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Transport
and its relationship to human settlement
patterns is a recurring topic in Shape of the
Future columns. Much of the discussion of
Mobility and Access focuses on cars (Autonomobiles),
trucks and “traffic congestion.” Also
addressed are shared-vehicle systems,
long-distance/high-speed rails and other modes.
Regardless of mode, the core issue always boils
down to this:
How
do citizens and their Organizations Balance the
travel Demand – for people, goods and
services – generated by the settlement
pattern with the Capacity of the total
transport system.
On
3 October Peter Galuszka authored “The
Maritime Highway” for Bacon’s Rebellion
New Service, and Jim Bacon posted “Maritime
Highways,” on the Bacon’s Rebellion blog.
Both spotlighted US of A Maritime Administrator
Sean Connaughton’s initiative to relieve
roadway congestion by shifting freight
containers from trucks on roadways to barges on
waterways. The analysis, post and comments
concerning Maritime Highways provide an
opportunity to examine the broader context of
“Demand/Capacity Balance.”
On
a per-ton-mile basis, water transport is cheaper
than the alternatives for heavy goods. Finding
ways to ship goods cheaper is great! Water
travel is also more energy efficient. Consuming
less energy per-ton-mile is also a good thing.
Comments
on the blog posting raised questions of
“just-in-time” delivery and the problem of
shipping high value goods at low speeds. A
functional rail system offers higher speeds than
water. Rails have far lower per ton mile costs
than trucks. Further, rail is far more energy
efficient than trucks – hybrid or not – when
traveling at “highway speeds.” The way to
make rail more effective is evolving functional
location of the origins and destinations of
people, goods and services (aka, functional
settlement patterns).
What
do you know! Every transport tradeoff raises
the question of Demand/Capacity Balance.
The
Maritime Highway proposal also provides an
opportunity to consider the larger context of
Demand/ Capacity Balance. The stories and
comments about the Maritime Highway demonstrate
a troubling and overarching reality: There is an
unspoken assumption behind most discussion of
transport options that in the future there will
be more stuff to ship longer distances across an
ever “flatter” earth.
The
earth may be getting “flatter” from some
perspectives but with each passing year it is
more expensive to move people, goods and
services. That is especially true if one wants
to move them fast. This reality will become
overwhelmingly important when – and democracy
and free markets will only survive if this
happens – the total cost of Mobility and
Access options are fairly allocated.
An
example of moving toward fair allocation – and
the shape of the future – is the ongoing
effort by the European Union to equitably
allocate the total cost of aircraft use. This is
a rational, market-based initiative that US of A
airlines and the current US of A administration
is fighting tooth and nail. They will lose this
fight, eventually, just as they have given up
most of the head-in-the-sand arguments about
carbon emissions.
Attempts
to maintain dysfunctional allocation of costs
aside, what is the broad contextual reality that
discussion of the Maritime Highways brings into
sharp focus?
The
only way for humans to protect themselves from
future natural and human disasters –
economic, social and physical – is to shrink
the ecological footprint of human activity.
Whether
it is the next Katrina, the next 11 September,
the federal deficit, a massive housing or
commercial real estate bust, Regional,
nation-state or global depressions, balance of
trade deficit, the end of cheap oil, depletion
of marine resources and potable water, an
epidemic of infectious disease, a massive
thermonuclear event, a major food security
crisis, collapse of the First World monetary
protocols, wars over resource allocation, global
Climate Change, wide-spread have-not revolutions
in the Second and Third World or the next
asteroid, the answer is the same: A smaller
ecological footprint. (See “Down
Memory Lane with Katrina,” 5 September
2005 and “A
Second Stroll With Katrina,” 4 September
2007, and “The
Whale on the Beach,” 28 August 2006.
Shrinking
the ecological footprint means that, over time,
fewer people need to each consume less. Even
more important is that humans consume less while
pursuing all their intrapersonal economic, social and
physical activities. That means achieving
functional settlement patterns so that actions
carried out at the Household, Dooryard, Cluster,
Neighborhood, Village, Community, New Urban
Region, Continental and InterContinental scales
are more Balanced and more efficient.
Transport,
heating and cooling – and most other forms of
resource consumption – vary dramatically by
settlement pattern. By far the most effective
way to cut the waste of resources and Mass
OverConsumption is to achieve Balance.
