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Hyperloop or Bullet Train: How We Will Travel UnderAgenda 21 URL disabled as follows http://www.occupycorporatism.com/hyperloop-or-bullet-train-how-we-will-travel-under-agenda-21/ Disabled Each numbered link below is from the original hyperloop document first segment. http://www.academia.edu/4116374/Occupy_Agenda_21 I opened each link, copied and pasted the online data Feb 2018 as follows. Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, would like to be behind the development of faster and more efficient high-speed bullet trains that move Americans from San Francisco Bay to Los Angeles at speeds unheard of before. The Hyperloop, as [1] described by Musk, is the fifth mode of transportation. Beyond the four modes of current transportation (boats, planes, cars and trains), the Hyperloop would move 3 to 4 times faster than the bullet trains built across the globe; meaning it would travel at twice the speed of an average commercial airliner. The concept is to move people at a faster rate, translating into a trip from Northern California to the Southern areas in less than 30 minutes. Using solar panels, Musk believes that the Hyperloop would be self-generating power and cost less per ride than any other current mode of transportation. Musk will take the ingenuity of a “Concorde, a rail gun and an air hockey table” to [2] create the elevated tube system that uses magnetic levitation. The frictionless surface would mean passengers could travel in capsules without feeling the ride. The Hyperloop would be designed to move people underwater from Alaska to Hawaii or Los Angeles to New York for an estimated $100 per trip. A superhighway could be constructed to connect the US to Europe. Musk hopes to improve on the Very High Speed Transit System (VHST) that was [3] created by physicist R.M. Salter in 1972. The VHST was touted as the train that could move Americans across the nation in less than an hour. With technical problems existing in the 1970s, Salter said: “The general principles are fairly straightforward: electromagnetically levitated and propelled cars in an evacuated tunnel.” As part of the Agenda 21 scheme, Portland, Oregon, voted on the construction of a [4] lightrail system that would stretch across the state and will use federal funding to continue the construction of this high-speed transportation system. A loan from Bank of America was obtained by county commissioners for $19.3 million to cover the $1.5 billion project. In Ballard, Washington State, a $6 million [5] study will be conducted at the taxpayer’s expense to devise how receptive Washitonians will be toward having a light rail constructed that would connect certain Seattle neighborhoods such as the University District, Northgate and Roosevelt.

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Detroit, Michigan will see the [6] privately-funded light rail system begin construction as US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood concluded his visit to Detroit with his group of private investors. Called M-1 Rail, this endeavor is being sustained by contributors such as the Kresge Foundation, Quicken, Compuware, the Penske Corp., Wayne State University, Detroit Medical Center and Henry Ford Health System; as well as federal funding and tax credits to the state. LaHood is pushing the necessity of this transportation system as a connection between regions and a starting point for regional concepts to replace independent states in the psychology of the general public. A [7] report published by Thomas A. Garrett, a senior economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Missouri describes the necessity of light-rail systems throughout the continental US as a sound economic development. Garrett explains that: “the idea that rail transit can promote economic development with the cooperation of city officials and private developers is known as transit-oriented development (TOD). Although TOD is one goal of any public transportation system, officials see light rail as a particularly amenable tool for spurring economic development.” Using the false reality of job creation, citizen preferences of trains over personal cars, mitigation of air pollution and alleviating traffic congestion are justifications that coerce the general public to support the construction of light-rail systems in their communities. The truth is that these expensive endeavors create solvency of citizens and state governments to the construction and operating costs of light-rail systems. Sacramento, California is spending $18 million and Portland, Oregon is spending $24 million. Passenger generated revenue will not make a feasible return in profits. There must be another reason for this sudden push for high-speed rail systems to litter the American landscape. The high speed railway is the brainchild of [8] America 2050, a non-governmental organization that supports Agenda 21 policies in the US. The latest initiative of these globalists is called “rebuilding and Renewing America” which is a response to forcing high-speed rails instead of investing money into repairing roads, bridges and current infrastructure. America 2050 is pushing the federal government to adopt a [9] National InfrastructureInvestment Plan which defines how the light-rail system will dominate the American landscape and compete with the global transition from fossil-based fuels to low-carbon technocratic rule. There is an urgent necessity from the global Elite to reform ineffective federal transportation, energy and water policies to reflect their own agendas. With the formation of megaregions, light-rail systems will connect these areas and a federal investment plan must be in place to prioritize the future 11 megaregions that are being planned right now. There is an overwhelming clamor for the [10] restructuring of current cities into mega-cities, while forcing rural residents into the suburban centers which will be sucking into the expanding megacities. Karen Seto, professor of urban environment at the globalist-controlled Yale University, [11] decries against urbanization and the migration of people as the eco-systems of the earth are devastated. Seto believes that unless this human population and urbanization is stopped, by 2030, there will be an increase of 3 to 5% of global land used to house humans. And this is

