City-Environmental Issues

1. Cities in Sweden

83 % of Sweden's inhabitants live in cities. Cities are in Sweden defined as an urban area having more than 10.000 permanent residents. This definition leaves Sweden with 110 cities, and 55 % of the country's population live in those cities. The three largest cities, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, have 20 % of Sweden's population (Statistics from 1996). The Swedes move increasingly closer to each other, a pattern that can be seen throughout the world, developed as well as developing.	Sweden has plenty of living space; yet 8,8 miljoner people crowd together on just 1.3 percent of Sweden's surface. The Swedish Census Bureau, SCB, investigates every fifth year how the country's population lives. According to the census of 1996, there are 1 938 urban areas in Sweden. That is 145 more than in 1990. New urban areas pop up as people leave the countryside and move closer to nearby cities, and also as a result of many people taking up permanent residence in their summer cottages.	Figure 1:1; Map of Sweden

2. Three Categories of Cities in the World

Globally one can, when considering the traffic paterns, distinguish between three general types of cities:

Europe's older cities, having a rather high share of public transport. The extensive cities of USA, with almost exclusively private cars to handle the transportation of people. The developing countries' often very large and fastgrowing cities, where a majority of the population walks or travels by bicycle.

There are of course cities containing 2 or all 3 of the characteristica listed above. It is still very useful to make this distinction when it comes to planning a beam traffic system, because the approach the planners should take will, for each city or neighborhood, depend on in which of these 3 categories that city or neighborhood falls.

n today's cities one can usually, (at least in cities of the first category) distinguish three parts: The nucleus (the central part), the suburbs and the so-called semi-central strip situated in-between (see illustration below). In the European cities with a high proportion of public transport facilities, the local trains, the subways, trams and buses mainly travel in a radial fashion. In the central parts there is easy access to most amenities, including transportation. This means that real estate values are high and rising. The land is used by the most successful businesses (such as banks and insurance companies) and communal institutions (such as the town hall, courts, etc). Figure 2:2; Layout of a star-shaped city

People who cannot afford to pay the high real-estate costs will have to move to the suburbs. The suburbs come in two types: There are the residential suburbs with private houses, where the residents provide for their own transportation with their cars. And there are those high-exploited areas around railway stations for the local trains. These neighborhoods often consists of high-rises surrounding the station and a shopping mall. Cities in the USA that relies mostly on private cars for transportation often follow the opposite development pattern from those of European cities, which are serviced by public transport. As the central parts of the cities become un-navigable for cars, people with economic means move out to the suburbs. Only poor people stay behind, houses decay, land values in the central parts decrease and these cities start to rot from the inside. Statistics bears out this trend. Consider Chicago, in Illinois, USA. In 1970, 50 % of all jobs and 60 % of all inhabitants within the greater Chicago area were to be found in the city area itself. 1990 (only 20 years later) only 37 % of all jobs and 38 % of the inhabitants were still there. Of course, these statistics show a dual trend; both that workplaces and people move out from the central city and that the urban area itself is growing, because people and workplaces move in from the outside. "The Economist" (May, 1999) reports that the unplanned nature of this trend threatens both the economy and the quality of life. The increased commuting pollutes the air, and green areas for recreation are shrinking. Employers worry over the increasing difficulties of finding employees that are willing to commute long distances, and employees are (of course) frustrated over the long queues of cars on the freeways.The report also points to the fact that motorists only pay for about 25 % of the costs they are causing society. The cities of the third world pose a problem of their own, because they grow so fast and in such an uncontrolled manner, that one is reminded of malignant cancer. Consider this table, showing the 10 most populous urban areas in 1994, their populations in 1970 and projections for year 2015:

3. The Largest Urban Areas in the World

Members of the list of the 10 most populous urban areas, come and go. They are not always agreed upon, as it can be difficult to define where a contiguos urban area ends. However, planning for this kind of growth is a difficult task in the best of circumstances. Considering that half of these cities are situated in countries that have a comparatively low standard of living makes the task of planning well-night impossible. Suburbs grow up without proper roads, sanitations etc.

