this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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High speed trains aren’t practical for local transport. In my imaginary utopia we’d put poles down the middle of roads and suspend tram carts to them. People could own them, they’d drive themselves and even have drive ways. However by being suspended in the air, and driven by electrified rails itd be clean and safe and give us space on the ground to sit, play and have large shared spaces and gardens. Plus kids and coaches could be transported without a driver and stuff. In my own imagine the possibilities are endless.
I think the cost of engineering a suspended tram network would be undercut by simply having them underground!
But I think the fact you've gone for effectively a car network, just with different infrastructure, highlights something interesting about the way we think about how we need to get around. We prize autonomy very highly, and so for people that do there's a few ideas (that have in a few places been implemented already!) that you might find interesting.
The key problem with cars is that, once you've invested in owning one, it's just very efficient to use for everything. So if we want to move away from cars, we need to address every type of trip, rather than just some. High speed rail and timetabled buses address those long distance, city-city journeys, or commuting from suburbs to the city centre. What isn't addressed are those 'short hops' that people want to make, e.g. within suburbs
For example, in some places we're starting to see the proliferation of demand-responsive public transport. The idea is you have what is effectively a minibus with an attached app, and people book the route they want to take on the app. An optimal route is then calculated for the day to pick people up and drop them where they need to go. This is ideal for certain trips people couldn't take on a car -- for example, going to the hospital and undergoing anaesthetic that prevents driving after -- or for allowing people in suburban areas to get rid of cars entirely if they only need them for irregular, one-off trips.
Another example is e-cargo bike rental. In the suburbs it's often sensible to do a weekly shop as the supermarket is a fair distance away, and it's impractical to do so by bus. So what we're starting to see in some places is e-cargo bikes (basically an electric bike with a big trailer) scattered around suburbs to allow people to rent them for a short time to do their weekly shop.
Finally, there's car share services like co-wheels, that allow for short term use of cars for trips like holidays or visiting rural areas that would otherwise require a car.
Each of these addresses different types of journey that aren't well addressed by traditional types of public transport, and with the emphasis on efficient networks to deal with climate change and air pollution we may well start to see more of these in the long term.
I think it’s all about what people will accept and autonomy exactly as you say. I don’t think people want to request or share buses/taxis, they want to jump into their tram car in a hurry without compromise.
For so many professions like builders etc, they’re going to want to keep tools in their trams or have other specialised trams. Repairmen can’t commute on shared buses with all their tools. You almost never see this at the moment.
I also think people don’t want to travel underground and that making those tunnels will be too expensive. For every on/off stop there needs to be a hole in the ground and air circulation. Alternatively the overground tram network suspended from an overhead rail can allows for paths to cross, bend and can be installed over the existing roads infrastructure before it is decommissioned. In places where it’s high enough pedestrians can ignore it or at ground level there can be an open bike/eScooter system like you suggest. It just requires steel poles like lamp posts to be put in down the middle of the road. Many busy roads already have lamp posts down the central partition.
This is what’s led me to my idea that a tram network full of people’s own trams. Poor and middle class people have cars already so owning your own tram feels like it will be too engrained across all levels of society. It’s also higher quality as people can choose their products. It creates competition between manufacturers. It makes delivering the whole solution cheaper and puts more costs on individuals rather than the government. In my mind a tram is a metal cage with an electric motorbikes engine and wheel at the top and some electronics to communicate with a central routing computer.
Anyway just interesting thoughts of a world that will likely never exist. It’s impossible to know what would and wouldn’t be necessary to make a better transport network.