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unacceptable because of the “huge impact on biodiversity hot spots and on carbon emissions in those urban areas.” The globalists at America 2050 are promoting the [12] Transportation For America (TFA) initiative to force Congress to formulate a transportation bill that will reflect their designs for the future. TFA complains about the state of bridges and roads while demanding that high-speed rails replace their decaying relicts. They refer to the elderly having to wait for a public bus at a dirty bus-stop as a degrading way to travel when a high-speed railing depot could replace this archaic form of transportation. The TFA’s [13] vision of the future includes:• National investment which will be provided by taxpayers • Changes in energy polices to reflect UN guidelines for reduction of CO2 emissions • Reward communities that relinquish their right to personal cars in lieu of light-rail transportation • Change in social consciousness to view high-speed rails as endorsing public safety and health • Utilize private sector investments into light-rail transportation where the costs will incrementally increase for the user The [14] Regional Plan Association (RPA) pushed project that enhance regional transit networks that destroy state sovereignty to be replaced by the 11 megaregions that the globalists are currently constructing. Urban designs must now reflect light-rail transit systems that strategically turn metropolitan centers into environmentally-friendly developments where commercial and residential centers are co-mingled. This is the manifestation of Agenda 21 ATTACHMENTS FOLLOW FOR LIVE LINKS IN THE ARTICLE ABOVE [1] VIDEO and unedited video text Published Mar 09, 2013 https://youtu.be/-pRB_aG5b-E Open sourcing you know basically just describing the idea saying it this is what will be done and if somebody wants to do it then then they could do it and thinking like maybe I should patent it and then offer to open-source the patent to anyone that can make a credible case that they could actually do it some sort of debating it but it would be for for a fifth mode of transport so right now we've got of terrestrial transport we've got planes trains automobiles and boats we're getting around earth and what if there was a fifth mode mm-hmm and I have a name for the neighbor which is called the Hyperloop Hyperloop ever lived yeah it's like a Jetsons tunnel it's something like that yeah you just get in that whisks you uh yeah well and I'll tell you the characteristics so but this is partly prompted by the California Train thing I can never got like a bullet train that that's like this it's the it has a dubious distinction of being the slowest bullet train and the most expensive per mile bullet is there so we're setting records that but you know both ends so that the wrong door wrong into the spectrum and you know we're currently it's gonna be like sixty billion dollars or something to go from San Francisco to LA and if it's if they're saying 60 now it's gonna be more later and its really slow to put this in perspective a hundred million got you into space well it got me started I mean it cut it got me to yet suddenly got me to space didn't quite get convinced at all but very close yes yes something like that yeah in terms a cap of cap a venture capital investment it's been a couple hundred million total including outside investors so it's basically it's been profitable for the last few years so I think we can do do

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something that's probably ten percent of the cost and and and I try to think of what are the attributes that you'd want in a new motor transport in fact what is the theoretically fastest way that you could get from LA to San Francisco and and so so sister I have in mind which is you've sort of you're guessing in the right direction sort of how'd you like something that can never crash it is immune to whether it goes three or four times faster than the sort of boat train that's being built well it well it goes but listen it an average speed of twice what what what aircraft would would do so you go from downtown LA to downtown San Francisco in under 30 minutes and it would cost you much less than than an air ticket or card much less than any other mode transfer which is the fundamental energy cost is so much lower and I think we can actually make it self power and self-powering if you just if you put solar panels on it you generate fire back the envelope is you generate more power than you then you consume in the system and there's a way to store the power so that it would run 24/7 without using batteries so you just different you can give ifferent ways to store energy anyway so that's you think this is possible this is not just yes absolutely yeah. Wow serve our time you retire. [2] Elon Musk's 'Hyperloop' Idea Is Insane, and That's Just Fine https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/elon-musks-hyperloop-hype/314705/

Tesla Motor's Wonderer-in-Chief continued his public tour of imagination on Friday to talk about how great his car company is doing, even though everyone really want to hear about his mad genius idea to reinvent long-distance travel. Yes, Elon Musk is everywhere these days, because that's exactly how Elon Musk plans it. And we could use dreamers like him.

May 31, 2013

This article is from the archive of our partner .

Tesla Motor's Wonderer-in-Chief Elon Musk went on CNBC today to talk about how great his car company is doing, but what everyone really wanted to hear about was his mad genius idea to reinvent long-distance travel. All this week, Musk has talking up a radical transportation idea called the "Hyperloop," which he describes as a "cross between a Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table." It's basically an underground bullet train that, freed from pesky terrestrial concerns like weather, farm animals, and friction, would zoom people across the country in hours instead of days. Like the Segway of trains.

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The best part about the Hyperloop is that, theoretically, the technology needed to build it already exists. (Superconducting electromagnets, basically.) All it would take to make it happen is, well, the will — and several boatloads of money. Musk, whose "other company" shoots things into space for money, probably believes he has both.

Sadly, the Hyperloop will never, ever happen. It's a brillant, pie-in-the-sky idea that the realities of politics and construction permits would render all but impossible. Even if the technology is perfect, we can barely build a train from Orlando-to-Tampa (using already obsolete technology), so there's no way California is going let anyone dig a five-hundred-mile-long tunnel under the San Andreas Fault. It's taken New York City a generation to break ground on its latest subway line, and will probably take another to finish it. This nation is terrible at new infrastructure and all the billionaire dreams in the world won't change that. (See also: the Keystone XL pipeline, fracking, this collapsed bridge, etc.)

Not that it really matters. Like the namesake of his electric car, Musk is the stereotypical mad dreamer. He imagines all manner of wild and fantastic inventions, most of which will never come to pass. But the few that do just might change the world.

Musk still isn't a household name, but he has been everywhere lately, because that's how Musk plans it. He used his Twitter account to scheduled a series of "big" announcements about Telsa. Most of them will mean nothing to you, unless you are in the market for a $40,000-plus car that can only travel on very specific highways. But they keep Telsa and Musk in the news and make both objects of endless fascination. That makes investors happy and customers giddy.

