Peak Oil and the Future of Transportation

photograph courtesy of flickr

The current issue of Cal Transit's Transit America serial has an interesting article on the issue of peak oil (here on p 7, in PDF). The article, written by the mayor of Huntington Beach, California, Debbie Cook, opens with the following:

Core to all U.S. transportation planning is the assumption that oil will always be abundant and cheap. This premise continues to dominate every regional transportation plan in the country and drives our auto-centric development patterns. But what if this assumption is wrong? What if we are near the peak of world oil production? It then follows that our assumptions on construction costs, gas tax revenues, travel and aviation demand, mode choice, and growth patterns are also wrong. It would mean that our fossil fuel-based energy future is in jeopardy and that we are not prepared.

Cook then goes on to provide some quantitative metrics indicating that the global community is indeed already in such a situation. Peak Oil, Cook explains, will yield a problem for transportation energy of a magnitude such that the United States' federal government will have to initiate policies to strongly militate against potential catastrophe.

A more passionately articulated position can be found in J.H. Kunstler, whose website can be found here. His book, The Long Emergency, speculates on this potential catastrophe and demonstrates to readers just how deep runs the modern world's dependence on oil as an energy resource.

-J. Chipman

History of PATH in IEEE

For those with access to IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems online, PATH researcher Steven Shladover has written a 20 year retrospective of the organization. The abstract reads thusly:

The California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) Program was founded in 1986, as the first research program in North America focused on the subject now known as intelligent transportation systems (ITS). This paper reviews the history of the founding of PATH and of the national ITS program in the U.S., providing perspective on the changes that have occurred during the past 20 years.

Schladover explains well the significance of 20 years for the booming ITS field and some of the generational shifts that have occurred since its inception.

The First Trainspotter

The BBC reports that a new exhibit at the British National Railway Museum has documents from the first known Trainspotter. The museum is showing a letter written by 14-year old John Backhouse of County Durham to his sister in 1825 that describes a steam locomotive.

It was a very grand sight to see such a mass of people moving on the road from Stockton to Darlington, 600 people were said to be in, on and about the wagons and coaches! And the engine drew not less that 90 tons!!!!!

There was an excellent dinner prepared at Stockton for the railway gentry. I could tell you a great many more particulars but suppose that you are tired of it by this time.

Trainspotting saw it's heyday in the 1930s and steady decline since the 1960s when rail was superseded as the dominant mode for transporting goods and people.

Menus Online!

Northwestern University's Library has announced today the launch of a Web site of 381 airline menus from the 1950s to the present, at http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/tranmenus, reproduced in their entirety in high resolution. The "Clug Calypso" menu pictured at right is from a 1968 Air Canada flight to the Bahamas.

According to Northwestern's Wendy Leopold,

In 1966, a passenger flying BOAC economy class from London to Tel Aviv enjoyed a lunch of foie gras, fresh Scotch salmon, salad, cheese, fruit and coffee, followed by afternoon tea. And one had only to ask for a complimentary Martini -- sweet or dry -- and free in-flight cigarettes in plain or filter tip.

TWA travelers flying first class from London to Chicago that year chose their cocktails, whiskies, highballs or champagne from a menu in the form of a scroll that doubled as a souvenir. Their dinner of curried squab chicken or Maine lobster Newburg began with fresh Malossol caviar, and was capped off with assorted French cheeses, pastries or ice creams. Diners with less rarified tastes could substitute a hot dog and malted milk.

50 Worst Cars of All Time

LA Times columnist Dan Neil devotes special attention to each and every one of his fifty selections for the worst automobiles ever built in his article for Time.com.

Some new and old wonders

The current issue of the Economist's Technology Quarterly contains some interesting items on innovations in transportation, including German research in small hovercraft, news of a sea-going automobile, and the story of the introduction of electric buses in London a century ago.

