Everything until the troll arrives--


=================


Sustainable transportation - Podcar City Conference in Uppsala
by Aeolus
Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 03:17:22 AM PDT

This is a followup to my previous diary on the Podcar City Conference
in Uppsala, Sweden. A few pictures have gone up on the Podcar website.
All of the presentations were professionally filmed, and PowerPoints
will also be going up.

The organizers envisioned this as a logical succession to the Car City
Conference in Stockholm in the early 60's which launched Sweden on a
path to land use planning and development centered around the auto.

Their goal was to bring together elected officials, planners, vendors,
and anyone else who was interested in personal rapid transit, a
technology that has been the future of transportation for over fifty
years.


Let's go with some highlights.

First, the Vectus test track is up and running with real cars, a jazzy
station, and all of the accessories necessary to provide a proof of
concept. Most significantly, the safety approval process by Swedish
Rail is progressing on schedule. To the disappointment of some,
Swedish Rail's rigorous approval process didn't allow passengers other
than test personnel yet, so we could walk into the station, sit in the
seats, fasten the safety belts, then get out to watch the cars zip
around the test track. I was like a kid in a candy store, so
enthusiastic about the Vectus project that one snag couldn't dampen my
spirits.

Dr. Lee, the Korean venture capital leader from POSCO, the steel
company that is the backbone of the Swedish industrial economy, has
accomplished something truly remarkable in Uppsala. Unlike other
players in this field, Vectus has had a global vision from the
beginning, with open sourcing for sub-contractors, critical path
analysis, and the understanding that safety approval by an
internationally respected organization was the real key to unlocking a
trillion dollar world market. They also had the savvy to build their
test track in Sweden, where support from the Institute for Sustainable
Transportation, SIKA, and Swedish Rail will add momentum to their
plans. And Uppsala is a charming city, an 18 minute train ride from
Stockholm's Arlanda Airport so that junketeering politicians from
around the world can include this in their travels.

Enough about Vectus. The conference celebrated their achievement, but
was also vendor-neutral. There's plenty of exciting news from other
vendors.

Ultra's Heathrow project at terminal Five is under construction, and
their video, produced by Steve Raney, formerly of Cities 21 in the Bay
Area, now working for Ultra, played freqently.

The consultant from Italian transportation specialists Systematica,
went on record with the recommendations for MASDAR, the futuristic
city being planned in Abu Dhabi. Their choice of modes includes a
two-level below grade system, with Taxi 2000 as the vendor of choice
for a PRT system on Level Minus 1 carrying passengers, and FROG's
automated systems for goods delivery on level Minus 2. In a city
designed to be car-free, redundant systems and a role for emergency
vehicles became very important.

That makes four vendors under construction, with some others close behind.
America's Unimodal has funding for a test track to be under
construction shortly, and their executives, John Cole and Chris
Perkins, are some of the most visionary thinkers in seeing the range
of uses that a PRT system using MAGLEV technology can have not just in
local transportation, but also at higher speeds on a regional level.

Let's not forget Denmark's RUF, or Poland's MISTER, or other potential
vendors out there who can move forward aggressively once the first
systems become proven. Skanska and Bombardier both sent
representatives to the PodCar City Conference.

On the other side, there were plenty of potential customers, now
self-organizing into a group called Kompass. Uppsala, four other areas
outside Stockholm, with significant funding for pilot systems from the
Swedish government, Daventry, Santa Cruz, Ithaca, Polle, and more
cities to be named later will join together to keep any single
municipality from being alone on the risky, bleeding edge of technology.

Waiting behind the innovators are the Edge Cities of the world, places
like Orange County California and BosWash, where infill development on
areas designated for parking can subsidize capital costs of construction.

Most significantly, these systems can be powered by solar technology,
built as part of an elevated system, and creating the most important
link in Post-Suburban sustainable transportation.

That's only the highlights. The real story was in the success of
having people come together from around the world to share ideas,
motivate each other, and plan for the future of the planet.

Interestingly, this is a result of a process driven not from the
existing transit agencies, but instead coming from local interest and
average citizens, who are far ahead of their "leaders".


Comments:


Will be shared with Christer Lindstrom and Magnus Hunhammar, the
visionaries who are working to change the world by bringing
sustainable transportation to the world's citis.

I believe that Barack Obama is the transformational candidate
that our country desperately needs.

by Aeolus on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 03:26:15 AM PDT

*
While we spend all our money on weapons of war,
many other Countries are moving forward on plans to make oil
obsolete.

"Though the Mills of the Gods grind slowly,Yet they grind
exceeding small."

by Owllwoman on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 03:43:41 AM PDT

o
It's an offical goal of the Swedish Government

They are planning tobe oil-independent by 2020, and create
new sustainable economies.

I believe that Barack Obama is the transformational
candidate that our country desperately needs.

by Aeolus on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 03:54:08 AM PDT

+
Good for them. I wish we had lofty
goals.

"Though the Mills of the Gods grind slowly,Yet they
grind exceeding small."

by Owllwoman on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 04:14:13 AM PDT

*
I saw a model here in Wichita, Kansas, where more airplanes are
built than anywhere in the world, a model for a short wing plane with
wheels catching a monorail overhead. The monorail is suspended from
arches. Each arch has two legs, and the footprint of the whole system
is in the form of widely spaced arch feet, so that farming and
ranching and other rail and roadways can go on as usual below, between
the feet. This model was at Wichita State University.

I liked it so much, I made it my sig line!!

by bigjacbigjacbigjac on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 04:02:46 AM PDT

*
Other Fish to Fry (0 / 0)

In the places you have mentioned the population density per
square mile or km helps to develop such plans. Meanwhile the
corporate giants in the US are pushing through plans for the
super-super highway from Mexico to Canada. The people of San Antonio
are having trouble holding back the forces that want more and more car
lanes all paid for by the state and then turned over to non US
companies to manage as toll roads. Rather that even consider any mass
transit they are "bsdosing" through plans sponsored by governor Good
Hair, republicans with road construction connections and his foreign
investor cronies. The traditional republican groups such as ranchers
and farmers are fighting it. Ordinary urban groups are fighting it.
But none of this will work because business interests keep pushing it
through. They figure that if they can build the trans-Texas corridor
then the rest will follow. All of this is built on the model of
having more and more automobiles and trucks moving around which is the
opposite of using mass transit, the opposite of the need to stop
global warming, and opposite of an equitable society.

So don't give me dream cities. I don't want to hear about them,
by the time the population comes to know and understand the advantages
that can be achieved by mass transit everyone in the US will have the
biggest Toyota Tundra made to go back and forth to the corner store on
acres and acres of asphalt.

by bluetiger on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 04:14:26 AM PDT

*
I really this this idea and hope that it...
catches on somewhere in the US so that people can experience it
first hand.

Keep us posted!!

VEBO...Vote Every Bum Out

by ShainZona on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 07:10:40 AM PDT

*
Thanks for these diaries
I'd love to see this concept get more mindshare here. Really
seems to combine the advantages of cars (I want to go where I want,
when I want, dammit, and not carry my groceries) with
renewable-electricity powered mass-transit

by chapter1 on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 07:48:00 AM PDT