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That also gets you glowing profiles in business magazines and saucy tabloid rumors linking you to movie stars. (For the record, Musk denied today that he's dating Cameron Diaz. He didn't deny that he was "the inspiration for Iron Man genius billionaire Tony Stark," but that's probably because the non-movie version of Stark was invented eight years before Musk was born.) For those tired of the incessant hype that seems to follow Silicon Valley's richest kids around, it might all seem like a bit much.

Then again, in this case it's not wholly unearned. (Unlike more than few "It" kids.) Musk made his first millions by creating an early version of online publishing software, but then became a true mogul by building PayPal, one of the few survivors of the original dotcom boom (and selling it to eBay for a billion dollars.) Then he used that money to build Space X, the first private company to launch its own cargo ships to the International Space Station. And while he was doing that, he was creating Tesla Motors on the side, apparently solving another problem: a true electric car that's actually a great car. He's not a one-hit wonder or a guy who just got lucky with the right cellphone app at the right time. He's built real things that others haven't (or couldn't) and his dreams are about more than just striking it rich.

Unlike Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg, Musk's "vision" seems to be a bit wilder than just selling a product. (Though he's pretty good at doing that, too.) He has publicly dreamt about colonizing Mars and solar powering everything, and basically saving the planet from human foolishness. The Hyperloop — which is not really his idea in the first place — is just another thread of his larger vision: Using technology to make life nicer and healthier and more amazing. It doesn't really matter if the Hyperloop never gets built. It just enough to know there's someone in the world who might make people believe, even if it's only for a moment, that it actually could be. Inset photo: Steve Jurvetson via Flickr

[3] We Think We Know What Elon Musk's Hyperloop Is, And How It Can Get You From LA To San Francisco In 30 Minutes http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-elon-musks-hyperloop-2013-5 Tesla founder Elon Musk has been teasing an exciting idea for a new form of transportation for the last year.

He calls it the "Hyperloop" and he says it's better than a bullet train. The Hyperloop would get people to Los Angeles from San Francisco in 30 minutes.

However, he's been vague about how he's going to make the Hyperloop a reality.

The closest to detail he's gotten is when he said the Hyperloop is a "cross between a Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table."

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He's been so vague that it seems like what he's talking about can't possibly be real.

But it can be real.

In 1972, the Rand Corporation released a paper written by physicist R.M. Salter that detailed an underground tube system that could send people from Los Angeles to New York City in 21 minutes.

He called it the Very High Speed Transit System, or VHST. (Not nearly as catchy a name as Hyperloop.)

Salter concluded in his paper that "the technical problems associated with the VHST development are manifold and difficult — but no scientific breakthroughs are required."

In other words, the VHST isn't just some far-out dream. It can be a reality if we address some political and construction issues.

"The general principles are fairly straightforward: electromagnetically levitated and propelled cars in an evacuated tunnel," wrote Salter.

The general principles are fairly straightforward: electromagnetically levitated and propelled cars in an evacuated tunnel," wrote Salter.

Rand Corporation The VHST would be a vacuum sealed tube buried underground that would zip across the country. Salter suggested making a few stops across the country because it would be more practical. It would also allow for other tube routes.

We've emailed Musk asking if his Hyperloop is similar to Salter's idea. He has not written us back. But, reading Salter's paper, it's easy to see similarities to a railgun/air hockey table style transporter.

Salter explained how it could work by saying, "The VHST's 'tubecraft' ride on, and are driven by, electromagnetic waves much as a surfboard rides the ocean's wave. The EM waves are generated by pulsed, or by oscillating, currents in electrical conductors that form the roadbed structure in the evacuated tube way. Opposing magnetic fields in the vehicle are

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generated means of a loop superconducting cable carrying on the order of a million amperes of current."

He says the VHST would be highly efficient. Unlike a plane, "it does not have to squander unrecoverable energy climbing to high altitudes."

The VHST would accelerate to its maximum speed, then coast for a short while, then decelerate, says Salter. It would use all its kinetic energy to accelerate, and that power would be returned when it decelerates through energy regeneration.

In 1972, the Rand Corporation said it had already examined speeds of 14,000 miles per hour. At that speed, it would take 21 minutes to go from Los Angeles to New York City.

According to Salter's research, a coast to coast VHST trip would happen faster than it takes a plane going coast to coast to get to its peak altitude.

The VHST would have to be underground. Digging the tunnels would be the biggest problem with creating the VHST. It would require political agreement and high costs to dig the actual tunnels. (90% of the cost would be building tunnels.)

There are a lot of benefits to a tunnel, though: "protection against sabotage, right of way costs, surface congestion, grade separation problems, and noise pollution go away."

Why don't we have the VHST?

Salter blamed political issues. He wrote, "History has shown that some obvious projects, such as tunneling under the English Channel proposed in the time of Napoleon, can be delayed for centuries because of political pressures."

However, he did a crude break down of the economics and he believed that a VHST could be a profitable operation. It would make money by transporting ~106 million people per year. It could also do transportation of goods to generate additional revenue.

Obviously, anything like this is a long shot.

But if it was possible in 1972, we see no reason to believe it couldn't happen in 2013.

You can read the full paper here, it's a PDF https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P4874.pdf

[4] Ballots due 8 p.m. for Clackamas County, King City anti-light rail measures

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-city/index.ssf/2012/09/ballots_due_8_pm_for_clackamas.html

Ballots are due at 8 tonight in the Clackamas County special election for an anti-rail initiative.

