Transportation, energy, and city planning have always been three areas of politics that fascinate me, probably because of their close relevance to engineering. And just like tackling the new FRC games each year, if we apply that same kind of creative engineering towards these problems, we can solve them.
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Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007
My dad responded with an indirect reference to something he did not realize he referenced, but I got the point nonetheless. It sort of frustrated me when he said that because it plays with what I love a lot: innovation in how we live (mostly inspired thought thanks to FIRST as a whole), and the main sponsor in the region I live (GM, whose engineers/mentors I have met I will have everlasting thanks and friendship for).
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The incident you bring up (which was the main back story that Disney used fir the movie
Who Framed Roger Rabbit) was IMHO one of the two more unfortunate decisions made by GM - and other related industries. ("Killing" the electric car in the 1990s was the other). These decisions - while they made rational sense for short-term profits - weren't good for the long term benefits of either the company or the American society.
Back in the 1930s and 1940s, GM, Standard Oil, and Firestone bought up almost all of the remaining profitable (or at least break even) electric streetcar systems in the country, and replaced them with GM buses, running on Firestone tires and Standard Oil gas. Back then, gas was cheap and the environment wasn't really a concern as of yet, so there wasn't much of an outcry at the time.
But had that not come to pass, and had all these transit systems been left in place, there's a good chance most of them would have still been here today. This immediately would have saved cities hundreds of millions of dollars in costs of rebuilding these abandoned systems, and they would have left America in a better position today in regards to energy independence and environmental sustainability.
Now a much better approach from GM should not have been to mercilessly buy up and dismantle all opposition to the automobile, but should have diversified their markets. Had they gone out and expanded their public transportation to include not only buses, but also trains, there would have been no need to dismantle the transit systems.
Gas isn't going to get any cheaper in the long run, and any long-term transportation strategy which relies on gas or diesel powered vehicles is IMHO bad planning. This does not mean the end of cars, but it will mean a general restructuring to be less of a monopoly of cars and more of a diversified mix of transportation options, involving more walking/bicycling/Segwaying at the local neighborhood level, more mass transit (light rail, subway, monorail) in major cities, and more long-distance alternatives to planes (such as high-speed rail, maglev trains).
In addition, we may also start to see a shift of freight traffic from trucks to trains for long distance - especially if transported using the intermodal containers. Trains are much more efficient when it comes to energy costs than trucks.
The key is placing higher priority on mass transit as opposed to more highways when it comes to increase transportation network capacity. Why? Because its easier to make electrically powered transit networks more environmentally sustainable and energy independent through (wind, solar, geothermal and nuclear).
And while all of this won't be cheap, nor will it happen overnight, the economy of America will not shutdown or cease to exist if we move away from an oil centric economy and more towards a diversified transportation network like Europe.
In fact, I can only see long-term benefits for America from such a move. New transportation systems means new markets for products, new industries, more jobs for construction workers, and less time and productivity (and hence money) wasted while we sit in traffic. More mass transit means the less this country has to depend on foreign oil for our economic livelihood. More mass transit means better environmental sustainability, which our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and many more generations yet to be born will surely thank us for.
In short, diversifying our transportation network will only help ensure the long-term sustainability and stability of the United States. Economic stability, along with an effective military and vigilant and well educated citizens are the three main pillars of our free capitalist/democratic society.
Going green is about more than just "hippies hugging trees", it's about patriotism and people realizing that the future of this country depends just as much on energy independence and slowing/reversing global warming as it does on eliminating terrorists and extremists bent on destroying our way of life. (Although the latter is a much more immediate issue).