enjoy going to the beach. many find going to the beech tiring and so many would like to be able to nap on a train ride rather than get a hotel room or drive back late into the night.
the way this should be run is boolean. there should be portland, tillamook and one stop in between functioning as a hub. for the 1/4 near portland you use portland buses (sell to tri-met). you get all your buses in the middle to operate from the middle hub for the middle half of the stops. and then the train goes straight to tillamook.
the slight in convenience of the lack of stops, will be payed off by the value generated. you can have one bus doing the middle route on a loop. starting at the first arrival of the day delivering people in one direction, then it picks up people on the way back, most get off at the main station, the people doing their layover stuff get picked up, and the buss goes the other way. the buses (including present routes) could be replaced by trolleys later on. further invigorating the struggling tourist based economies.
more importantly the amount of capital generated by having all the frieght moving from the rural outskirts into the major city reliably will create lower demands on certain career choices. and it will be offset by having tillamook and the beach integrated to be a more common weekend getaway, creating more value in the city of portland even a hundred miles away.
that inconvenience also creates a contemporary 'stagecoach town' where people spend their layover investing in local goods and services. perhaps getting a bite to eat while looking at local, rural wares. giving demand for a farmer's market, further enhancing local economies.
now why should the investment happen?
why now rather than later and why invest at all?
why now? because whether or not we choose to continue to hesitate- it doesn't make our competitors over seas choose the same destructive ends.
why at all? simply because the notion of closed off economies is ridiculously antiquated, the only way to keep capital local is to make it able to go out and come in un-infringed, and when it comes to sub-economies, like towns. aiding sales by increasing traffic will increase tax revenue through the businesses which employ the majority of the workforce. which spreads the wealth across a larger number of prominent families and stabilizes the economy. it returns our ability to achieve greatness, so the american dream is becomes the american reality.
we choose what we do, we choose which actions and force ourselves to succeed or fail but today i ask you heroically give up a small portion of that personal choice, and choose to value our communities instead. i ask you try join me in the laying of steel, bring back the booming boon of industry through the honorable act of making the world better. for wives, and children, and husbands- for everyone- our economy will return, better than ever before.
but we need you to voice your want for our better world or nothing will be done.
