Why We Must Electrify Transportation

[KingM34]

The time is coming when middle-class Americans will not be able to afford to drive a six thousand pound Hummer to the supermarket to buy a gallon of milk. Experts are divided as to whether the oil era is even now coming to a close or whether we have more time--perhaps as long as thirty years or more--but petroleum will get ever more expensive and difficult to acquire.

Those who believe in the future of the internal combustion engine point to the many alternative fuels that will save us: non-conventional oil, liquified coal, and biodiesel. Coal is abundant in this country and will be increasingly important as it remains relatively inexpensive, but the infrastructure required to liquify millions of barrels worth of oil is massive and will be politically difficult. In spite of its poor energy return on energy invested, biodiesel shows promise in some areas, but to replace even a small fraction of the 21 million barrels of oil the United States consumes every day would be next to impossible. Similarly, there are large non-conventional sources of oil in the form of oil shales and sands, but they are not as scalable as conventional sources.

Read the rest: http://theopinionator.com/energy/electrify_transportation1.html

[msongs]

1. get a Vespa for running local errands nt

[dcfirefighter]

2. Density is generally required

unless everyone is generally wealthy enough to afford one stored-electric vehicle / (biofuel assist maybe) for daily local use and another longer range one (perhaps shared or rented) for occasional out of town trips.

The density required depends on the amount of public money voters are willing to spend on transit, but the generally feeling that somewhere north of 9 housing units per acre is required. If the need for wide streets and two car garages is removed from the equasion, this could mean single family houses spaced fairly closely (36' wide houses 20' apart, lots are 90'+ deep), similar to 'old' suburbs. However this would require fairly generous local funding.

It's been observed that installation of fixed local transit assets, such as subway stations, significantly increase local land values. If zoning is permissive, high land values, and especially, high property taxes, tend to cause more intensive local development. (Firefighting Jargon, and I don't know if it's anywhere else, refers to a building with apartments/condos over street-level retail as a 'taxpayer'). The effect is compounded if taxes are relieved on the actual building - such that owners aren't penalized for providing more building on less space, encouraging efficient use of scarce land near transit stops.

In addition to density, a certain level of use mixing is required, namely the services, such as grocery retail, that a neighborhood uses, should be located within the neighborhood, such that walking / biking becomes a more attractive option.

There is a network utility achieved with larger transit systems: a transit stop on a 2 stop line isn't nearly as useful as a stop on a 30 stop network.

Ideally, local funding for regular local service mass transit (trams, bus-trams, metro) should be funded entirely out of local land value taxes, much like use of elevators in a buiding are funded by tenant leases. Eliminating fare collection speeds up boarding and makes transit more attractive. The marginal cost of adding a passenger to a tram that is already running is negligable. The benefit to transit-stop local properties is provided by increased foot traffic and/or increased network utility.

In less dense areas, or as an augmentation to a fixed stop-at-every stop fare-free tram or metro, I am hopeful that Personal Rapid Transit will prove viable. This would allow, for a fare, direct private routing from PRT station to PRT station, with little or no waiting for an available car. PRT takes the idea of smaller, more frequent trains to it's logical extreme, and couples it with off-the-main-line stations, allowing cars to remain at speed when bypassing non-terminal stations. The small car size also minimizes guideway costs, and allows the cars to be mounted on lighweight overhead rails. Such grade separation allows the cars to be operatorless and controlled from a network of scheduling computers. In short, PRT gives car-like convenience, uses wired electric power, at a reduced physical footprint cost: no parking, no garages, no 3 lane roads, no service stations, etc.

[NNadir]

3. You have some very creative ideas.

You think of approaches that are new to me and they are well thought out.

I'm not sure that I always agree that your ideas will prove workable, but damn if we don't need people who think like you do!

[tjwmason]

5. Electrification of rail is much easier than of road.

and when it is part of a well serviced mass-transit system (I'm most aware of the Tube in London) it becomes very convenient, and gets used.

Which brings us back to the main point - that we need to develop alternatives to our car use.

[NNadir]

4. I agree. One of the first things that must be electrified...

...are the railroads. This was planned in the 1950's and then abandoned.

A while ago we had a short thread on the subject of hybrid locomotives where some DUer's posted interesting stuff:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=50282