Retooling Transportation Systems for Extreme Weather

One of the assumptions made when building anything is that conditions will be broadly similar for the useful life of that item. Trying to predict any major change will add to the cost - multiply it in many cases to beyond affordable levels.

Change is inevitable; the biggest issue we have is that humans now believe that they can make their environment static within this changing planet. Towns and cities built hundreds of years ago by rivers and seas are no longer in the most suitable locations: moving inland/uphill makes sense, but planners have to look at ways to achieve this without using up all the green land.

How long will it take to have crops growing by the sea when the population (& industry) move inland? Will that space be enough to cope with storms in another 2-300 years? is there sufficient soil to replace any washed away by the storms, or is having buildings near the shore a better solution, even if that means re-building every 10-20 years after yet another disaster??

The danger of damage from natural disasters is a risk assessment. There may always be the random tornado, or the gasoline truck burning under the overpass or in the tunnel. Such risks, although negligable, are rather less than the danger represented by sheer age. Bridges are crumbling all over the country, and we are interested in a few rail lines by the sea?

Come on! Lets get real. People tried to get out of the way of Hurricane Katrina, and ran out of gas in 30 hours of stop and go traffic. Farkin' brilliant that was! Making the roads twice as big would not have helped.

Time for some out of the box thinking...or we will just have to suck it up, store a month worth of food in every house, buy shotguns to take care of wild dogs and looters. Which come to think of is what I do...

The upside of the imminent replacent of all that infrastructure is that since we have to replace all that infrastructure anyway, why not replace it with something bigger, faster, and more reliable? This seems like a no brainer to me.

One problem with "something bigger, faster, and more reliable?" is that what you get to replace possibly Victorian architecture has at best a 20 year guarantee - and a BIG likelihood that the building company will weasel out of any liability should there be any major issues.

"There are only two ways to do a - the Great Western Way, and the wrong way" - Montague

Then we must go with the "out of box" thinking. There is no shortage of ideas. Perhaps re-visiting some of the ideas might pay dividends. Or it might not. If you look at, say, mountain climbing gear fifty years ago (heavy leather boots, canvas coats) and compare it to what is worn now (high tech plastics, light weight parkas) you can see that the job has not changed but the way we do it has improved.

The task...moving goods and people quickly from town to town, from city to city, and moving them quickly within the city itself...has not changed. I agree that a railway, even a state of the art railway like the latest London Tube or the high speed inter city trains are totally worth improving. Most progress is incrimental, unless huge efforts are poured into rapid development. (Airlines went from Kitty Hawk to 707's in less than fifty years.) What improvements have been made in rail in the last fifty years?

Even the best "LRT" system will freeze up, get into trouble with fallen leaves on the rails and be vandalized and robbed by copper theives. Small changes of design will fix all these problems, one at a time.

Is there a big technology breakthrough on the horizon? Something as big and lifestyle altering as airlines? Or motor cars? Will we see the Jetsons or futurama anytime soon?

Or will the breakthrough be in an area we simply don't see coming? Telecommuting is a reality, though predicted a century ago in fiction with "consultants" like Mycroft Holmes and Nero Wolfe. Perhaps with the increase in communications technology (the last 10 years alone seem to be QUITE indicitative of wide spread changes!) we will not be bothering with a lot of the travel we take for granted today.

I certainly did not predict the "cell phone revolution", and could not have imagined it only a few years ago. How could I fairly imagine what will replace the motor car? Because sure as heck, it WILL be replaced. But with WHAT? So, an improvement on the Victorian design may not even be worth considering. (But my gut feeling is that it will, and should be considered)

Heinlein had moving sidewalks. Star trek has holographic projectors which enable you to attend meetings and interact with people without actually traveling to work to do so. Sherlock Holmes horse drawn cabs have now been replaced by gas guzzling cars, and "could" be replaced by battery powered vehicles. Even the driver could be eliminated.

Anyway, just speculating. Right now, I don't know how to get such a thing running, even as a trial model. Or if it is the best idea. Perhaps I should work at phrasing the question correctly, and ask the CR4 members what they think.