Fast-growing cities like Sao Paulo and Bombay were not even on the list for the 10 largest cities in 1970! All these cities would get the most value for invested money if they were to provide beam traffic connection throughout the city. In the outer suburbs it could be done on the trunk-line level to begin with, with only one or two branches per neighborhood. The pressure on inadequate roads, overfull and dilapidated public transport systems and congested streets would be alleviated so as to more than compensate for the investments in the beam system.

4. A Case Study: Mumbai (formerly Bombay)

hen comparing the figures for population density in this table, and see how much they vary, one suspects that the "urban area" has been considered to coincide with the municipal borders, irrespective of whether or not the area is totally built-up. But, let's say that an area with more than 100 000 people per square kilometer is pretty crowded. That corresponds to 10 people for every square of 10 x 10 meters. If public land (streets, parks, etc.) and industrial sites account for half of this area, then every person has to make do with 5 square meters. Considering that most people lived stacked on each other in apartment dwellings, that's not an unreasonable figure. If people's standard of living improves, then 3 things will happen: They will soon buy motorcars They will move out to the suburbs and get a house of their own They will be travelling more. As we have shown with the example of Gothenburg, in Sweden, a western city grows about 10 times as fast as the population when people start getting motorcars!

Let's take India as an example: that country's economy is moving ahead rapidly. Out of India's 950 million people, 250 million are considered to belong to the middle class. Although many poor people from the countryside move into the cities, it would be fair to say that the population of Indian big cities consists to more than these 26 % of middle-class people. We could safely assume that more than 1/3 of India's city population belongs to the middle or upper classes. Now, assuming that a city like Mumbai will receive 614 000 new inhabitants a year. According to the first table, at least 200 000 of these migrants will be middle or upper class people who will not be content with being crowded into an inner-city apartment. They will move to the suburbs, they will get a car. Let's be a bit modest anyhow, let's assume that the city area will expand only 5 times as fast as the increase of middle-class people, instead of 10 times. That means, when it comes to Mumbai, that the urban area will expand with 5 x 200 000 x 5 sq. meters, or 5 square kilometers a year, in very rough figures! Mumbai would double in surface area in 7 years, counted from 1991 when the figures in the second table were calculated. Where will Bombay expand? It's situated on the tip of a peninsula, and a lot of the land further north consist of marshes. This is, in a nutshell, why some cities will face enormous problems, unless they find an alternative to the private motor car.

Figure 4:1 It could happen that some cities won't allow a large part of their population to own a private car. In Tokyo and some other Japanese cities, people cannot buy a car unless they can prove that they have a parking space for it.

For further information, see: Sustainable City Transportation.

5. The Three common Solutions for Accomodating Motorists in Cities:

1) Bridges, 2) Tunnels and 3) Beltroads surrounding the downtown

When the crowding of cars on the surface of large cities becomes too hard to endure, city planners try to: a) lift the traffic streams above the surface, up onto bridges, or b) bury the traffic in car tunnels, or c) lead the traffic on beltroads around the perimeter of the central town. Bridges and tunnels were formerly built radially, from the semi-central strip surrounding downtown areas and in towards the central city, complemented by downtown parking garages. These garages are necessary provisions for people living in the suburbs, who have their daily working sites in the central city.	Figure 5:1	BRIDGES: The elevation of the traffic leads to heavy, multi-lane concrete bridges sometimes in several layers above each other, and with roundabouts on pillars above the ground. These bridge constructions are serious intrusions into the city environment, and they cost enormous amount of money (about US $ 75 million per kilometer in USA and Northern Europe), and this does not include the cost of the required real estate. The noise and exhaust fumes from the traffic also precludes dwellings in the vicinity of these bridges.

