Author Archives: Daniel Ursomanno

National Issue – Hybrid Cars – Daniel Ursomanno

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Where is the future in transportation headed? Well depending on the area you asked this question to you would get several different answers. In suburbs and places that there isn’t a state of the art train/subway system, and trips are longer and more frequent, the answer would be Hybrid Vehicles. What is a hybrid vehicle, well a hybrid vehicle is a vehicle that uses two or more distinct power sources to move the vehicle. The term most commonly refers to hybrid electric vehicles (HEV’s), which combine an internal combustion engine and one or more electric motors. However, with all the good they do it is going to be extremely hard to implement them into today’s society, which would then limit their effect on the world.

The reasons they are so highly sought after is because they are supposedly “cleaner” and are one of the best way to help the environment work towards a “greener” state. Getting away from gas and polluting the environment is a main plus coming along with the idea of hybrid vehicles. Electricity and cleanliness are a few of several positives associated with these vehicles. They promote the idea of a greener world, but where the problem lies is with the size of the step forward that is being taken. My concern is that this alternative method of transportation isn’t going to produce the tremendous effect that both the makers and consumers are anticipating.

Given the current state of the economy and lack of advertising prowess of these companies very little good will come from these Hybrid Vehicles. In my mind these factors are going to prevent this idea of Hybrid Vehicles from taking a huge step into producing favorable results and be the common car seen on the streets in the near future. No one really knows all of the positive things that could come from these vehicles. The first step truly has to come in educating the people of the world. In addition, currently the prices are way to high for the average consumer to buy. Yet, the prices of these vehicles aren’t being lowered. Why? Is the cost of making them too expensive? Should other alternatives like steam or further looking into a new way of making salt water into energy a better idea? These are all answers that are going to have to be answered to know if these vehicles will ever make a difference or not.

If nothing is improved, eventually desperation is going to set in and a change is going to need to be made in order for these Hybrid Vehicles to produce the expected results they were projected to. No good can come if there is a lack of these vehicles in circulation. How many people do you know own a Hybrid car? The answer when you ask that question to many people will be shockingly low. Companies are even trying to give benefits to those with that kind of technology in their cars. In relation to the 600-foot rule closer parking spots are reserved for those employees with Hybrid cars as their means of transportation. The unfortunate part is even with either the companies or the employers efforts in trying to promote these vehicles each American will need to undergo a paradigm shift and truly see the monumental effect these cars could have on bettering the status of the world. We are a long way away longer then most realize before Hybrid cars are common and having the large effect they were designed to have.

Plan NYC – Neighborhoods and Housing – Daniel Ursomanno

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NYC knows the strength of its city life, attractions, culture, and why they are reasons why everyone wants to work, play, and live there. Looking into the future its clear more and more people are going to continue to flow into the city. However, the question lies to where are all these “immigrants” going to live? Plan NYC predicts in 2030 over nine million people will live in the city, comparable to the 7.9 million living there in 2005, that’s over a million more! The question this plan is trying to answer is how and where can they provide more housing at an affordable cost. Although it presents some good ideas, by not putting a cap or some kind of restriction on the amount of people in the city, so many more problems aside from housing space could arise.

This plan has about ten new ways or initiatives that they believe will fix the housing and neighborhood dilemma as we go forward. These ideas are: continue transit-oriented rezonings, explore additional areas for new development, enable new and expanded housing models to serve evolving population needs, develop new neighborhoods on underutilized sites, create new units in existing neighborhoods, develop new housing units on existing City properties, promote walk-able destinations for retail and other services and a couple more.

Those ideas all seem great on paper, the idea that these life-improving methods are being developed that will fix NYC in the coming future. However, given the market of the economy now, the housing market, and even the given traffic now, one must ask themselves how is more people, more building, and more buying or selling of houses going to cope with the current economy? It is going to be difficult to first find all this new room to build and then fill to capacity these new buildings. Finding people willing to pay and live in these houses is going to be a very difficult task.