Measure 3-401, if approved, would require countywide voter approval before officials can spend money to finance, design, construct or operate any rail lines in the county. Generally, opponents of the Portland-Milwaukie light rail extension support the measure, and light rail supporters oppose the measure.

Turnout exceeded 32.9 percent as of Monday afternoon, according to the Clackamas County Elections Office.

More

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Continuing coverage of the planning, construction and efforts to stop the Portland-Milwaukie light rail. It's unclear what effect the measure, if approved, would have on the under-construction Orange Line, the project at the heart of the controversy. County commissioners obtained a private loan Friday from Bank of America to pay TriMet its $19.9 million tab for the $1.5 billion project.

The measure, if approved, could limit Clackamas County's involvement in future rail developments in the county, including high-speed passenger rail that is in early stages of discussion.

Ballots are also due 8 tonight for a similar measure in King City.

-- Yuxing Zheng

[5] Sound Transit kicks off West Seattle/Ballard light rail extension with a bang; But critics say alternatives to the plan are needed https://www.westsideseattle.com/ballard-news-tribune/2018/02/16/sound-transit-kicks-west-seattleballard-light-rail-extension-bang

Feb 2018 Sound Transit held an open house in West Seattle on Tuesday Feb. 13 to begin the process of determining the factors that will go into bringing light rail to both West Seattle and Ballard.

Fri, 02/16/2018

By Gwen Davis

The anticipated West Seattle/Ballard light rail extension open house took place Tuesday evening and was packed. Sound Transit is currently in the process of acquiring public input for the projects, and this event was one of the first to kick off the process.

“Thank you all for coming this evening to our very first open house for the West Seattle and Ballard light rail extensions,” Sound Transit's facilitator began. “We are very happy to have you.”

Next week begins early scoping for the project, she said. Comments for this first round will be received until March 5.

“During early scoping, we want to hear your voice on a few things,” she said. “First, we’re going to kick [tonight] off with a presentation."

Additionally, many Sound Transit staffers were available to answer participants’ questions afterwards, she told the crowd.

Attendees were also very much encouraged to write and submit written comments, she said.

“I want to give you an overview of our overall plan,” the director of the project began, which includes three counties and three million residents. "When we opened in 2009 our ridership was 18.8 million and it went up to 42.2 million by 2016."

Over the next 20 years, the public will see light rail extensions up to all over the greater Seattle area, including Northgate, Bellevue, Federal Way and Lynwood.

“By 2040 we’ll have 116 miles of light rail,” he said.

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The light rail expansion has already been advancing a few years ahead of schedule, he said. Even though 2030 -- when the light rail extension is slated to be complete -- is many years away, that’s actually sooner than originally planned, he explained to the crowed.

“We want to engage heavily with you to identify the preferred alternative,” he said. Additionally, if the preferred alternative is identified before the environmental review process, the project can be carried out sooner.

“Basic point is, please engage heavily in the next year, and maybe we can get this done on the timeline we are all hoping for,” he stated.

The length of the West Seattle and Ballard extensions will be 4.7 miles long.

West Seattle will open by 2030, while Ballard will open by 2035.

However, many West Seattle transportation activists have been critical about parts of the plan, and have proposed alternatives.

As Westside Seattle previously reported, SDOT has planned for the light rail extension to stretch from the Junction neighborhood to downtown Seattle, primarily on an elevated guideway. It would connect to the existing light rail underground in downtown Seattle.

But members of the West Seattle Transportation Coalition (WSTC) have suggested that the light rail extension should crisscross the northern section of the West Seattle Golf Club.

“Going over the golf course would allow for a straighter path from the Delridge station to the Avalon station,” said Chas Redmond, board member of the WSTC.

Redmond and others have additionally argued that putting the light rail over the golf course would displace fewer people, and would not impact low-income housing.

“It was thought that such a path over the golf course would be preferable to a path closer to the steel mill as the steel mill route looked like it might cause some properties along that path to be condemned by eminent domain action, so the golf course path seemed less impactful,” he wrote in an email to Westside Seattle. “The pylons through the golf course would, of course, constitute a new ‘hazard’ for whatever holes they impacted.”

But since no golf course players were at any of the presentations, their opinions are unknown at this time, he added.

Additionally, this past week, there have been questions about funding reductions for the project, based on the change in license tabs.

However, Redmond said that any reduction wouldn’t affect this part of the long-term development.

“Sound Transit representatives both this week and during previous meetings with the WSTC have said the [license tab changes] would not change the planning or construction schedule for any existing projects and would not impact the West Seattle and Ballard planning efforts,” he stated. You can participate in an online version of the open house at https://wsblink.participate.online .

[6] M-1 Rail Group Releases $137 Million Woodward Avenue Light Rail Plan, Has $84 Million Secured http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/m1-rail-woodward-avenue-detroit-light-rail-_n_1447104

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After several months hammering out the details, the backers behind a plan to put a 3.1-mile rail track down Woodward Ave. in Detroit submitted a report to government agencies claiming they have secured most of the necessary funding and will take responsibility for 10 years of upkeep.

The M-1 Rail investor group behind the plan for the line, which will run along Woodward from downtown Detroit to New Center, spent the last 90 days writing a hefty, 1,200-page feasibility report at the behest of U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. On Friday, the group submitted the report to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Transit Authority, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and community stakeholders. The takeaway? The authors think their plan is very feasabile.

In the report, the group bumped up its estimate of total project costs from $125 to $137 million. M-1 has raised $84 million already and expects to receive $31 million in federal grants and tax credits.

