We Know The Future II

"me" wrote in message
om...
It's important to maintain some context here. There is a tendency
to discuss mass transit like every city is NYC or something.

One of the key principles of engineering is that cost goes up exponentially
as you try to reach perfection and handle all the worst cases. In general
the worst cases are not worked. If NYC with its legacy of designing for
very high density, little parking, lots of transit is too hard a problem to
solve with the new technology, NYC will be ignored.

This will mean that transportation will stagnate as transportation improves
in most of the rest of the US. NYC will become less competitive and less
desirable to work in and live in. It will go into decline which will feed
on itself to increase the rate of decline.

By their emphasis on transits and not making a good transition to the 20th
century car, they set themselves up for an even harder transition to 21st
century transportation technology.

It will be very hard for NYC to recover from those past mistakes. Europe
will have as bad or worse problem making the transition because of their
emphasis on preserving the past instead of planning for the future. NYC and
Europe can make the transition, but that requires major changes in culture
which politicians would be terrified to implement. Remember cities to fail
in the real world.

Once you get behind, it very hard to catch up.

Jack May wrote:
This will mean that transportation will stagnate as transportation improves
in most of the rest of the US. NYC will become less competitive and less
desirable to work in and live in. It will go into decline which will feed
on itself to increase the rate of decline.

This I'd be fascinated to see. Transportation is excellent in New York,
better than anywhere else I've been or lived.

I lived in Harlem and could get to any job in midtown in 15 minutes, door to
door. I could get to a supermarket in 5 minutes. I could get to a hardware
store or clothing store or anything else useful in 10 minutes. And I could
get to the largest range of restaurants and other non-rural entertainment
in the world within 20 minutes. I know of noplace that offers this, and I'd
be surprised at the advent of any technology that would make it possible in,
say, Boise, in my lifetime.

miguel
--
See the world from your web browser: http://travel.u.nu/

(Miguel Cruz) wrote in message ...
Jack May wrote:
This will mean that transportation will stagnate as transportation improves
in most of the rest of the US. NYC will become less competitive and less
desirable to work in and live in. It will go into decline which will feed
on itself to increase the rate of decline.

This I'd be fascinated to see. Transportation is excellent in New York,
better than anywhere else I've been or lived.

I lived in Harlem and could get to any job in midtown in 15 minutes, door to
door. I could get to a supermarket in 5 minutes. I could get to a hardware
store or clothing store or anything else useful in 10 minutes. And I could
get to the largest range of restaurants and other non-rural entertainment
in the world within 20 minutes. I know of noplace that offers this, and I'd
be surprised at the advent of any technology that would make it possible in,
say, Boise, in my lifetime.


All of this is costing you dearly however, in just about everyway.
The economics of high density living tend to push away folks who
can't afford it towards lower density, lower cost locations. For the
kinds of transportation options available in NYC, you need VERY high
densities.

This I'd be fascinated to see. Transportation is excellent in New York,
better than anywhere else I've been or lived.

I lived in Harlem and could get to any job in midtown in 15 minutes, door to
door. I could get to a supermarket in 5 minutes. I could get to a hardware
store or clothing store or anything else useful in 10 minutes. And I could
get to the largest range of restaurants and other non-rural entertainment
in the world within 20 minutes. I know of noplace that offers this, and I'd
be surprised at the advent of any technology that would make it possible in,
say, Boise, in my lifetime.

miguel
--
See the world from your web browser: http://travel.u.nu/

Good post, Miguel, but we are dealing with a belief system here.

******Martin Edwards.******

Come on! Nobody's going to ride that lousy freeway
when they can take the Red Car for a nickel.

Eddy Valiant.

www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/1955/

In article

,
Orval Fairbairn wrote:

In article 0MsAb.320950$ao4.1083140@attbi_s51,
"Jack May" wrote:

"Miguel Cruz" wrote in message
...

If cars get replaced by fuel cell or electric variants, or even
flying air cars, they are still cars. You can quibble about how
they change.

Fuel cells don't address the problem of space efficiency. Flying
might, but I sort of doubt it unless our brains get a lot larger.

What makes you think people will be flying cars like airplanes are being
flown now? The plans are for both the car and the flying car (if it ever
becomes practical) to be mainly driven by computer technology.

This gives you all the freedom of the car but allows putting far more
vehicles in a dense area with a far lower accident and death rate. You also
have the option of the pleasure of driving or flying once you get into less
dense areas.

BTW, Moller is taking down payments now for his flying car for delivery in I
think 2005. Its a lot more expensive at this time than I consider
practical.


IMHO, Moller is a scam artist -- his machine is a controls nightmare and
has never flown successfully without thethers. He has been promoting his
Aircar for at least 20 years and has nothing tangible to show.

As an aeronautical engineer, I cannot see how he can make any of his
performance claims come anywhere near to reality.

Worse than scam artist since he kills the entire concept. Moller has
been taking downpayments on a vehicle that will go into production "next
year" for about 20 years. The "secret" is "fluidic amplifiers" that
extract more thrust from the engines than their max power rating. In
other words, transit math.