How
does this relate to the Marine Highway? Creating
a sustainable trajectory for Civilization means
shipping less stuff shorter distances. The path
to success on land, sea or air is not shipping
more stuff, farther and faster, it is “less
stuff closer to home.” This allocation of
goods and services results in less negative
impact on the environment and more freedom to
adjust to changes, whatever the source. Let us
summarize:
This
means Balanced Communities in sustainable New
Urban Regions. It also means Fundamental Change
in human settlement patterns and Fundamental
Change in governance structure.
Humans
must evolve strategies to provide for safe,
happy citizens with better, not more and
especially not more, faster or from farther
away.
That
is the important context of any discussion of
Maritime Highways, METRO tunnels or new
roadways. But how does “better” and
“closer” relate to “tulips”?
Well,
it is Fall and that is time to plant tulips...
This
is, however, not a proposal to plant tulips
along the Maritime Highways in order to make
barge captains happy. The reference to tulips is
to the tragic economic impact of tulip
speculation – the Tulip Mania of 17th Century
Netherlands.
Whether
you believe the classic view of the Tulip Mania
or the modern revisionist view, obsession with
speculation was and is disastrous. The critical
reality, as will be pointed out in the upcoming
Backgrounder “Estate Matrix,” is that Tulip
Mania impacted a tiny fraction of the United
Provinces (17th Century Netherlands). In
today’s consumption-driven economy in the
United States, the current version of Tulip
Mania will impact most citizens.
Every
sector of the Four Estates that comprise
contemporary society is driven by a contemporary
variation of Tulip Mania concerning growth and
consumption. Citizens are obsessed with
“growth.” Growth in value of stocks,
house values and land values – especially
among amateur speculators is “the”
unquestioned goal. There is also collective
concern for growth of the tax base, exports,
production, productivity, capacity, you name it.
But it is more than just growth of value, it is
growth of consumption by every tangible measure. The current Growth Mania
drives, and is driven by, Mass OverConsumption.
Edward
Abbey is quoted on the topic of growth:
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology
of the cancer cell.” Many would agree with
that but quickly note that they are not for
growth “for growth's sake.” They support
growth because growth is the key to prosperity and
stability as well as happiness and safety. Just
the opposite is the case, as noted above.
Society
in general is obsessed with the fantasy that he/
she with the most toys wins. Pandering
politicians are falling all over themselves to
support that illusion. At the end of 2006, in
reaction to the just completed election cycle,
we wrote the Backgrounder “A
New Metric for Citizen Well Being” based
on two columns (“Bread and Circuses” and
“Moldy Bread, Lame Circuses”). In that
Backgrounder we lay out the reasons for, and
absolute necessity of, evolving a new basis for
citizen well being to replace Mass
OverConsumption.
The
2007 Commonwealth elections are just around the
corner and the 2008 federal election cycle in
full swing. It is sickening to see how these
processes are unfolding. The Donkey Clan and the
Elephant Clan are trying to out do each other by
promising they can best help citizens afford and
consume the most stuff.
Citizen
misconceptions are reinforced by MainStream
Media that is obsessed with promoting the
glories of more consumption of goods and
services that bring them more revenue. We will be
examining this reality in our upcoming
Backgrounder “Estate Matrix.”
Some
Enterprises seem to be listening. Saturn, the
self-styled “maverick” division of General
Motors, is running a series of television ads on
the theme of “rethinking excess.” The number
of full-page image adds for oil companies in WaPo
suggest that focus groups and market research
must have identified a shift in citizen
perspective: There is growing support for
"conservation." The problem is that the only ways
citizens are told they can “conserve” is to
buy a product – from florescent light bulbs to
Lexus $90k “hybrids.”
Over
70 percent of the economy driven by consumer
consumption. That means citizens can redirect
the economy and eliminate Mass OverConsumption.
More and more Enterprises fear that citizens
will wake up and realize the first thing to do
on the road to sustainability is to consume less.
Reaching
a sustainable trajectory for civilization as we
know it depends on fewer people, less
consumption per capita and a smaller ecological
footprint. That means less consumption within
all the organic components of human settlement
– the creation of Balanced Communities in
sustainable New Urban Regions. The overarching
goal must be more happiness, more safety, more
Balance and less conflict.
Maritime
Highways are part of the answer to improved
Mobility and Access in and between New Urban
Regions but they will not make a difference
until there is a clear strategy that allows
citizens to be happy and safe with less movement
of people, goods and services over shorter
distances and with far less consumption.
--
October 15, 2007
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