🚀 go-pugleaf

John Higdon <no-spam@RadioMonopoly.com> writes:
>in article 3A7CBA78.A085335A@quiotix.com, Jeffrey Siegal  wrote:
>> Mass transit *can* greatly reduce fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas
>> emission.  That's not to say that it does, today, in all cases.  But in
>> the future, if these issues become much greater concerns than they are
>> now, then it is possible that society will be restructured around
>> predominant use of mass transit.
>
>What about that vast number of people who don't live in urban areas? You
>know, small numbers of people who need to travel large distances to diverse
>destinations.

That's a good point.  Let me expand on it since it may not be obvious to
people who don't get out of the Bay Area much.  (Or LA for that matter,
since I see this thread has gotten cross-posted to la.transportation
somewhere along the way.)

Not even every urban area is large enough to support any more transit than
buses.  For example, a relative from Reno saw all the light rail construction
going on near where I live in San Jose and wondered why they can't also do
that in Reno.  As it turns out we found on the City of Reno's web site that
they've been asked that question before.  They simply don't have enough
population density needed to successfully support light rail, and cited
several numbers to show why.  (Reno's 1999 Census estimate was 320,000.
Reno boasts a title of "the biggest little city in the world.")

At least under current traditional operating methods, buses aren't going to
get a much more significant portion of riders from the population than it
already does.  (Current experiments in Bus Rapid Transit need more time to
show results in the US on improving the reputation of buses.)  Rails attract
a greater number under current methods but still small compared to cars even
in major urban areas.

And things can get a lot more rural than Reno.  Look at any area of the
Central Valley outside the cities.  Make transportation matters more difficult
by looking into the Sierras or the Cascades.  Any mountain village not on an
interstate freeway probably doesn't even have Greyhound service.

I lived for a few years in a rural mountain village in far-northern California
along I-5 where the larger number on the city limit signs was the elevation,
not the population.  Attending the junior college up there required a 10-mile
drive over a (snowy in Winter) mountain pass to a similar-sized small town.
I know that we sometimes had to go for a drive for some larger shopping trips
when we needed or wanted something that wasn't for sale in town.  In that
region the economies of mid-sized cities like Chico, Redding and Medford
(Oregon) partly serve shoppers who drive in from rural areas in the region.
(And all three of those cities are smaller than Reno, with 1999 Census
estimates for Redding at 165,000, Medford/Ashland at 175,000 and
Chico/Paradise at 195,000.) In all of them, the only non-car modes of
transportation are buses (city and/or county), Amtrak, Greyhound, General
Aviation and commuter airlines.

Oh yeah, and bicycles too.  You can use them in any size city or village. :-)

Let me throw another monkey wrench in the mix.  What about vacations and
hiking/camping/backpacking trips?  Or what if you have to haul something
heavy for hundreds of miles.  Those are examples from my own travels.  This
isn't to shoot down the thought but rather to get the original poster
thinking about other uses for transportation than just moving yourself.

So the idea of transit replacing cars is just an idea for the densest urban
areas right now... The Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, maybe Sacramento.
Even the mid-sized cities aren't in any position to be re-fitted in the next
few decades with major transit projects.  And forget about the mountain
villages.  It would take major improvements in transit systems technology
to even begin to whittle away at the requirement for rural area residents
to have a car.  And they visit or commute to cities regularly.

Even to hypothetically consider it, you'd have to develop new transit
technologies which drastically reduce the cost per mile and cost per
passenger-mile while improving convenience, capacity and coverage areas.
And when you had that, you'd have to embark on a decades-long construction
campaign bigger than the Interstate highway system, since it doesn't serve
every rural area either.  So we aren't anywhere near that.

If the person who posted the original question is interested in pursuing
topics in advanced transportation research, there are a few web sites
where people are considering them...

   Jerry Schneider's "Innovative Transportation Technologies" site
   http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/

   Advanced Transit Association
   http://advancedtransit.org/