Although the group says the total cost will be shy of the higher estimate, planners are held up by the mystery of "what lies beneath Woodward Avenue," making it difficult to determine exact costs. The plan calls for building the M-1 line concurrent with the Michigan Department of Transportation's planned reconstruction on Woodward in 2013, to mitigate some of the risk.

The rail system is expected to cost $5.1 million to operate annually; 80 percent of that to be covered by fares and advertising. Members of M-1 Rail pledged to endow a $10 million fund to privately support operating costs for up to 10 years until 2025, at which point they would hand the system's operation over to a public entity.

The M-1 Rail plan has kept up momentum despite mixed public reaction. The previous incarnation was a nine-mile line that ran all the way from downtown to 8 Mile Road and was expected to serve commuters between the city and suburbs. But in December, city and state officials announced they would pursue a rapid-transit bus system rather than put their weight behind light rail.

In January, officials met to consider the possibilities behind the shorter rail proposal. The newer light rail plan, scaled back dramatically, has key differences. M-1 executive Matt Cullen told The Huffington Post in January that the new system was closer to a streetcar than true light rail, on its own track but still tied to traffic.

While proponents think the line would be crucial in spurring development along the Woodward corridor, some have raised concerns about the project's longterm viability. Transportation Riders United Executive Director Megan Owens previously expressed concern that the new plan could not easily be expanded or connected to other transportation systems.

A spokeswoman for M-1 said the group expects to hear back from officials in several weeks, and until then members will continue to work on plans, particularly regarding community outreach and engineering.

To see the official summary of the report, see the M-1 Rail website.

[7] Link disabled. I found this Aug 2004 REPORT by Thomas A. Garrett, a senior economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Missouri https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/Files/PDFs/Community%20Development/Research%20Reports/light_rail.pdf

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https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/econ/garrett/garrettvita.pdf

[8] Study: New Haven Line Faces Decades of Disruption Without New Investment http://www.america2050.org/newsroom.html

The New Haven Line needs such substantial repair work that at the current pace of investment it will take two decades to restore the line to full operating capacity, a new study by Regional Plan Association found. An analysis by RPA determined that $3.6 billion will be needed beyond what is currently budgeted to modernize the rail line, the busiest in the U.S.

Infrastructure on the 60-mile stretch of track between New York and Connecticut has been allowed to deteriorate, largely due to decades of underinvestment in critical repairs and upgrades. Delaying the repair work significantly raises the risk of unplanned outages and limits the line’s capacity to accommodate growing ridership.

The New Haven Line carries 125,000 passengers every day on the Metro-North commuter line and on Amtrak trains between Boston and New York and plays a vital role in the economic life of the Northeast. The line's owners, the states of Connecticut and New York, have made significant progress improving the rail infrastructure they inherited in the 1970s in poor physical condition, despite major funding constraints. But funding shortfalls have forced both states to defer long overdue capital investment necessary to protect the line's operations and passengers.

The age-related problems that plague the line can be felt by passengers nearly every day. Five movable rail bridges, all well beyond their replacement age, get stuck open several times a week, delaying train traffic and causing ripple effects up and down the line. This year, the line suffered two major outages, including a derailment and collision in May that injured 76 people and an electrical outage in September that disrupted service on the line for more than two weeks.

RPA’s study, Getting Back on Track: Unlocking the Full Potential of the New Haven Line, documents the key issues affecting the rail line and outlines critical capital investments necessary for the line to function as a reliable, four-track railroad. RPA researchers found that an additional $3.6 billion is needed to repair or replace aging and obsolete infrastructure, beyond the $1 billion already budgeted by the state of Connecticut for this work.

“The New Haven Line supports the biggest and most diverse economy in the country, yet this crucial piece of infrastructure is no longer up to the task,” said RPA President Robert D. Yaro. “If we don’t maintain our vital infrastructure, we will be subjecting a generation of commuters and long-distance travelers to relentless, disruptive repair work and jeopardizing the growth and prosperity of our region,” he said.

Expediting construction would mean disruptions to service in the short term, but would get the line back to its full, four-track capacity far sooner. This would allow the line to accommodate anticipated population growth and economic development along the New York-to-New Haven corridor. The upgrades also are crucial to accommodating passengers transferring from the region’s branch lines, including from the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield commuter line, which is expected to begin service in 2016.

The study outlines an emergency action plan for the rail line to address major needed improvements, including: upgrades to power and signal systems; repairs to tracks and

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station platforms; and rehabilitation or replacement of the five movable bridges that are a source of continued service disruptions.

The full study can be viewed here: http://library.rpa.org/pdf/RPA-Getting-Back-on-Track.pdf

[9] Christopher Papagianis Why not enact an ‘intelligent’ national infrastructure plan?

There are about 1 billion cars on the world’s roads today. By mid-century, forecasts have that number climbing to 4 billion. Meanwhile, Congress is mired in a debate over whether to pass a new highway bill. Senator Barbara Boxer, a chief negotiator of the pending bill, lamented recently that she was “embarrassed for the people of this country” that this measure had not been enacted. After all, she said, passing highway bills used to be as popular and as important as “motherhood and apple pie.”

As with all previous highway bills, proponents generally wrap their arguments in projections for new jobs, or rhetoric that links fresh infrastructure spending to unclogging the arteries of commerce. For the president, a highway bill fits his campaign theme of getting America back to work. In a recent speech in Cleveland, the president issued a call to “rebuild America” and to do “some nation-building here at home.” The main obstacle remains how to pay for new spending and investment.

