Hey Utilities! Have You Seen the Traffic in Los Angeles Lately?

[kristopher]

Hey Utilities! Have You Seen the Traffic in Los Angeles Lately?
Five ways the electricity system can learn from urban planning


<snip>

From where I sit (thankfully, not in traffic anymore, now that I live in Longmont, Colo., and ride the bus) traffic congestion and solutions to that big honking problem are coming at it from the wrong angle. Attempts to alleviate congestion largely seem to assume that you need to travel from Point A to Point B. Thus you either increase capacity (build more lanes), encourage public transit and ridesharing (move more people per vehicle), or shift the timing and/or size of peak driving demand by disincentivizing trips (congestion pricing). Even multimodal transit-oriented development that encourages light rail, bus, and bicycling still assumes you’re going from Point A to some distant Point B. Most recently, earlier this year Los Angeles made the widely publicized move to synchronize all 4,500 of its traffic lights.

But what if what’s so enticing about Point B is actually at Point A, so that the trip isn’t necessary in the first place?

<snip>

...Imagine that our cities are the equivalent of large power plants, our major highways the equivalent of transmission lines, people driving the equivalent of moving electrons, the fuel and time wasted sitting in traffic the equivalent of transmission line losses, and city and neighborhood surface streets the equivalent of the electricity distribution system.

They are both antiquated and constrained systems of infrastructure. And in both cases, one of the most attractive solutions starts by asking a basic question: Do we really need congested pathways—whether highways or transmission lines—as much as we do? What if decentralization—through distributed generation of electricity and intelligently designed smart growth—reduced congestion by addressing its root cause?

There are at least five ways our electricity system can learn from Los Angeles’ traffic and urban planning...

http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2013_07_10_hey_utilities_have_you_seen_the_traffic_in_los_angeles_lately

We need more common sense discussions like this.

You can't live together, you can't live alone
Considering the weather, oh my how you've grown
From the men in the factories to the wild kangaroo
Like those birds of a feather, they're gathering together
And feeling exactly like you

They got mesmerized by lullabies and limbo danced in Pairs
Please lock that door, it don't make much sense
That common sense, don't make no sense no more

Just between you and me, it's like pulling
When you ought to be shoving
Like a nun with her head in the oven
Please don't tell me that this really wasn't nothing

One of these days, one of these nights
You'll take off your hat and they'll read you, your rights
You'll wanna get high every time you feel low
Hey, Queen Isabella stay away from that fella
He'll just get you into trouble, you know?

But they came here by boat and they came here by plane
They blistered their hands and they burned out their brain
All dreaming a dream, that'll never come true
Hey, don't give me no trouble, or I'll call up my double
We'll play piggy-in-the-middle with you

You'll get mesmerized by alibis and limbo dance in Pairs
Please lock that door, it don't make much sense
That common sense, don't make no sense no more
It don't make much sense, that common sense
Don't make no sense no more

From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/common-sense-lyrics-john-prine.html

[kestrel91316]

1. Meanwhile, LA Metro has cut even MORE buses from major routes.