| Chapter
One
By dividing
a road in half and moving traffic on each side in opposite
directions, you may give up a little of your freedom,
but you get a lot more traffic moved on the road.
Anonymous
Commuters around the world could
save up to one-fourth of the gasoline they use and reduce
emissions by a similar amount while cutting their commute
times in half using the Pulsing Traffic system.
There are more than 600 million vehicles
in the world and over 200 million of them are in the
United States . About a third of the greenhouse gases
and pollution that are endangering the planet comes
from these vehicles. It is made far worse because the
internal combustion engine operates least efficiently
and produces the most pollution when a car accelerates
and decelerates. Cars stuck in stop-and-go traffic create
far more pollution than when they're running steadily
at 30-50 mph.
In the 85 major American metropolitan
areas, according to the United States Department of
Transportation, commute time is congested 7-8 hours
a day. Freeways, highways and streets are similarly
clogged around the world. If it were possible to regulate
traffic flow so that it could move steadily, a tremendous
increase in productivity and decrease in fuel use and
pollution would result.
Pulsing Traffic could do just that. It
uses existing streets in a new way. Traffic would be
modified and rerouted in an organized manner through
urban areas and on freeways. If we could take 20-25
percent of cars off freeways, traffic would start moving
smoothly.
To visualize a pulse route, imagine a
military convoy or pulse of traffic of 500-1,000 vehicles
moving at a steady 35 mph from one point to another.
The intersection is used for local traffic in between
each pulse. Cars would follow a commute route in groups,
and teams would coordinate the signals at each intersection.
A normal two-way street of six lanes would
be turned into a one-way street going into a city in
the morning and then in the opposite direction in the
evening. The pulse of cars would travel in the middle
four lanes and no parking would be allowed in the two
outside lanes. There would be a traffic system engineer
at a central control station with computers that would
actually monitor the various pulse routes that are moving.
A pulse route would start every 10 minutes and people
could join the pulse or they could get off the pulse
at any time using the outside two “parking” lanes for
safe entry or egress.
Six Lane Pulse Route With Traffic
Merging In And Out Of The Exterior Lanes
At every intersection, or every other
intersection, there would be a team of two with cell
phones that would be in communication with the central
traffic engineer. The intersection during each 10-minute
period would have four minutes devoted for the pulse
to come through and the other six minutes would be used
for cross traffic and one-way traffic in the pulse direction.
The two-member safety teams at each intersection would
clear cross traffic 30 seconds before the pulse comes
through.
Just as with a military convoy, this pulse
would move through intersections and never stop. It
would travel 35-50 mph., depending on conditions such
as weather. There would be an engineer at the head of
the pulse and a safety caboose person at the end; these
positions could be filled by police officers or trained
volunteers. Any unsafe conditions would immediately
be reported to the pulse route engineer and the pulse
could be rerouted. Commuters in the pulse can tune to
a designated radio station or listen on their cell phones
for pulse information.
Streets parallel to the pulse route would
handle bus and other traffic. To cross the pulse route,
one might wait up to a maximum of four minutes instead
of the usual 1½ to 2 minutes at a stoplight.
This would be an inconvenience, but much less than being
stuck in traffic jams or waiting 15-30 minutes for a
bus.
Another advantage with this system is
that you can join and depart anywhere along the line.
You simply merge into traffic from the parking lanes.
Drivers could even pick up and drop off passengers and
rejoin the same pulse or join the next one down the
line, allowing the Pulse Route to function as public
transportation.
The two-member safety teams at each intersection
also could be part of neighborhood watch and homeland
security programs; they could make sure kids get to
school safely and report traffic violations and crimes.
If team members working at the intersection make an
average of $40,000, it would cost approximately $10-20
million a year to run a 30-mile pulse route.
Our government currently spends about
$80 million to build one mile of urban eight lane freeway
and millions more every year to maintain it. The cost
rises significantly in congested, built-up areas such
as Los Angeles , San Francisco , Washington , D.C.,
Dallas , Houston , Miami and Chicago . For the cost
of building just one mile of new urban eight-lane freeway,
four or more pulse routes could be run for a year and
allow the existing freeways to work efficiently.
The capital investment is minimal— cell
phones and salaries. To maintain safety and lower costs,
a trained, licensed college student working at $10 per
hour or a trained, licensed volunteer (Chapter 5) could
be matched with a professional at the intersections.
Once the public is comfortable with a
particular pulse route and a determination is made to
make it permanent, we can automate the traffic lights.
Now most traffic light sensors only tell when someone
is coming to a stop or waiting to make a left turn at
each individual intersection and the light is regulated
accordingly. In some cases, traffic lights coordinate
traffic getting on to freeways and to open up the exit
lanes for traffic coming off the freeways. But presently
there is only a limited amount of coordination among
signals and little across metropolitan or regional boundaries.
To prepare and educate the public, major
media would be used for two to four months and a survey
of commuters would determine the commute demand for
various potential pulse routes. For people to get completely
familiar, comfortable and safe using them would take
four to six months. After a year, the pulse routes would
be a common part of our daily activity.
The potential savings in gasoline would
be 10-25 percent. The United States uses approximately
20 million barrels of oil per day and produces roughly
five million barrels per day in the continental United
States . A 25 percent gas savings would be equal to
all of the gasoline pumped from oil wells in the continental
USA .
The savings in pollution and greenhouse
gases would be even higher from the elimination of much
of the start-and-go and grid-locked traffic. While there
might be isolated temporary morning and afternoon increases
along certain pulse routes, there would be vastly greater
savings in daily and seasonal smog and pollution in
each regional area and far less than current exposures
overall.
In 2003, Pulsing Traffic could have saved
the U.S. economy $63 billion. The average commuter would
have saved 1-2 weeks stuck in his car in traffic.
Pulse routes could be extended worldwide,
resulting in similar fuel savings and pollution reduction.
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