Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

December 19, 2007

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Congress has just passed an energy bill that will require automobiles to get 35 MPG by 2020. I might be off on details but you get the picture. The radio talk shows are coming up with all sorts of problems and solutions. One is switching to diesel and saving 30%. One was using cooking oil and one is producing fuel from corn, excreta, and excreta. Any of these ideas may be part of the solution but any one way will not solve the problem.

We are in another oil crisis. This is nothing new. We experienced our first in the mid 70’s with the oil embargo. Americans realized that we were seriously dependant on oil that is controlled by countries that we don’t consider friends. Nixon was to get us independent of foreign oil by 1980. Oops we didn’t make it.

If we get in a crisis such as a war the effect of oil supply would create a serious impact on our way of life. It could even affect the outcome of that war. It would certainly have a major impact on our economy. During the 70’s oil embargo, interest rates went out of sight. With a limited supply of raw material such as plastics we experienced a slow economy, inflation, and interest rates above 20%.

Over thirty years later and we have done little to improve the situation. We have debated drilling in Alaska and other sensitive areas as if this is the answer. We know what the answer is but have not been willing to commit to it. Use less oil! No amount of drilling is going to alleviate the problem. With the increase of the oil consumption in China and the world we need to be looking at what can be done to conserve.

It is time to move into a new chapter of how we do things. As sure as we moved from horse drawn carriages to automobiles, it is time to advance our sociality once more. We need leadership to do that. Eisenhower after experiencing the Autobahn during WWII in Germany implemented the interstate highway system. It is hard to imagine not having it today. We need someone that will do that today with a national mass transit system.

Oil Consumption: Where is the oil used? We have three major categories of large oil consumption. We have the heating and cooling of our homes and businesses (oil, gas, and electric energy from oil); transportation (planes, trains, and automobiles); and raw materials (plastics, chemicals, and building material).

The problem: Demand is higher than supply. Or at least at a rate that makes the suppliers in control. It is a sellers market.

The solution: Decrease the demand on oil. We keep hearing the politicians using the catch phrase of “Decreasing our dependence on foreign oil.” We are in a world market so the real phase should be “Decrease our dependence on oil.” How do we do that without changing our way of life? Well it is going to change but not necessarily for the worse. Do we change it under our control or do we let the oil supplies control and change it. It has already changed. With gas at $3.00 a gal and going up it has taken away our buying power. Not only are we paying more each time we fill up but there is an ever increasing cost in everything we buy. We have higher manufacturing cost on the products that we buy. We have higher shipping cost, increase food production prices, and an increase in the cost of heating and cooling of our homes. It has caused a major impact in our life styles. But it is time we took charge!

There are a lot of areas where we can change things, nuclear power, solar and wind power, and even better design and insulation of homes.

But what I propose here is related to transportation. We need to design and build a national transportation system that works. For it to work well we need to be able to get from point A to point B anywhere in the country comfortably, efficiently, and economically.

We would no longer be limited to where we live and work. We could live in a rural area and commute miles away to a city or vise versa without increasing our time and expense in travel. Factories could be located in areas where land, space, and taxes are cheaper and workers commute from all directions to the plant.

How can we accomplish that?

We need to build a national high speed train system for passengers and for cargo. It can be similar to the interstate system in that it services all the large cities and has limited access and stops. It should be serviced by local trains that move people and products from areas that don’t have convenient access to the limited access high speed trains. These in turn should be serviced by buses. In rural areas that don’t support a large bus system Jitney buses could be used. A person would call or go online, give an address of where he or she is leaving from with the time and date and an address with the time and date to arrive. A computer schedules a pick up will best accommodate his schedule. If it is for transportation to and from work, you enter your daily schedule. The Jitney’s need only to go where there is a pickup instead of a regular route saving both time and fuel. Airports in some cities use this system for picking up and delivering passengers to and from airports and it works very well.

If you are going a long distance for example: You wish to travel from a rural area in Tennessee to a rural area in Florida. You enter the addresses and times and you get a travel agenda of pick up time and arrival time. You will be picked up at your home and delivered to either a train that moves you to the high speed train that will take you to Florida or depending on your location you may go directly to the high speed train. You can relax, read a book, watch a movie, or dine in the dinning car, and arrive at your destination point in Florida. There you would transfer to your bus or train that will take you to your final destination. You do this all on one ticket and your bags are transferred for you. Time in distances of less than 1000 miles could rival flying times.

There are a lot of ways and systems to get you to the major part of the transportation system (the high speed train) including your private vehicle but also systems like San Francisco that has electric cars. You use a key card and you drive any car that is parked and then leave it for someone to use.

Getting people to use the system is crucial for its success. It will require a comfortably, efficiently, and economical system that meets the demand of the people. We should have a weekly, monthly, and yearly passes where you can travel wherever you wish to go in the system. Next a family plan is needed so that a family can travel more economically that driving a private car. Underage children passes should be cheap. Most families now have several vehicles, especially if it has teenage children. We would need to keep it cost efficient for families.

We have a large part of our population that shouldn’t be driving at all but is forced to because of no good means to get from point A to point B. Some people would chose not to drive because of the expense of owning a car, some because of driving records, DUI etc, some because of age, and we all know that someone that just don’t need to be driving. We could stop giving repeat DUI offenders driving privileges without hindering their ability to get to a job. Also they would be more likely to use public transportation if it was convenient to use thus avoiding a DUI to begin with.

Improved Life Style: Our life style would improve. A family now has a major expense in transportation. With the price of a car, maintenance, insurance, and fuel cost for it, especially in a multi car family, it is often a greater expense than our home. We would have more money to spend on goods and vacations.

The decreased demand on oil will lower oil prices therefore decreasing the cost of manufactured goods and food cost as well as the cost of getting these goods to us.

If we moved enough people off the highways into the trains we could stop paving over more and more land and start maintaining the roads that we do have.

As anyone that has traveled around the country knows that our roads are crowded, poor conditions, and are under constant construction. These we are sharing with the trucking system that is so important for the delivery of everything that we have.

Cargo: Here again we should have a rail system for moving these goods. Trucks deliver to a train, that train moves them efficiently, and economically where they are picked up by truck for delivery. Companies such as FedEx and UPS could have stations at these points to transfer directly to the delivery trucks. They could possible even have sorting areas in the trains to sort while the train is in route to an area. With the use of computers and communications it could be done efficiently and economically.

A new age of transportation is not only desirable because of the oil prices but it is essential for the economy of our country.