Wildlife overpasses
transportation
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“Illustrations for Gefest Insurance Company Annual Calendar. The task was to show how the real locations and objects of our time will develop and integrate into the world of future.”
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That sets a whole new perspective on things,
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Almost a year after Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors (TSLA) and SpaceX, first floated the idea of a superfast mode of transportation, he has finally revealed the details: a solar-powered, city-to-city elevated transit system that could take passengers and cars from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes. In typical Musk fashion, the Hyperloop, as he calls it, immediately poses a challenge to the status quo—in this case, California’s $70 billion high-speed train that has been knocked by Musk and others as too expensive, too slow, and too impractical.
In Musk’s vision, the Hyperloop would transport people via aluminum pods enclosed inside of steel tubes. He describes the design as looking like a shotgun with the tubes running side by side for most of the journey and closing the loop at either end. These tubes would be mounted on columns 50 to 100 yards apart, and the pods inside would travel up to 800 miles per hour. Some of this Musk has hinted at before; he now adds that pods could ferry cars as well as people. “You just drive on, and the pod departs,” Musk told Bloomberg Businessweek in his first interview about the Hyperloop.
… Musk has built his entrepreneurial career attacking businesses he deems inefficient or uninspiring. He co-founded PayPal in a bid to shake up the banking industry, then used the fortune he made selling the startup to eBay to fund equally ambitious efforts in transportation. Tesla Motors, for example, has created the highest-performing, highest-rated all-electric car and a complementary network of charging stations scattered around North America. Meanwhile, SpaceX competes against entire nations in the market to send up satellites and resupply the International Space Station.
In the case of the Hyperloop, Musk started focusing on public transportation after he grew disenchanted with the plans for California’s high-speed rail system. Construction on the highly political, $70 billion project is meant to begin in earnest this year, with plans to link cities from San Diego to Sacramento by 2029. “You have to look at what they say it will cost vs. the actual final costs, and I think it’s safe to say you’re talking about a $100 billion-plus train,” Musk says, adding that the train is too slow and a horrendous land rights mess.
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Bury a highway and cover it with a multi-modal, tree-lined boulevard and green space? Austin is considering it…
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Public Transportation … for Your Car? | Atlantic Cities
Anwar Farooq has patented an eyebrow-raising invention. A train-ferry for car commuters. This kind of system would certainly eliminate traffic congestion in our highways. This rapid commute system would enable long-distance car commuters to hop aboard a train instead – while still bringing their personal vehicles with them.
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The Great California Cycleway
Over a hundred years ago, long before cars became popular, bicycles ruled the roads. They even had highways built just for them.Highland Park blog tells us the historical oddity of the “bicycle super highway” called the California Cycleway:
The California Cycleway was an elevated wooden bicycle highway that was designed to go from Hotel Green in Pasadena down the Arroyo, past Highland Park and into Downtown Los Angeles, ending at the Plaza on Olvera Street. Part of the design was to be a completely uninterrupted path by bridging over obstacles like creeks, roads, train tracks, and maintain only the slightest of grades (no more than 3%) over the 9 miles of smooth wooden track over an elevation of 600 feet.
But the subsequent cars craze drove that plan out the window and only a small portion of the Cycleway was ever built: Link - via The Presurfer
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Laurel Canyon trackless trolleys, the first in the United States, circa 1912-18.
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Infographic | Transportation in Cities: ‘The United Bike Lanes of America’
(Source: GOOD Magazine)
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This Land Bridge, designed by Seattle firm Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architecture, connects Historic Ft. Vancouver, Washington to the Columbia River waterfront in the U.S.
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Highway or Power Plant?
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For a hodgepodge of transit map reviews and imaginative new designs, check out Cameron Booth’s web site. I think that my favorite component of the site is — by far — his mapping of the U.S. Interstate highway system in the style of a subway map (shown above). Though it’s a schematic design that would be difficult to use while driving, it certainly makes it easier to remember which Interstate you would need to take in order to get from City A to City B. A friend of mine has the whole system memorized and can tell you exactly which routes you could take to get between any two cities in the U.S. I’ve wanted to be able to do this for a long time, and Mr. Booth’s map may make it quite a bit easier.
Mr. Booth also has a tumblr called transitmaps.tumblr.com. Check it out. I think it’s the first tumblr I’ve decided to follow.
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Drinking Straws Underground Map
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I found a model of the LAX Modernization design, in case you want to know what it is supposed to look like.
LAX Modernization Update /
Looks like the LAX construction is coming along…pretty cool!
Upper deck of the international terminal
Bradley International Terminal
I imagine this part will be the main concourse for check-in?