Being able to finance all of this at an affordable price is another aspect that cannot be overlooked. Where is all the money going to come from to erect all these buildings or make the new additions to current areas? To find people to buy new erected buildings, seeing as though no one is in the market of selling/buying houses because of how little they are getting for their money is going to be difficult. By trying to build housing near places of activity whether it be supermarkets, stores, movies, etc is a good idea. However, the probability of finding areas like that is going to be very difficult, not to mention expensive. Think about it trying to build near a highly productive area to not violate the 600-foot rule and save on transportation is going to be very costly.

In conclusion, the continuance of people flowing into NYC is going to cause a problem with something other then housing. Even if everyone is found homes and living happily in their neighborhoods the surge in population is going to making commuting life just as difficult as it was to find the room for the housing. With more people comes the opportunity for more cars, more taxis, more frequent bus/subway use, and most importantly of all more total trips. In doing something as monumental as trying to accommodate over a mullion more people in the coming decade is great. However, if you like challenges you must be willing to take the housing one along with a transportation one because you can’t have that many people with no where to go and if the do decide to go have it take them hours upon hours to travel.

 

 

Daniel Ursomanno – Andres Duany/Plater-Zybeck/Jeff Speck The American Transportation Mess Statistical Numbers based on the MTA website ….

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New York City is one of the busiest cities in the world. People may complain about the over-crowdedness and traffic from time to time, but in essence transportation in the city is pretty efficient. These authors in chapter five of their book speak about the transportation mess in America. How highways should connect cities and not run through them. In addition, the chapter spoke about how simply adding more lanes isn’t the answer and instead more traffic can appear, which is known as induced traffic. At the end of the chapter the point is made adjustments and alternatives must be made in order to aid this problem. People will sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic wasting their time and money, seemingly on a daily basis. When looking at pricing, paying three dollars and fifty cense a gallon, that price although isn’t what it is today, during that time could be considered high. However, then calculating for “soft” costs such as pollution and clean up the price would be up near the nine dollar a gallon mark. Surprisingly, it isn’t nine dollars at the pump and instead some of that excesses money will appear in taxes so the over crowdedness and reliance on highways can result in an extra five thousand dollars a year not only for those who are sitting in the traffic. The point which New York makes a case for doing something well is not in building more lanes but in the idea of alternatives ways of travel, which this chapter spoke about. The main thing that helps travel go smoother in New York is its one of a kind subway system.

The New York City subway system has been improving overtime, where it was in the early nineteen hundreds is nothing compared to where it is today. In 2010, the amount of people who rode the subway per week was 5.2 million people. When you really think if all of those people drove to work like the others who are stuck in traffic life would be unbearable. That number alone shows how the city adjusted and developed an alternate way of transportation. Over a year it has been calculated about 1.6 billion people will ride the subway. These numbers include a plethora of reasons for travel, whether it be work, sports, school, or leisure, the list goes on and on. Based on those numbers the subway system in New York is ranked fourth in the world in number of riders only behind Tokyo, Moscow, and Seoul. Making all these passengers happy and their trips efficient require for a hefty number of stations and subway cars. There are roughly 468 stations with a total of 6,356 subway cars. Those numbers may sound mindboggling when you think of where the city came from 28 stations in 1904. However, there is still plenty of work to be done because of the fact most of the 468 stations today were built by the nineteen thirties. The biggest flaw in human nature is complacency and being comfortable thinking, “We made it.” More improvements must be continue to be made in order to further alleviate the traffic situation because, whatever got someone to their current level of success isn’t good enough to keep them there. It is a reassuring thing to hear in the last twenty years New York City has upgraded and rehabilitated almost half of its systems, and since 1985 added almost a dozen more stations. They must continue to grow because this is an effective alternative method of transportation that the authors think is necessary to control the traffic dilemma. When you really think about it this subway system is truly amazing. The 468 subway stations in the city is only 35 fewer then the total number in the rest of the country combined. New York City will continue to improve and find other alternatives to aid with the ever-present issue of traffic.