(Picture courtesy of The Economist)

First A380 Tickets Up for Auction

Seats on the first flight of an Airbus A380 will be auctioned off starting today on Ebay. The flight will be from Singapore to Sydney on October 25 and tickets are expected to fetch upwards of $2,550.00. Every seat on the Singapore Airlines A380s will be equipped with a PC running Redhat Linux -- and those PCs in first class will come with a 23" monitor.

Bicycling in Davis, California

Ted Buehler, a graduate student at ITS Davis, has a nice online presentation on 50 Years of Bicycling in Davis, California, based on his masters thesis. Davis has been called the cycling capital of the world, and Buehler gives an outline of the development of cycling and cycling facilities. His research revealed that despite the city's pro-bicycle policies, cycling in the city began to decline in recent years. Possible reasons for this are explored, and suggestions for future development are suggested.

More information on Buehler's research is available in articles in DavisEnterprise.com and the California Aggie.

Cutty Sark damaged in blaze

A sad day for shipping history buffs as the famous Cutty Sark, one of the few surviving clipper ships, suffered damage in a suspicious fire. The ship is a much-loved icon of the glory days of British maritime prowess, and a popular tourist draw. All is not lost, as the ship had been undergoing restoration and much of its material had been temporarily removed. Also, it seems that the damage sustained is not as bad as it looks.

More predictions from the past

Transportation futuristics from the Paleo-Future site. Marvel at all the people in 2000 wearing 19th-century clothes as they walk on water, soar through the air on personal flying machines, travel on moving sidewalks and enjoy televised opera concerts.

The Great Quake of '06

In 2006 the Transportation Library participated in The Great Quake: the Legacy of Disaster exhibition in UC Berkeley's Main Library in 2006. The exhibition was part of the campus's recognition of the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Focusing on themes such as transportation, water resources, public policy, and earthquake preparedness, the exhibits gave a glimpse of how UC Berkeley researchers and local agencies have worked to reduce risks and improve disaster management.

Staff member Seyem Petrites selected items from the Library's collections to arrange an exhibit featuring programs developed by Bay Area agencies and transportation providers to reduce the region's vulnerability to earthquakes. The exhibits were on display from April 18 through the end of August 2006 in the Bernice Layne Brown Gallery in Doe Library. An expanded version of the exhibition continues online, courtesy of the Bancroft Library.

Bay bridges exhibit

From 2002 to 2004 the Transportation Library and the Water Resources Center Archive ran a joint exhibit on the history of Bay Area bridges with sections on the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, and the Carquinez bridge; the new east span of the Bay Bridge; unbuilt projects; and the Golden Gate Bridge in popular culture. The site was created by Randal Brandt, formerly of the Water Resources Center Archive and now chief cataloger at the Bancroft Library.

Looking forward from the year 1900

Futuristics from the December 1900 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal, in an article titled “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years" by John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. What's interesting is that the author and his consultants ("the wisest and most careful men in our greatest institutions of science and learning") got quite a few things correct, though they missed out on the airplane.

Here's a facsimile of the original article.

Caquinez Bridge is Coming Down.

Today the old Carquinez Bridge is coming down.

The 1927 Carquinez Bridge is dying a slow, meticulous death.

The steel cantilever bridge, which carried eastbound traffic across the Carquinez Strait for nearly 80 years, was replaced in 2003 by a handsome, two-tower suspension bridge and now is being dismantled.

"I wish they'd just blow it up,'' said one person watching the operation, who did not want to be identified. "This is kind of dull. They're being very safe -- slow and methodical.''

That's because the old bridge is one of three bridges spanning the strait between Crockett and Vallejo within yards of one another. The new Al Zampa Memorial Bridge sits to the west of the old bridge, and a 1958 span carrying westbound Interstate 80 traffic sits to the east, leaving only so much room for crews to maneuver. Workers also must be careful not to drop anything into the waters below, which serve as a salmon run and natural habitat for delta smelt.

The Carquinez Bridge built in 1927 was the first steel bridge in the Bay Area. Caltrans determined that the old bridge was unfit for seismic retrofitting, allowing for the construction of the new Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge in 2003.