Flashback to 1998 and 2005: Those were the last years Washington enacted “highway bills,” or measures to reauthorize federal infrastructure spending programs. Now that the economy is sputtering in 2012, many would like to see Congress pull a page from the playbooks of those years. The taxpayer price tags for the ’98 and ’05 multiyear highway bills were $218 billion and $286 billion, respectively. Count President Obama as part of today’s infrastructure-stimulus choir, as he has proposed a $556 billion six-year bill.

Harvard Professor Edward Glaeser argues: “America’s infrastructure needs intelligent reform, not floods of extra financing or quixotic dreams of new moon adventures or high-speed railways to nowhere.”

U.S. policymakers would be wise to take a moment this summer to reflect on whether the national strategy they are contemplating for infrastructure investment properly prioritizes performance and leverages technology.

Federal and state spending on transportation has grown faster than inflation for decades, yet the broader system’s performance has continued to deteriorate. The future of infrastructure in the U.S. is about achieving system performance – like attacking problems such as road congestion – rather than always adding raw capacity.

Over the last five or so years, an alternative vision for the future of infrastructure has unfolded, one that views travelers as customers who prioritize an efficient commute and a transportation system that’s safe. This recast framework has been enabled, in part, by the emergence of new tools to measure travelers’ objectives and system deficiencies. Private investment is also starting to flow to develop the new underlying technologies and creative new business models.

While the infrastructure grid has long had cameras to help spot accidents causing delays, the pervasiveness of smartphones, new GPS technologies and other sensors (those in and above ground) has exponentially added to the data pool.

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One of the top complaints from driving customers is congestion, traffic delays and overly long commutes. New startups are developing applications to help cities do everything from identifying potholes faster to spotting in almost real time the fender bender that is slowing down traffic. The fresh focus on performance has also led to straightforward tech ideas like flexible screens that can be erected quickly at the scene of an accident to stop the rubbernecking by nearby travelers that causes congestion.

New companies like SFPark, Parkmobile and Streetline are seeking to transform the conventional parking meter. These companies utilize apps, linking data from wireless sensors (either embedded or tacked onto the parking spot pavement), to match parking availability with consumer location and demand.

With the explosion of data in and around our transportation infrastructure, large companies have also set their sights on developing analytical platforms for cities and other urban planners. Cisco’s “Smart + Connected Communities” initiative and IMB’s “Smarter Cities” visions are leading the way. The tagline for Smarter Cities lays out the broader premise: “that the world is becoming more interconnected, instrumented, and intelligent, and this constitutes an opportunity for new savings, efficiency, and possibility for progress.”

Over the last couple of years IBM helped design the first ever, citywide clearinghouse for infrastructure data in Brazil, called the Operations Center of the City of Rio. What makes this center unique is that it has integrated practically all of the city’s major information or response-related departments and agencies so that there is “a holistic view” of how the city is functioning or performing in real time, 365 days a year.

As the New York Times reported in a profile on the Rio center earlier this year, these platforms are being utilized not only by cities but also by smaller organizations like the Miami Dolphins, which wants to more efficiently manage the traffic around its new stadium. Schools are another good example. Everyday Solutions, a relatively new startup, provides a Web-based utility that monitors travel times and ridership rates and helps parents track the school bus their kids are on. (For more examples, check out Fast Company’s top 10 list of most innovative companies in transportation.)

Academia is also advancing both tech research and deployment: Check out Carnegie Mellon’s Traffic21 and Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, or SMART.

The units of transportation are facing a frontier of change that will see cars, trucks and buses transformed into intelligent vehicles. Earlier this year at the 2012 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Ford Motor Co executive Bill Ford shared his “Blueprint for Mobility”, which lays out how transportation can change over the next decade. The auto company is investing in platforms that take advantage of the increasing number of sensors in and around vehicles as well as vehicle-to-vehicle communication initiatives, including accident warning or prevention systems.

Sebastian Thrun’s vision for self-driving, or “semiautonomous,” cars has the potential to improve mobility, and more important, safety. Over the last 10 years, more than 350,000 people have lost their lives on American roads. Thrun and his colleagues at Google X Lab have developed working prototypes that can travel thousands of miles without a driver behind the wheel. The cars can travel on highways, merge at high speeds and navigate city streets, eliminating the thousands of little decisions that drivers make that contribute to congestion and accidents. The self-driving car, with its ability to communicate with other vehicles and utilize precision technology, offers the potential to circumvent many of these problems.

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Given that this sector is just starting to sprout up on its own, perhaps the federal government should stay on the sidelines in the near term to avoid stifling innovation. Yet just last year Google helped Nevada draft the nation’s first state law to allow self-driving cars on its roads (with preset conditions like requiring human co-pilots).

For Bill Ford, the opportunities on the more immediate horizon are quite clear. Cars could become “a billion computing devices” or “rolling collections of sensors” and made part of one large data network to “advance mobility, reduce congestion, and improve safety.” Sure, the benefits might be realized more quickly with the right help from the government. But if the value proposition exists and infrastructure customers start to demand better performance, this new vision may already be inevitable.

[10] Eco-Fascists Push Agenda 21 Mega-Cities to Replace Growing Cities and Rural Areas https://www.occupycorporatism.com/2012/09/20/eco-fascists-push-agenda-21-mega-cities-to-replace-growing-cities-and-rural-areas/

The globalist march toward Agenda 21 includes the demonization of population growth and our current urban cities. As if there were a correlation between social upheaval and the explosion of urbanization, the propaganda abounds creating villains out of those who fight against eminent domain, the right to live in sprawling rural areas and retain their farmlands.