TUNNELS: The digging of highway tunnels beneath the city increases the cost to about the double, or about US $ 150 million per kilometer. The traffic is removed out of sight and sound, but areas around the entrances to these tunnels get swamped by motor vehicles. Evenly spaced chimney towers spread the exhaust fumes coming from about one kilometer of tunnel, usually without any kind of filtering. Despite this ventilation, the levels of poisonous gases in the tunnels exceed levels recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). The consequences of prolonged staying in this environment is estimated to increase by 3 - 7 times the risks of getting lungcancer and develop allergies (GU).

BELTROADS: There is a third solution. To rid the central parts of the cities from thru-traffic, rings of highways and tunnels are built through the suburbs, to lead the traffic around the downtown. Paris is one prominent example of this solution. These highways often have toll boots to help pay for their construction, and also to try to dissuade people from bringing their cars into the city. Thus, those motorists living in the suburbs have to pay for their reduced access to the downtown area, and to get additional traffic through their own areas. And the vacated downtown streets don't stay very empty; they are quickly filled by those living inside the ring, who don't have to pay as long as they stay inside it.

6. The Thomson Paradox

here is a gut feeling among most people (and even with city planners) that the solution to clogged roads is more roads. Assuming that traffic volume stays the same, that would of course be a logical solution. But that´s not what happens in real life! Commuters always make a choice as to quickest and cheapest way to get to where they want to. The premium is "quickest"; the most attractive alternative might well be more expensive, as long as it is quicker than the other choices. Commuters do not gladly suffer long travel times. So, as long as roads are clogged with slow-moving traffic, alternative travel systems such as trains stand a good chance at attracting travelers. But when new roads are built, centrally in big cities, the alleviated traffic situation attracts former train- and bus-commuters to their cars. If this leads to over-capacity on the collective transport systems, these will likely reduce traffic service to compensate for decreased revenue. This reduced service encourages even more commuters to use their cars, and all those commuters that are now using their cars are actually prepared to put up with worse traffic conditions than before these new roads were built, since the alternative (the public transport system) has worse service than before. The end result of building new roads can thus lead to longer travelling times for both car users and train/bus-users, and this has become known as the Thomson paradox. A little thought leads to the realization that the opposite policy of building more roads would lead to better conditions for the commuters. Thus, taking up tolls from car-drivers at all entrance roads to the central city would lead to fewer commuters taking their cars. The collective transport system would get revenue and incentive to improve traffic service, with more trains/buses and extended routes. Those commuters that still use their cars would find (to their surprise!?) that the reduced road traffic leads to shorter travel times, and they would thus actually get some tangible returns on the toll money they pay. The city gets some extra revenue from their toll booths, it also saves on the money that would otherwise have gone to road construction, and everybody is better off than in the first alternative. A paradox that can be observed in cties such as Paris, but which has not "sunk in" yet with many city planners.

The U.S. Department of Public Works ran this news item on 5/9/2001: A groundbreaking analysis of newly released data shows that road building has done little to ease congestion, while transit service is significantly lessening the burden of congestion on many commuters. A new ranking developed by the Surface Transportation Policy Project shows how the average commuter is affected by both congestion levels and the availability of transit in 68 U.S. cities. “The misery inflicted by traffic congestion is not the same everywhere,” said Roy Kienitz, Executive Director of STPP. “The places where commuters suffer most are the ones with the fewest transportation choices.” STPP analyzed data collected by the Texas Transportation Institute for its annual Urban Mobility Study and found that metro areas that added the most roads have had little success in easing congestion. But metro areas with good transit service rank significantly lower on the new Congestion Burden Index. The Congestion Burden Index, developed by STPP, measures both the severity of traffic congestion and the degree to which commuters are exposed to it. The new index combines TTI's measure of rush-hour congestion with federal data showing the portion of commuters who are driving to work and are therefore exposed to congestion. According to the Congestion Burden Index, Los Angeles maintains its number-one ranking because its residents suffer from both major congestion and relatively few ways to avoid it. However, San Francisco, which has the second-worst rush-hour congestion as measured by TTI, also has almost 500,000 citizens traveling to work by means other than driving. This puts it 29th in the Congestion Burden Index. While TTI gives Boston and Atlanta similar scores for rush hour congestion, Atlantans suffer more due to congestion because a higher share of them drive to work. As a result, Atlanta ranks 6th in the Congestion Burden Index while Boston ranks 47th. The Congestion Burden Index is available for all 68 metro areas surveyed by TTI.

