Below is a prompt for real estate developers and city officals to use to assess the benefit from shifting from car-centric to walkable cities. Link to assessments for various cities.
American cities used to be walkable. Every city over 10,000 people had one or more privately funded streetcar networks in the early 1900s. This prompt will hopefully provide financial justification for returning to an economy where people were not forced to buy cars by government central planners. If you are interested, following the prompt is a summary of the unconstitutional policy mistake that resulted in unwalkable cities.
The Morgantown PRT provides a 53-year case study in how we can apply grade-separated robot vehicles to make streets safe for children. JPods networks modernize and solar power the success of PRT, or podcar networks.
Real estate developments can be safer and more profitable by shifting from car-centric to walkable. JPods networks (90-second summary) and bicycles provide middle-mile and last-mile technologies:
- Proximity: JPods networks’ cargo capabilities increase proximity as small businesses have the lower delivery costs of containers being delivered to Big Box stores.
- Safety: JPods preempt risks of road crashes.
- Energy Security and Efficiency: Solar powered JPods remove risks of oil supply shocks.
- Land use: JPods preempts 60% of parking requirements. The land consumed by one car supports building 3 miles of JPods guideways with many vehicles.
- Linear barriers to commerce and community. JPods grade separation preempts 60% of linear barriers.
- Fiscal city health improves as 60% of car-centric infrastructure costs are preempted.
- Personal health, as walking increases to approach that of New York City or Paris.
- JPods networks provide the Middle Mile™, making cities walkable and bikeable. Links to 90-second summary, metrics, and example networks. Link to model networks in your city.
Proximity, walking, biking, and JPods can convert 60% of car trips
- In 2021, 92% of U.S. daily trips are less than 25 miles, the middle-mile solution provided by JPods networks.
- 52% of U.S. daily trips were under 3 miles, and 28% were under 1 mile, confirming that the vast majority are within practical walking/biking or low‑speed‑vehicle distance.
- Yet almost all trips are by car. Across U.S. and Canadian cities, about 92% of commutes are by car, only 4.6% by public transport, and 3.5% by walking or cycling.
- Cars are expensive and sit idle. Recent estimates put average U.S. car ownership cost at about $12,182 per year, up from $10,728 the year before. Travel‑survey and utilization studies indicate that private cars are typically in motion only 4–5% of the time and parked about 95% of the time, meaning a high‑capital asset is mostly idle.
- North American communities typically provide 3–8 parking spaces for every vehicle. Put together, a “free‑parked” car represents on the order of $17,000 per year in combined private and public costs per vehicle, even though that vehicle is in motion <5% of the time and parked about 95% of the time. ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws+3
- Nationally, public K‑12 school systems now spend around $15,600 per pupil per year, with large states such as New York exceeding $29,000 per student and low‑spending states still near $10,000 per student. census+2
Copy and paste into ai to get an assessment for a real estate project
Only 1.2% of American cities are walkable today, yet they produce 20% of US GDP and are the only parts of cities where sales and property tax revenues exceed the cost to maintain the highway infrastructure (potholes).
History of our mistake
Odd as it may seem to us today, the Constitutional Convention voted 8 states to 3 to forbid the Federal highway system on Sept 14, 1787. The Boston Tea Party was a demonstration against the general government’s transportation monopoly that triggered a war. To prevent mixing commercial self-interests with war-powers the Constitution specifically forbid federal taxing to provide welfare, limiting it to only “promote the general welfare,” limiting it to build no roads beyond delivering letters to defend free speech, “post Road,” with “No Preference” in the facilities of commerce of one state over another.
Until 1916 there were 21 veto messages enforcing the “post Roads” and “No Preference” clauses of the Constitution. President Wilson socialized transportation with the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1916 and communications by Executive Order in July 1918. FDR socialized energy with the Rural Electrification Act of 1936.
Starting with President Nixon, every president has warned of the risks of oil war mandated by Federal highway oil addiction.
Oil wars have been perpetual since 1990.
It is the purpose of governments to minimize violence from war and crime by coercing compliance with law. Innovation is a compliance failure. So when governments control the means of production, the two aspects of liberty essential to innovating the general welfare are blocked. See Divided Sovereignty. Courts ending the Federal communicatons monopoly in 1982 restored liberty to innovate – rotary telephones and the analog network were replaced by cell phones and the Internet.
When liberty to innovate in transportation is restored, we will solve traffic with 10X lower costs than government mandated, highways that make unwalkable cities and energy moving 2-tons to move a person (link to short book).