The UN Population Fund (UNPF) calls for a global population reduction by use of family planning which is code for population stabilization to decrease fertility rates.

A new study published claims that as urbanization continues, there will be a decline of biodiversity and the man-made impact on global warming will increase.

Globalist-supported scientists are suggesting that humanity would be better off living in densely populated centers. “We certainly don’t want them strolling about the entire countryside. We want them to save land for nature by living closely [together].”

Urban areas are expected to expand by 1.2 million square miles by 2030.

American cities in Virginia, Ohio, Florida, and many others are beginning to invest in controlled environments, i.e. megacities, where private cars will be banned, transit centers link high speed light rail systems, and controls over food distribution, energy use and water allocation is overseen by governmental agencies.

Other efforts by supporters of Agenda 21 are transforming our towns into eco-communities that adhere to UN mandates against the production of CO2 to the determinant of freedom and innovation.

Karen Seto, lead author and professor of urban environment at the globalist-controlled Yale University, decries against urbanization and the migration of people as the eco-systems of the earth are devastated. Seto believes that unless this human population and urbanization is stopped, by 2030, there will be an increase of 3 to 5% of global land used to house humans. And this is unacceptable because of the “huge impact on biodiversity hotspots and on carbon emissions in those urban areas.”

Back in July, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the construction of 275 to 300 ft micro-apartments in Kips Bay in a beta-test to coerce New Yorkers into living in tight-knit, purposefully dense areas to alter the psychological landscape toward conversation globalist style.

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One of the nations on the global Elite’s destruction list is in Asia. China will dominate the need for urbanization as their population advances.

Evidence of eco-devastation emerges with the lack of city planning and makeshift metropolitan centers that lack proper sewage routes, waste management and water services.

Humans are now being compared to invasive species that commandeer territory, disburse indigenous wildlife and destroy the planet in the process.

The move out of rural areas and densification of urbanized centers is being pushed in the American mainstream media as the answer to the devastating effects of humans on the environment. The elimination of suburban areas, as compact cities become inundated with more people, there is a need to reinvent these centers to accommodate these swelling numbers.

In America there is a boom involving the building of light rail systems funded by the US government which will become the mode of transportation once the mega-cities are created.

America 2050 envisions high speed railways built along the east and west coasts of America. These railways will link the megaregions and megacities which create Cascadia; an amalgamation of Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, British Columbia with a high speed rail will ensure the protection of designated habitats for animals.

In 2010, experts were asserting the greater importance of urban populations against those in rural areas as it has been the plan of the global Elite to reduce rural resources including people and communities in lieu of promoting clean water, food, forest areas. Keeping rural areas impoverished and forcing people to move into urban centers has created a need for sustainable urbanization, say the eco-fascists.

Yale researchers assert that in America “78 percent of the population already lives in urban or suburban areas, urban land cover is expected to double by 2030” and with infrastructure investments, current urbanization rates are unsustainable.

More rhetoric designed to coerce the public into subscribing to the mythological belief in man-made global warming resides in a new pseudo-scientific word created by eco-terrorists: telecoupling. This is the ideology invented by Jack Lin, director at the Human-Nature Lab/Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability at Michigan State University. Lin explains that telecoupling describes distances between human and natural systems concerning globalization. As urbanization continues, deforestation follows, and the draw on natural resources increases unto the devastation of the planet.

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Deforestation, pollution and industry in developing nations are the main perpetrator of telecoupling, according to Lin who said: “There are new and faster ways of connecting the whole planet — from big events like earthquakes and floods to tourism, trade, migration, pollution, climate change, flows of information and financial capital, and invasion of animal and plant species.”

Telecoupling, a new propaganda message of the believers in man-made climate change decry preservation of the natural world to the detriment of human sustainability.

In Canada, UN Biodiversity agendas define environmental laws. For the sake of eco-preservation, human movement is being severely restricted. Two years ago, the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity saw the implementation of environmental governance mirroring the UN’s agendas in Canada in the name of wildlife protection and foreseeable risks to biodiversity from the human population in Canada.

[11] Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030 and direct impacts on biodiversity and carbon pools http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/11/1211658109?sid=12628921-9db0-420f-b0a3-210c4a556aaa Karen C. Seto, Burak Güneralp and Lucy R. Hutyra PNAS 2012; published ahead of print September 17, 2012, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211658109

1. Edited by B. L. Turner, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, and approved August 16, 2012 (received for review July 10, 2012)

Article

Figures & SI

Authors & Info

PDF

Abstract

Urban land-cover change threatens biodiversity and affects ecosystem productivity through loss of habitat, biomass, and carbon storage. However, despite projections that world urban populations will increase to nearly 5 billion by 2030, little is known about future locations, magnitudes, and rates of urban expansion. Here we develop spatially explicit probabilistic forecasts of global urban land-cover change and explore the direct impacts on biodiversity hotspots and tropical carbon biomass. If current trends in population density continue and all areas with high probabilities of urban expansion undergo change, then by 2030, urban land cover will increase by 1.2 million km2, nearly tripling the global urban land area circa 2000. This increase would result in considerable loss of habitats in key biodiversity hotspots, with the highest rates of forecasted urban growth to take place in regions that were relatively undisturbed by urban development in 2000: the Eastern Afromontane, the Guinean Forests of West Africa, and the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka hotspots. Within the pan-tropics, loss in vegetation biomass from areas with high probability of urban expansion is estimated to be 1.38 PgC (0.05 PgC yr−1), equal to ∼5% of emissions from tropical deforestation and land-use change. Although

urbanization is often considered a local issue, the aggregate global impacts of projected

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urban expansion will require significant policy changes to affect future growth trajectories to minimize global biodiversity and vegetation carbon losses.

sustainability

land change science

Footnotes

↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: karen.seto@yale.edu.