Traditionally, transportation agencies have responded to congestion by adding to the road system. However, STPP's analysis finds that the places adding roads most aggressively over the past 10 years have had no greater success in fighting congestion than those not adding roads. In the 23 metro areas that added the most to their road systems, road space per person increased by 17 percent. In the 23 places that added the least to their road systems, road space per person actually fell by 13 percent. Yet both congestion levels and growth in congestion over time were essentially the same in the two sets of metro areas. The two sets also experienced similar population growth over the 10-year period studied. Many Americans have already decided on their own to fight congestion by turning to transit. Recently released figures show that over the past five years transit use has grown by 21 percent while driving has increased only 11 percent. This is a dramatic turnaround from the early 1990's when driving grew steadily as ridership on trains and buses fell. Quality transit service makes a big difference in allowing more people to avoid driving to work. STPP's analysis shows that the places with the best transit service, as measured by the Transportation Choice Ratio, are also the places where the smallest portion of the workforce drives to work. This shows that efforts to provide transit at the local level are delivering a direct payoff to commuters. One of the reasons road-building shows disappointing results in easing congestion is that adding road capacity doesn't just meet the current travel demand: it actually spurs additional driving. When a road is widened, more people will choose to drive on it — by either switching from another route, time of day, or mode, or by taking additional trips. Transportation planners call this “induced travel.” Source: Surface Transportation Policy Project.

Figure 6:1

7. Asphalt, everywhere!

Motor vehicles need solid ground to run on, and so vast areas of our cities are covered with asphalt for streets and parking areas. Next to buildings, this asphalt is the most characteristic city feature. With so many factors talking against the use of asphalt, it´s rather surprising that no alternative has not come along long ago. There are of course concrete and cobblestones, which are more durable. But they are also more costly; cobblestones because they require a lot of labor. But consider this appaling list of woes: Asphalt is an oil product. It degrades the soil. The whole top-layer of asphalted areas has to be removed if one wants to use that piece of real estate for agriculture again. Asphalt streets require constant maintenance, because vehicles and freezing water (in wintry climates) wear them down. It being an oil product, how are we going to keep up this maintenance when oil starts becoming scarce, and thus more expensive, in a few years time?	Figure 7:1	Road maintenace with asphalt is expensive, compared to more durable concrete and cobblestones. The greyness of asphalt is depressing to humans. We need to see greenery around us. Cities without parks would be very depressing places. Cities were a lot greener in the days before the automobile. Vast areas of asphalt contribute to inundations, because they prevent rainwater from soaking into the ground. The city of Tokyo, for instance, is to 82% covered by asphalt or concrete. It has problems with inundations during heavy rains. At the same time, ironically, the groundwater is depleted, because it does not get sufficiently filled up from the rains. Drainage from cities are usually led to rivers and seas. The foregoing point, in turns, raises another problem. Drinking water gets fouled by water runoff from asphalt-covered areas. Also; marine animals faces a tougher environment because of this.

