Congressional Study PB-244854, “Automated Guideway Transit”, 1975 was published to find solutions to traffic problems and the hardships of the 1973 Oil Embargo.
Findings:
Government “institutional failures” blocked urban transportation innovation for “four to six decades (aside from some relatively minor cosmetic changes)… Compared with many other areas of entrepreneurial endeavor, the environment for innovation in transportation should be favorable. Urban transportation needs are extensive… In retrospect, the new systems efforts have served not to stimulate interest in new technology but to discourage already reluctant local transit operators from considering it.”
“Proponents of PRT view this concept as a reasonable supplement to the private automobile in high density urban areas and claim that PRT can provide a very much higher level of service than other modes of public transportation. Thus, it is argued that PRT systems would attract a significant percentage of the rides now being made in private automobiles and offer obvious benefits:
- less traffic congestion in urban areas.
- less land and fewer facilities used for automobile storage. . reduced travel time under more comfortable Circumstance. . less noise and air pollution.
- reduction in consumption of petroleum-derived fuels.
- reduction in requirements for new arterial roads and urban freeways.
It is contended that PRT would provide greater mobility for the transportation disadvantaged, i.e., the young, the elderly, the poor, and the handicapped.”.
US Senate Letter on the importance of PRT, 1974:
Nature of government:
- Governments are created to minimize violence from war and crime by coercing compliance with law.
- Innovation is a compliance failure.
- Under Federal monopoly the Internet was blocked from commercializing between 1918 and 1982.
- Since The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1916, 45% of 6% of 470 ton-mpg freight railroads have been replaced by 25 mpg highways.
- The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 (Interstate network) was known to be a failure as documented by the Bragdon Committee reports (1957-1959).
- Federal highway construction replaced Jim Crow after 1964 in racist outcomes.
- The American Society of Civil Engineers rates grades US highways a D and Transit a D-.
- Innovation in the US has been blocked despite traffic jams, the 1973 Oil Embargo, 10 of the last 10 US Presidents issuing unanswered calls to action to end foreign oil addiction, oil-wars since 1991, oil-dollar funded terrorist attacks, $35 trillion in Federal debt increasing in tandem with oil imports and oil wars, and
- World Economic Forum notes Federal highways have so sliced up US cities that only 1.2% of land in US cities is walkable despite providing 20% of US GDP.
Walkable Cities, the known necessity
Following World War II and prior to the 1973 Oil Embargo, Europe was expanding highways following the US model.
- The US, Sweden, and Denmark all used the same 43 MWh of oil per person per year.
- All had the same pedestrian road-kill rates.
Following the 1973 Oil Embargo, US highway policies continued sprawl. Sweden/Denmark/Netherlands/France shifted back to making streets safe for pedestrians and bike riders. Per person oil use has been reduced to 60% below the US and road-kills of pedestrians and bike riders 400-600% below the US.