Author contributions: K.C.S. and B.G. designed research; K.C.S. and B.G. performed research; K.C.S., B.G., and L.R.H. analyzed data; and K.C.S., B.G., and L.R.H. wrote the paper.

[12] Welcome to Transportation for America http://t4america.org/ A call to action

Without smart, locally driven transportation investments America’s economic

competitiveness will be threatened. Do we have what it takes to meet it head-on?

[13] Blueprint America on complete streets in Atlanta

http://t4america.org/2010/07/26/blueprint-america-on-complete-streets-in-atlanta/

Do yourself a favor and check out this short video from PBS’ Blueprint America series that aired on the program “Need to Know” recently.

The overall package is about “disappearmarks” — earmarks totaling millions in the last federal transportation bill that have never been allocated or spent, according to the Sunlight Foundation. But this story from Atlanta focuses much more specifically on how unsafe, incomplete streets that don’t adequately meet the needs of all users in Atlanta results in pedestrians that have little choice but to take their lives into their own hands each and every day, just to get to work, school, or the closest bus stop.

They used the numbers from Dangerous by Design, our report on pedestrian safety nationally, to help give some broader national context to the situation in Atlanta. Blueprint America special report: Dangerous crossing [text follows link]

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/video/blueprint-america-special-report-crossing-the-line/2429/

This week, the Sunlight Foundation, a non-partisan watchdog group, issued a report saying it had discovered more than $6 billion in federal transportation funding that has not actually been spent.

These unused pots of money, allocated by Congress for local projects, are called “disappearmarks.” The discrepancy is significant, since the nation’s transportation infrastructure needs an upgrade, and the taxpayers’ money was appropriated for that very purpose.

Need to Know teamed up with Blueprint America to check in with residents of an Atlanta suburb where a highway dividing the town makes pedestrian safety a major concern. Local officials there say they could put those “disappearmarks” to good use.

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Blueprint America’s Tom McNamara took a closer look at those “disappearmarks” in a post for Need to Know, which you can find here =

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/economy/disappearmarks-or-what-ever-happened-to-that-6-billion-for-transportation/2427 [text from this link follows]

Remember your old friend, The Bill? That lovable “Schoolhouse Rock” character? Well … He’s gone missing. And the ransom: $6.5 billion. Or he gets it.

Maybe that’s a little extreme. But, the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit government watchdog, reported this week that there was “$6.5 billion worth of unspent earmarks from the most recent transportation funding bill” passed in 2005. The group is calling the unspent money “disappearmarks.”

This comes a week after Rep. Betsy Markey, (D-Colo.), introduced a bill that would redirect some $700 million in funds from not even the last transportation bill, but rather from earmarks that are over a decade old (back when President Clinton was signing legislation).

Over the years, much has been made of congressional earmarks. Most recently, with Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere’” when Rep. Don Young (R) and Sen. Ted Stevens (R) brought home $223 million to link the remote town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) to the more remote island of Gravina (population 50). In the end, the project never happened after much hullabaloo by politicians and the media.

However, members of Congress like to point out that earmarks for transportation account for only 10 percent of total funding. But, that still comes out to billions. Members of Congress also like to point out that they know how best to spend tax dollars in their districts. As Sen. Dick Durbin, (D-Ill.) said last year on the Senate floor, “That there is something inherently evil, wicked or criminal or wrong with [earmarks], it’s just not the case … Otherwise, what happens? We give the money to the agency downtown and they decide where to spend it … It isn’t as if the money won’t be spent. Oh, it will be spent. But it may not be spent as effectively or for projects that are as valuable.”

In most cases, an earmark will go unused if the state or local agency receiving it can’t raise matching funds to get the chosen project started. In other cases, like with the “Bridge to Nowhere,” money should have never been allocated in the first place and, as a result, it goes to waste.

Nearly a year ago, the law funding America’s transportation system — from highways to bus lanes to railways to bike lanes — expired, but it has been extended with continuing-legislation and deficit spending to keep the country moving. The bill in-waiting will cost

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upwards of $500 billion six years from when it’s passed. In the meantime, there’s some spare change under the cushions of Congress that need some turning out.

<a href=”http://data.sunlightlabs.com/Government/Unspent-Federal-Highway-Administration-Earmarks/tsqz-r7ui” mce_href=”http://data.sunlightlabs.com/Government/Unspent-Federal-Highway-Administration-Earmarks/tsqz-r7ui” title=”Unspent Federal Highway Administration Earmarks” target=”_blank”>Unspent Federal Highway Administration Earmarks</a>Powered by Socrata

[14] Regional Plan Association http://www.rpa.org/

At RPA, our professional researchers and regional planners seek to improve the prosperity, sustainability and quality of life in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region through work in transportation, economic development and real estate, environment and open space and more. We also provide leadership on transportation, environmental and economic-development issues in the Northeast and across the U.S.

We focus on helping towns, cities and regions foster sustainable and equitable development by assisting residents and local leaders plan and design their communities to accommodate changes in population, opportunities for economic growth and access to public transit.