Can Mass Transit and railways help us?

gwmss15

Is it possiable for railways, Tramways, Buses, Rail freight, Tramway frieght plus shipping to help us thought the difficult times ahead with the peak oil depression etc.

I tend to feel that even a simple rail network can do wonders in reducing transport fuel useage. People just need to give mass transit more attention and give it a try your self its not that bad most things can be done by using a train or a bus or tram etc.

What do others think about rail and mass transit's role in reducing the effects of peak oil? Can it help us to obtain a resonable transistion to a sustainable post peak oil world?

kjmclark · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 09, 2005 Posts: 305

It depends on the oil export decline rate. If declines are fast, we won't have time to build additional transit infrastructure. If declines are slow, we will have time. Either way, there is the inertia problem of suburban development to deal with.

I suppose at worst, we could have people biking to the bus stop, taking the bus to the rail line, the rail line to the rail stop, the bus to their job. The wealthy will keep taking their cars, the former middle class will spend their lives on bikes and various forms of transit until they can move close to work.

At best, we have a sharp shock (say an attack/counterattack with Iran), followed by a mild recession, with consistently high oil prices. That would reduce a great deal of demand and force us to really wake up to the problem. We could build a lot of rail/transit infrastructure quickly in such a scenario.

gwmss15

this is what i do now anyway when i go out everday weather work or seeing a friend or family member

1. Walk to main road (25 mins)
2..wait for "truck bus" (5 mins)
3. Take the truck bus to city centre (70 mins)
4. transfer to other truck bus (2 min wait)
5. Take other "truck bus" (10 mins)
6. walk to office (4 mins)

This is such a simple thing to do i dont understand why some people find it hard to take public transport. Its time people slowed down a little and gave public transport a go.

Note: the long walk at the start is due to very narrow 1 metre wide outer suburban streets that are too narrow for any motorised transport thus no direct bus services access to this area. This is a pain but its my own fault for living out in the suburbs but 98% of people in my area do not own any cars so they do the same just walk and take the bus.

Dreamtwister · Fission Joined: Feb 06, 2006 Posts: 2057

I did the math on this a few months ago.

If the US government had taken all of the money they have been flushing down Iraq and invested it in mass transit systems, they could have

- Built a high speed rail network from Washington to Seattle to San Francisco to Miami and back to Washington

- Bought enough rail cars and engines to service the entire route with a 600 seat train every 23 minutes in both directions and still have another 800 cars and engines on stand-by for peak service or a maintainance rotation

- Equipped the entire route with fibre optic internet access

I don't know how much oil that would save, but that's a potential for serious ridership.
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IslandCrow

gwmss15

Just for people wondering what a truck bus looks like hear is a picture of one from bangkok city centre

NeoPeasant

I walk 20 minutes (1 mile) to a the bus stop.
I wait 10 minutes
I travel on the bus for roughly 2 minutes (1 mile)
I walk an additional 30 minutes (1.5 miles) to work.
I reverse the process to go home.
I did not give a lot of thought to public transit when I chose where to live. I could have done much better if I had. It would be a key factor if I decide to move.

Today, hardly anyone would go to such an effort to use public transportation if they could drive. When the cost of driving becomes a crushing force on personal finances (and it will), a lot more people will accept the inconvenience of public transportation. Their future choices of where to live and work will make transit routes a primary consideration, and employers and employees will begin to concentrate around transit stops.

I think there will be a surge in transit use, and many quickly improvised capacity upgrades. The salvage yards will be scoured for restorable busses and repair parts. Bus mechanic will be a high growth career field. The school bus system will do double duty providing extra transit capacity.
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caliginousface

rogerhb

Denny

[quote="caliginousface
Jeezus mang, and just to think all that money is being spent to secure more oil.

It would be an amazing thing to see high speed/largely networked rail all over this country again.[/quote]

What? It seems you do not believe either Secretary Rumsfeld's statement that "the oil belongs to the people of Iraq". Or Pres. Bush's most recent claim that "we are in Iraq to bring democracy" (or was it, "we are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here")

Well, whatever.

MonteQuest

elocs

Not only mass transit, but developing rail so semi trucks are not bee-bopping across the country to every nook, cranny, corner, and burg. Let the goods be delivered by rail and then let the semis deliver it on short hauls locally.

The trouble with all of these changes that are good ideas is that there are so many that have a vested interest in seeing that things never change and to maintain the status quo for as long as possible and milk their investment for as long as they can until they can turn big bucks on whatever new comes down the pike.

kam30en · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 17, 2005 Posts: 274

You can run trains on any energy source. Electric trains run from nuclear power, coal powered trains or even trains run from solar/wind. Battery electric cars are inefficient compared with electric trains which don't need bulky and costly batteries. Also rail maintanance costs in the long term are cheaper than highway maintanance costs.
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gwmss15

Railways and tramways can carry genral cargo "20 and 40 foot containers" bulk cargo. even with transfers from rail to tram to truck

For example i have a 40 foot container and i want to move it from the dock to my retain store in the outer suburbs one could truck it the whole way but it is quite possiable to do it by rail and tramways (light street based railways)

you unload the container on to the flat container car then the train with 200 others travels along the metro line outside of peak hour where the containers are off loaded on to tramways frieght cars that then take them right to the loading bay of the shopping centre and not one little bit of oil was used in transport from the dock to the shop it can all be electric powered.

this level electric powered frieght system is complex but can work and does not need to cost a lot as its a shared system and tired up for one purpose all the time any cargo can use the system even shared on the same trains and trams.

the tramway frieght is an idea from the 1920 and 1930 in melbourne where cargo was carried in covered but open sided trams capsity was about a 50 foot container size in its day.

SpringCreekFarm · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 03, 2006 Posts: 835

delete