[Wildwell]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', '[')b]Networking: 'Smart highways' emerging

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')ugust 01, 2005
Commuters cruise down Interstate 95 from New York City to Washington, D.C., bumper to bumper, at a speed of 120 miles per hour -- about a two-hour trip at that speed. Do they worry about collisions? Not at all. They can even check the Dow Jones industrial average or browse new books on Amazon.com while they motor.
Those commuters, sometime in the not-so-distant future, will be traveling along smart highways: networks of sensors connected to satellite links controlling collision-detection computers onboard the vehicles. The technology will do all the driving, experts told UPI's Networking.
"There is simply no limit to what we can achieve as the technology improves," said Ed Schlesinger, founding director of the General Motors collaborative laboratory at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "Cars will become nodes in a worldwide network delivering information to that network and getting information from it."
Scientists and engineers at Carnegie Mellon and other leading research universities, as well as at the automakers in Detroit, are working on networking technologies that will enable vehicles to communicate and share data. These technologies will provide drivers with information about traffic flow, road conditions and even the optimal place to park. The networking also will help drivers alter their travel routes if conditions warrant, and even slow down to avoid a serious incident.

[seldom_seen]

I don't think this will ever happen. By the time they develop these smart highways we'll all be living on mars or in spaceships and we won't even need them.

[skiwi]

Will you be hoping to do the same in Auckland Graeme

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', '
')I'm quite sure those liberals who love to "regulate things for the benefit of humanity" are salivating at the mouth right now. That seems like something right up their alley. And of course if or (more accurately stated this system does get put into place) you can bet California will be the first to implement it.

[gg3]

Graeme, I have one question, and I expect you'll have a really good answer if you want to preserve the viability of your case.

What happens when a piece of debris blows into this automated 120-mph bumper-to-bumper highway, or when one of the cars gets a tire blowout or has its engine sieze up for whatever reason...?

[nero]

Found an interesting tidbit to add to this thread in the new york times.

The price of an equivalent new home decreases by about 800 dollars for every extra minute of commuting time from Tampa's city center.

So adding a little math:

That is about an extra 5 dollars on the monthly mortgage payment.

An extra couple of minutes on the highway a day translates into about an extra 40 miles a month of driving. In a 20mpg SUV the commuter just breaks even with $2.50 a gallon gas.

That is pretty interesting. It is now actually less expensive to live in the inner suburbs than in the exurbs! Yet people are still building way out in the middle of nowhere. My only conclusion is that house prices are not really the driving factor but rather the dispersing force is the perceived greater security of these new cul-de-sac neighbourhoods.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nero', '
')That is pretty interesting. It is now actually less expensive to live in the inner suburbs than in the exurbs! Yet people are still building way out in the middle of nowhere. My only conclusion is that house prices are not really the driving factor but rather the dispersing force is the perceived greater security of these new cul-de-sac neighbourhoods.

[MagnoliaFan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jmacdaddio', 'I')MHO an economic system which makes it feasible for someone to own a massive home in a new subdivision and drive 70 miles each way for a middle management position in an office park is insane and I am sure others on this board feel this outrage. In a way we're all paying for it because their choice to use all that gasoline affects us all through global warming. When you add in the cost to US taxpayers to invade Iraq and maintain a far-flung military presence to keep the oil flowing, suddenly $5 gas sounds like a bargain.

[MagnoliaFan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JLK', 'T')elecommuting would also save a lot of fuel, but not everyone can do it. I work at home a few days at month, and I get more done on those days than when I am in the office. There is still a bias against it- a lot of people assume that you're goofing off when you stay home. Hopefully, those attitudes will change.

[redfire]

The cost of gas is only a SMALL expense for the commuter. Most families that commute have to have a second car, which if they worked close to home wouldn't need. The major expense is depreciation and maintaince of the car, as well as insurance cost of the second car. If you are doing a 1 hour drive each way, realistically, your car won't last more than about 3-4 years at which point it has little trade in value. If you lease, than the mileage gets you.

The most I've ever been able to get out of a car (bought new) and doing all the preventive mainaince is about 300,000 km- I wouldn't want to try keeping a new car that long with ABS,Fuel injection,Computers etc...have you priced out a set of struts lately?

It's actually cheaper to keep trading them yearly and taking the huge depreciation.

Years ago, you keep a car on the road fairly cheaply but with the cost of parts and labour, it's expensive now.

The problem facing a lot of people is they've got little choice--unemployment or comute...

