Roger Davidheiser

METROPOLITAN TRANSPORT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY ROGER DAVIDHEISER A special thanks goes to Rosecrans Avenue, without whose development this book This work is both a stinging indictment of the system by which we drive, would not have been possible. and — as written by an engineer — a proposal to vastly improve our lot with a new type of road — roadway that now appears both affordable and tech- The dozen signal controlled intersections, 11 of which are fully sequenced, in the nically feasible, that would change how we use a city, how we plan a city, three miles between the surf and the 405, have been an inspiration. and how we use energy. — The editors Praise for The Third Generation Roadway “Amazing in scope [the book] brings a breath of fresh air to urban gridlock [and] invites you to explore a future in which mass transit is conducted with individual vehicles, environmental sustainability, and operational safety.” —Michael A. Perovich Director, Caltrans District 8, 2005–2008; Senior Resident Engineer of I –110 Harbor Transitway and Viaduct, 1990 – 1995 “A vision worthy of serious consideration in addressing America’s 21st century surface transportation challenges” —The Honorable Daniel S. Goldin NASA’s longest-serving Chief Administrator, 1992 – 2001 “…better urban landscapes enabled by innovation in transportation The Third Generation Roadway … increased personal mobility in more sustainable cities promised by By Roger Davidheiser emerging technology … This work relays new possibilities in the realms of Copyright © 2011 by Roger Davidheiser land use and transportation studies.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any — Meredith Dang means except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, Land Use Transportation Coordinator, Houston-Galveston Area Council newspaper or newsletter without permission in writing from the publisher. The publisher takes no Member of the American Institute of Certified Planners responsibility for use of materials in, or for the factual accuracy of any portion of, this book. ISBN: 978-1-891118-66-8 Published by Wind Canyon Books PO Box 7035 Stockton, California 95267 1-800-952-7007 Email: [email protected] www.windcanyonbooks.com Book design: Jayme Yen Computer renderings: Jorma Beckstrom his book envisions a transportation system for people, massive numbers of people, all traveling their unique door-to-door routes, T 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, tri- umphs 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, world- wide, 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 PROLOGUE 5 street intersections, and thus allow ubiquitous penetration of the urban a traffic light, each will read the book differently. To the academic it is a interior. All traffic flows without interruption. Reliable computer net- proof of principle or notional design. To the urban planner it is an idea to works, redundant sensors, electric motors, and speed-of-light communi- be measured against various proposals for future urban scenes. The politi- cations assume control from human drivers — those marvelously adaptive cian or sociologist may see a daunting challenge with potentially massive and versatile creatures also exhibiting variable, error prone behavior, with impact. But to a local or regional transportation department the detail is wandering attention and reaction times approaching a full second. The utterly, totally inadequate. More than a dream, less than a plan. Perhaps the computer drives the new roadway; the individual drives the local streets. average Joe should simply ask, “When?” and “How much?” As the 2nd generation freeway is additive to the 1st generation street, Formatted to engage the reader by illustrating societal impact, techni- the proposed system coexists with the 1st and 2nd generation structures. cal feasibility, and overall affordability, the proposed approach, although But with electronically controlled spacings, uninterrupted traffic flow, and buttressed here with sound logic, will need further critique and study. The very short Cars, the 3rd Generation Roadway can move roughly 50 times writing’s tone is that of an observant citizen, a veteran of the wars; a citizen the number of vehicles that a city street can when configured to fit on the who can’t do the politics, but can do the math. It is half commentary on a small city street, and by a similar margin of 50, for a given width, compared society wrestling with a difficult problem, half focused on first principles to that of a freeway when configured for high speed. Door-to-door transit like a poor man’s Feynman physics lecture. Intended as an easy read, at times will be roughly half that of today’s typical surface street trip, or of a least for the numerically literate — better yet for the numerically facile and mixed surface street/freeway trip. Parking density for a ‘public’ garage will empathetic — the writing guides the reader to see what the numbers mean, be 10 times today’s, and allow convenient parking for all commuters to, feel the driver’s plight, hear the din of the ensuing traffic jam, and then, say, New York’s Manhattan Island. Nationally, replacing roughly a quar- to understand the changes the 3rd Generation Roadway would bring. It is ter of all surface travel, the new Roadway’s control will save roughly seven neither an engineering text nor a scholar’s book, but comes without foot- thousand lives and half a million injuries a year. Compared to today’s U.S. notes, generates simple models, and attempts to engender critical thought fleet average of 21 mpg, fuel economy for the “car” fleet will be approxi- using traceable calculations derived from easily verifiable data. mately 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 Harbor no doubts, the approach is futuristic. In evaluating impact on indi- electrified Roadway will constitute a much desired distribution network, viduals, communities, and nations, many technologies and operational and empower electric vehicles with modest, inexpensive battery packs. The approaches are assumed at full flower. Paradigms need disruption. And new Roadway motivates the driver to buy a small vehicle, and then isolates paradigms do not fall easily. But the book details elementary examples of them both for protection. the necessary components and highlights a number of maturing technolo- Thus, the 3rd Generation Roadway will enable a car-based society to gies now emerging in use. How such a system would be operated is clearly support larger cities with increased population densities and allow them outlined. Thus all but the most cynical of readers will find plausibility — and to properly function with convenient transportation. Larger cities will be wonder, “Why not?” free to safely evolve without traffic congestion, with transportation for The dream is not new. Many mull similar thoughts. But though many their very mobile citizens consuming only 2% of today’s U.S. per-capita a bored fourth grader, staring at the map on the schoolroom wall, clev- total energy budget. Fast, convenient transportation will allow citizens to erly concluded Africa and South America must once have been a single truly incorporate large metropolitan areas as their neighborhood. land mass, success for the Theory of Continental Drift came only with an understanding of its fundamental mechanisms, its profound effects, and Presented is a vision. But only a vision. While sufficient detail is given to the ability to see it happening today on the ocean’s floor.

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