Nostrum II
The basis of the nostrum is the idea of reengineering current traffic lanes and vehicles around the following premise: To accommodate an increasing number of single occupancy vehicles in limited urban environments, we can narrow the vehicles and lanes.
The result of the nostrum is immediate roadway capacity improvements from 25% to 50%. Conventional road vehicles have a rarely occupied passenger seat beside the driver's. On a small scale, a new type of vehicle is now being manufactured which are for one person only, or for multiple passengers aligned behind one another. By reducing vehicle width by nearly a third, with commonly available technologies, many traffic lanes can be proportionately reduced.
The new vehicles are sufficiently reduced in mass to allow for high speeds with engines driven by already available alternative fuels, resulting in substantial air pollution reductions.
This page is solely intended to share an idea that could help to plan affordable transportation infrastructure for the 21st Century.
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Theoretical Origins:
The transformation in transportation planning from management of supply to management of demand is an assertion that the government revenues needed for continued roadway expansions are not available or sustainable. In addition to fiscal constraints, the quality of life impacts of road widenings, have evolved into a nearly ubiquitous political force expressed throughout the nation in public hearings, as well as by key “smart growth” governors, mayors, and other decision makers. People do not want wider roads in their communities. The effects of road widenings on the preservation of resource lands, and on the urban pedestrian environments have become largely unacceptable.
However, the citizenry, who are nonetheless opposed to road widenings, are also summarily not attracted to the idea of mass transit. Even in progressive, transit oriented American cities, the subsidies required to bolster lagging transit ridership result in higher costs for transit than for continued highway expansions. At the same time, the much heralded theoretical links between transportation and land use planning have not resulted in the estimated synergy between the two. Light rail lines do not, in and of themselves, produce transit nodes of dense development filled by pro-transit urbanites. Inversely, dense, transit oriented, development patterns do not bring affordable transit options.
American civic tradition does not foster the type of planning environments that led to the transportation efficiencies found in the old, centrally planned, and grid-framed cities. Local government does not own or control land to the degree necessary to develop new communities with thoroughly integrated transit and development patterns. Even if this were possible, it is not likely that such a community would be populated by individuals with the lifestyle characteristics which are best suited to transit use. The government does not control the outcomes of real estate development, nor does it control how people travel.
Acquiescing to this lack of control, certain observations can be made. At this time, these observations do not require empirical substantiation, as they are nearly self evident. Observation number one is that American development patterns do not well support mass transit. Current attempts to encourage infill development are insufficient to reverse the tendency of greenfield over brownfield development preferences. Observation number two is that people do not like transit. Observation number three, even with the most ambitious (and possibly draconian) land use planning, even in locations with well developed transit ridership incentives, people have chosen their primary mode of transportation to be the automobile, which in most circumstances, is the choice of a single occupancy vehicle(SOV).
Rather than dismissing this choice as a folly of our current culture, rather than attempting to undermine this public choice with poorly funded and less than scientifically substantiated planning efforts, the choice should be used as the foundation of our planning efforts. If we are to assume that the choice is for the SOV, it is then necessary to mitigate the impacts of this choice. Let this acknowledgement not be mistaken as a recommendation to dissolve all current transit oriented planning efforts. Instead, planners and elected officials should recognize the relatively limited effect of these efforts.
If we start our thinking from the assumption of the predominance of the SOV, the course of our planning efforts must change. Rather than getting people out of their SOV’s, we should endeavor to remedy the negative effects of this public choice. The negatives of SOV’s generally include internal combustion engine (ICE) generated pollutants, unsustainable capital and operational costs associated with transportation infrastructure, and the great amounts of damage done to property, animals, and humans as a result of traffic accidents.
The purpose of this paper is propose a solution to these problems which is far more affordable, achievable, and publicly acceptable than the current solution which takes the form of a protracted and ill-conceived effort to remove people from their SOV’s.
Road Lane Bifurcation
Questions and Answers
1. Q. I just bought a new regular car. What will I do?
A. Once adopted by a state or metropolitan area, the road lane changes would not occur for many years. In a ten year period of time, all consumers will have ample opportunity to purchase an appropriate vehicle. The redesigned vehicles will be cheaper. For those with inadequate means, the jurisdiction may entertain matching grant funds. Transit options should also be maintained for peoples who are not able to acquire or operate motor vehicles.
2. Q. How could I haul large items such as mulch, plywood, and appliances?
A. Along certain classifications of traffic collectors and arterials, lanes will be maintained for use by larger vehicles. These vehicles can be shared and/ or rented by all citizens. To connect from an arterial to your own residential street, large vehicles will be allowed to limitedly travel for the purposes of emergency services provision, delivery and removal of large items. Also, the private sector will continue to develop the parcel deliver systems, which would likely be relied upon more greatly after the transition to driver-width vehicles.
3. Q. How will I travel between cities?
A. The newer vehicles that are designed to the width of a driver will be powered by alternative fuels. At this time, the infrastructure for alternative refueling is inadequate for inter-city travel. While gas stations can be found, it is not easy to find an electric charging station in the country. A number of options are currently being considered that will allow individuals to be transported great distances at great speeds. If vehicles are designed to have frames only slightly larger than the passengers, these vehicles can also be transported on a “mass” scale.
One of the problems with transit today is that the network can not affordably be extended to all destinations. At some point, every rider has to walk, bike, or find alternative means of completing their journey. The new transit technology, all based on available and affordable technologies, will carry the person, and their vehicle. At the end of the transit route, the rider will take their fully-charged vehicle to the completion of their trip. The concept is tantamount to land ferries.
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