Integrated Transport- Environmental Considerations
The building of another runway at Heathrow would cost somewhere in the region of £10 billion. Then there would be the attendant destruction of local amenities along with further world wide air pollution. Those arguing in favour of a new runway tend to stress the jobs it would create and the need for the economic survival of Britain’s air transport facilities - although the latter claim is as silly as the notion that the moon is made of green cheese.
The facts are that about a third of the flights in and out of Heathrow are short haul ones and could, therefore, quite easily be catered for by an expanded railway system. Such a move would also increase short and long term employment. The cash which is to be shovelled into the building of a new runway could instead be used to expand the railway system, encompassing new track and rolling stock which could incorporate new technology including an automated service which has been on the cards for some 20 years or more.
Indeed the Victoria Line on London Underground uses an advanced technology which only needs a driver to sit in the cab, which is only needed as a means of security for the travelling public. Such technology has improved beyond all recognition, although the general public are unaware of this innovation. Such technology used on the railways is far more efficient, safer and less costly than flying, car use and bus travel. It is also better for the environment in cutting out air pollution and carbon emissions.
Before, however, the above proposals can be put into place, we would have to see a general improvement in the political education of the people of this country. At the present time thinking is generally centred upon privatisation and the use of private capital. It has to be said, however, that these cannot provide the wherewithal to meet my proposals. Nor do such avenues themselves believe they could supply what is necessary. To follow an unbridled competitive system is to ensure that the devil takes the hindmost.
In such a situation, an alternative dogma of sorts is the only answer to privatisation. Indeed what is privatisation other than a dogma and one which transgresses upon people’s lives in as much as it provides substandard services at high prices.
Nevertheless, dogma or not what is need is as Dronfield Blather puts it - a transport system integrated in such a way as to be of benefit to all and not the few.
The role of railways in an integrated transport system would require a curb being placed on the need for the use of heavy road transport. Here we have to tackle another dogma from the Road Haulers and their drivers against goods traffic travelling by rail. It was a post-war Conservative Government which transferred the bulk of goods traffic onto the roads, altering a pattern that was established from the time the railways were invented.
The 1945-51 Labour Government appointed General Sir Brian Robertson as Commissioner for Transport in 1947. He resigned in 1955 because he saw no value in the job, due to he Conservative transport policy at that time.
So any alteration in which we move to a social transport system would need the appointment of a Transport Minister with an appropriate briefing and an appropriately restructured Transport Department.
Whilst we have a free-for-all service in which the devil takes the hindmost, the notion of public service transport is mere pie in the sky. At present we have commitments to a belief in anarchy in the transport field, which produces “answers” without any depth of explanation.
The savings from a properly run transport system would far outweigh its costs in every sector of industry. To this we need to add the environmental savings, reduced costs associated with deaths and injuries. An expanded and up-to-date rail system is as necessary as food to a hungry man. No society worth its salt should have to endure the endless death and injury sustained by the present roads policy which privatisation and this mad rush for profit has provided us with. It is a sure sign of decadence.
There are no drawbacks to the policy I advocate, only positives. It would provide a forward movement unparallel in history and provide an education about the use of standards which would be far reaching and well worth the enormous effort this entail in taking the people of this country forward in the 21st Century.
Ken Turton
e need to move faster: saving air and land transport costs. Here's my take on it . . .
ReplyDeleteNEW BOOK PRESS RELEASE
In the 1960s the U.S. Congress created the Department of Transportation (DOT), with authority to control many aspects of the transportation. One of the new Department's first acts was to develop legislation supporting urban transport. But basic problems remained, and indeed grew faster than the population, and faster than the gross national product. More families became multi-car families, driving more trips each, and less alternative transports were available to greater portions of our population.
President Clinton, to improve urban travel, agreed in 1991 to support $-billions for yet another program of development. His introduction of funding of magnetically-propelled transport systems came at a time when it had become apparent that further development of the road-only traffic systems would lead to catastrophic climatic damages, as well as increasing world land use, with its accompanying social disruption.
The test center in Pueblo, Colorado set out to develop a vehicular system that made use of magnetism. The system made use of magnetically elevated vehicles. But they were then propelled by mighty aircraft-like IC. engines! Other work produced wheel-less vehicles that maintained a separation from the road with an air cushion. All these developments were taken into use, providing mass-transits that left the internal engine supreme for the car.
The pollution problem continued unabated.
By the start of the 21st century, another problem of global proportions was gaining public attention, caused by the emanation of sundry pollutants into the atmosphere and commonly named Global warming.
As the third world develops, and scramble to join the automobile rat-race, the damage done universally to the Earth has dramatically increased. Probably the major source of the damage today is atmospheric reflection, Global warming, or more accurately, Global Climate Change.
Making some use of the upper limits has become (relatively) simple with photovoltaic generation of electrical power. And because the Linear motor – the work-horse of the Amcar
system – drives vehicles using direct current electrical power, this system is intrinsically
more efficient than AC uses of the power generated from solar sources (about 30% more efficient). Global leaders called for a variety of half-measures including the ‘carbon tax,’ but
The pollution problem continued, unabated.
Not only do present cars release greenhouse gases, but the dust from tires, typically hydrocarbon and silica pollutants, remain in the lower atmosphere for indefinite periods.
Other health-related problems, of carcinogens and agricultural losses are also improved by Amcars. This system eliminates them as it is a wheel-less vehicle, taking the Linear Motor from its common use on the factory floor. Amcars offer a different practical use for it, as the ‘Guideway.’ A second patent from the 1920s, the ‘Merger,’ allows the wheel-less vehicles to glide smoothly from their course on one Guideway to another, use electromagnetism to speed their vehicle on. It offers riders the ability to choose their path and destination.
Finally, with developments in major solar power, of up to 6kWh/square meter/hour, from Photovoltaics of the end of the 20th Century, the whole system can be powered by renewable energy. Amcars requires no roads, very little carbon fuels and works best when the vehicles are not quickly obsolescent. Read ‘The Power Play to End the Car.’[ISBN 978-1-60693-139-4]
Anonymous : I have responded to your comment here - http://dronfieldblather.blogspot.com/2009/02/transport-and-environment.html
ReplyDeleteI apologize if I have your identity wrong or (if correct) should you have wished to keep it secret. But I rather assumed that you had used a facility which does not show up with a source as it enters our comment box.