Efficient Palo Alto of the Future

The average Palo Altan consumes more energy driving than operating their home.  Efficient cities minimize the distance between {work, home, and activities}, cutting energy consumption and carbon dioxide production by more than half.  A more efficient Palo Alto will provide the following benefits:

• lower cost-of-living
• happier people from more neighborhood social connections and less time wasted stuck in traffic
• higher convenience
• more vibrant street scenes
• better health from more walking
• more mobile kids and seniors

Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) technology is coming to London Heathrow Airport in the Spring of 2009. When used as a transit circulator, PRT is faster than a car for short trips, and makes traditional transit and carpooling [zimride, RideSpring] more effective by solving the “last mile problem.” [PRT is a step forward along the evolutionary chain towards the Brad Templeton Robot Taxi concept.] Web and cell phones help create a “comprehensive new mobility” system to make green transportation seamless and hassle-free. Explained are new applications of GPS phone location tracking technology and wireless payment enabled handsets to increase the competitiveness of suburban commute alternatives. Cell phones / PDAs evolve to become a commuter's "command center", an integral part of the workday. The following applications are described:

• "TrakRide" to improve the reliability of carpool rendezvous and increase courteous, punctual behavior
• "NextTrain" to improve the reliability of Caltrain-PRT connections [kind of a trip-chained version of NextBus]
• "HomeSafe" to verify that carpools amongst strangers operate safely
• "QuickCar" to provide five-minute access to cars for centralized car sharing and emergency ride home, using "wireless door key"
• "SpyKids" to maintain secure custody of children during unaccompanied PRT trips
• "NextSpace" to direct commuters to available parking spaces, with wireless access to automated, shared parking lots

A central database, known as "Big Sister," maintains personal data to support these applications.

“Low Miles on/off line residential communities” foster green culture, where residents help each other to reduce carbon dioxide.  This green culture is created using the same powerful sociological marketing principles that drive our materialistic society. 

Through this simple step-by-step plan, you'll save money, shed pounds, meet neighbors, hang out in in more lively places, and pay lower taxes.

Speaker: Steve Raney is founder of Palo Alto-based Cities21, a nonprofit advanced transportation & smart growth think tank. He is also a principal at Advanced Transport Systems Inc, makers of the ULTra PRT system (Heathrow). He holds three masters: business, software, and transportation from Columbia, RPI, and Berkeley. He is the Principal Investigator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s "Transforming Office Parks into Transit Villages" study of Pleasanton’s Hacienda Business Park (http://tod.hacienda.org/PRT/epa.htm ). He has conducted technology product research at Microsoft, Citigroup, and Silicon Valley start-ups. He was project manager for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system’s Group Rapid Transit study. He is the author of six Transportation Research Board (TRB) papers. His "wireless carpool assistant" is patented. His recent conference presentations include TRB, Rail~Volution, Greenbuild Expo, Association for Commuter Transportation, Going!, Engineers for a Sustainable World, Intelligent Transportation Systems World Congress, Environmental Protection Agency, American Planning Association (California Chapter), San Francisco Bay State of the Estuary Conference, Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition, and Housing California. He served as Training Coordinator for Habitat for Humanity.

Links:

• Efficient Cities vision paper: http://www.cities21.org/efficientSuburbs2020.htm .
• San Francisco Chronicle, 5/27/06, "BUSINESS PARK 2.0 - Can sprawling office campuses become commute- cutting communities?." 
• Video: Personal Rapid Transit for a suburban office park / introduction to PRT technology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7hgipbHBK8 
• Overall annual U.S. household energy consumption for "sprawling suburbia" to "green urban:" http://www.cities21.org/sprawlVSurban.gif.

In 30 of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas, “regional visioning” exercises are underway. These exercises create 30-year regional plans. Almost uniformly, the regional visions forecast 50% population growth, and, in the best scenario, a 40% increase in regional annual auto driving. That’s not exactly an inspirational vision. We must do much better. 
 

"Our current transportation policy path in the U. S. is clearly unsustainable. Traffic, its environmental impacts and its impact on quality of life continue to get worse virtually everywhere in the country. Innovative new ideas and new approaches are badly needed. We need a portfolio of innovative approaches spread across the United States, with each one pushing the envelope towards a more sustainable future transportation system. Cities21 and its Suburban Silver Bullet should be in this portfolio. It is innovative; it is forward-looking; it addresses many key transportation challenges; and the potential benefits - if widely disseminated - are large." - Steve Offutt: EPA Best Workplaces for Commuters