[GoIllini]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', 'A')sia will be in serious pain but I think it's a fallacy to believe we won't. These countries hold massive amounts of US debt and it is entirely likely that these debts will start to be called in as these countries need access to the money. What is going to happen when we (the fed gov't, states, etc) have to start paying out all of this money in Tbonds, corp bonds, etc? They will have to seriously step up issuing debt, except who is going to be there to buy it unless they seriously jack up the interest rate to be paid? And if that is done, where does all that money come from now to pay the interest on the debt? We have become so tied to Asia that everyone better hope they don't go bust, because they'll be a big anchor dragging us down with them. If China goes bust it will likely wreck us in the process....

[nero]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('redfire', 'T')he cost of gas is only a SMALL expense for the commuter. Most families that commute have to have a second car, which if they worked close to home wouldn't need. The major expense is depreciation and maintaince of the car, as well as insurance cost of the second car. If you are doing a 1 hour drive each way, realistically, your car won't last more than about 3-4 years at which point it has little trade in value. If you lease, than the mileage gets you.

[ab0di]

I made a long commute (75 miles per day) for 20+ years. It cost me next to nothing (except time). My employer provided 15 passenger vans and paid all costs. Fourteen of the passengers paid $43.00 a month (2004) and the driver rode free. The van got around 10 mpg, but with an average of 12 passengers the passenger miles per gallon was 120, better than any current single passenger hydrid. There are 9 such vans serving my area.

The only way long commutes will survive is through a similar system of mass transport/van pooling/car pooling.

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')Why do they choose the longer

[nero]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', 'B')ecause the lady of the house, who does not commute, wants the bigger house for the money.

Commute creep: We lived in a place with a 25 minute commute. We moved twice. Each time, the conversation was "this is such a nice house, and it's only an extra 10 minutes." Two houses later, and a couple of years for the traffic to get worse, we were looking at 55.

[pup55]

The commute practically never enters into it.

To move to an older place closer in, you invariably have to spend extra to redo the carpet and paint plus replace some of the moving parts such as furnace and ac. By the time you do that, including nuisance factor, you are better off spending the money on a big brand new tract home further out.

Down here in hard core suburbia, the more direct relationship is price vs. floor space. Jevon's paradox says you are better off money wise buying as much floor space as possible with the available money.

The result of this is that the first layer of suburbia is a ring of small houses that no one will move into. Invariably these become rentals, start to deteriorate because they were built so cheaply in the first place, and then the schools deteriorate because the non-english speakers move in. The upscale people move out of the strip shops, in move the thrift stores and porn places, and the property values go down, and you get "post-suburban blight". So much for your housing bubble. This is the very thing that drives Kunstler crazy.

[Chaparral]

In Los Angeles people who are in the market for starter homes are now looking in earnest at older, smaller homes in the inner-ring suburbs. This has been going on for a couple of years. The rationales were:

1) commute time

2) the lower housing cost offset the crappy schools. The money saved would be used for private school tuition.

3) NOW in 2005 we hear gas prices entering the equation although commute time is still the number-one criterion.

It helps that crime rates are at multi-year lows nearly across the board. I wonder how high gas prices have to get before people will brave the crime and crap schools en masse and we see a wholesale flight back to the inner city. Would this even be attainable or would the Greater Depression occur and Mad Max show up at the door first?

To support projections made earlier in this thread, back in recession of the early to mid 1990s, many urban poor moved out of Watts, Compton and South Central into far flung desert exurbs like Lancaster, Palmdale and Moreno Valley. The housing was cheap and they were trying to get their kids out of the ghetto. Needless to say, crime rates skyrocketed in these suburbs and they started to get a reputation.

Some European cities like Paris are surrounded by immigrant slums while the well-to-do congregate in the city center. I've often wondered if rising gas prices will cause something similar to happen to American cities. Looking at all the shiny $300.00 USD per square foot residental skyscrapers going up in just about every city from Detroit to Miami to Chicago to San Diego to Fort Worth to Milwaukee and Minneapolis, I'm starting to believe it is so.

[nero]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', 'T')o move to an older place closer in, you invariably have to spend extra to redo the carpet and paint plus replace some of the moving parts such as furnace and ac. By the time you do that, including nuisance factor, you are better off spending the money on a big brand new tract home further out.

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'c')ould simply renovate and increase your floor space

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', '
')The result of this is that the first layer of suburbia is a ring of small houses that no one will move into. Invariably these become rentals, start to deteriorate because they were built so cheaply in the first place, and then the schools deteriorate because the non-english speakers move in. The upscale people move out of the strip shops, in move the thrift stores and porn places, and the property values go down, and you get "post-suburban blight". So much for your housing bubble. This is the very thing that drives Kunstler crazy.