Figure 7:2

Figure 7:3	Also, streets take an enormous amount of space. And yet, that space is never sufficient for all needs. An "adequate" street would resemble the illustration above. If it is trafficked by public buses, these should preferably have their own lanes, with their own street lights at crossings, and stops in the middle of the streets rather than at the sidewalk. As streets get more clogged as time goes by, the need for special treatment of buses and streetcars have been more imminent, as a means to get at least some people to leave their motorcars at home and take the bus. Including parking lanes on both sides, such a street can become up to 31 meters wide, as shown in figure 7:2. And this width does not include space for bikers and pedestrians, as can be seen above.	The buses can stay within their alloted 11 meters width by placing their stops a bit ajar from each other, as shown in figure 7:4. But all these 31 meters could in theory be replaced by beams, which do not require any space on the ground, apart from poles and stops, here and there. The potential savings in space that could be accomplished by replacing motor vehicles with beam traffic systems is thus tremendous! Motorcars and asphalt roads are indeed the apex of clumsy human technology!	Figure 7:4

Figure 7:6

8. Peoples' Adaptability

People are actually more adaptive than one might think. There are ringroads in the cities of Oslo and Bergen in Norway and in Singapore that vary the amount of tolls taken, according to what time it is during the day. The world's first application of area congestion pricing may be in Trondheim, Norway. Disincentives discourage driving during business hours and especially the morning peak period. During toll hours, traffic has dropped 10 %, and risen 8 % at other times. 72 % of the public opposed tolls before opening. Two months after the opening, this opposition dropped to 48 %, and today it is 36 %. Thus, one can see that people in general adapt quickly to new circumstances and often change their living patterns.

These tolls in Trondheim generate US $ 25 million a year in profits, which is used to fund new roads and bus service. City people adapt to the environment they live in. Inhabitants in cities like Athens, Greece, and Bangkok, Thailand, calculate with spending a lot of their daily time in traffic queues. The reason is that they see no palatable alternatives. Yet, history shows that it is impossible, considering the city environment to persist with today's traffic solutions in the cities! The cities in USA are nowadays cooperating in PTI (Public Technology Inc.), which is an organisation whose aim is to promote environmentally friendlier traffic technology.

9. Urban Environments with Beam Traffic?

Newly-built suburbs (introductory building of "nodes" in a future regional traffic system).

The land is reserved for pedestrians and bicyclists, culture and greenery. The buildings are planned as something richly variated in-between, halfway between today's high-exploited areas around train stations and today's low-exploited residential suburbs. Residential areas, work sites and service facilities are balanced in even shares, in order to reduce required travel distances for as many people as possible. Medium-sized beams for vehicles which are 1and 2 seats wide could be suspended from wires and hidden in the foliage of the treetops between the houses. The beamcars could go directly into the houses and stop by the elevators for poeple and for freight. The beam network will tie together the residential areas, the worksites and the service facilities within the newly devoloped area. The mobility in the area will increase for everybody. The beamcars could tie in with community and traffic centra outside the urban area (such as local trains and bus stations). Private cars would be placed in parking garages outside the area. The beamcars would enter these garages for easy access to motorcars. Roads around the residential sections will only be used by pedestrians and bicyclists. The beamcars will be kept available up underneath the beam in unobtrusive places until thay are needed. The beams outdoors could very well be camouflaged by greenery. Electrical pruning cars could be run regurlarly and keep the greenery in good trim and make sure there are tunnels in the foliage big enough for the cars to travel unhindered. The beam cabins will always present a clean exterior, since they won't be subjected to mud and splashes from rainwater puddles. Nor do they risk splashing water on pedestrians and other vehicles. When the beam system has been sufficiently built up in the region, it will be tied in to other urban areas in the vicinity.

Figure 9:2

n existing downtown areas new nodes could be created, one for each part of the inner city, if the city is big. These nodes would constitute the center of a future regional traffic system. This system would successively reclaim the surface, for instance by burying one-way caissons directly beneath the streets for vehicles with 1 or 2 seats' width. The private cars would be removed from the streets, same as above, to parking garages outside the downtown area, and these garages would be served by beam vehicles. New work sites could be built on some areas that were formerly streets, or the central parts could be re-populated by the building of apartment houses. This improved use of newly available land would indirectly pay for the caissons and the beam network.	Figure 9:3	In a longer perspective, the various outer parts of the city could be tied in to this growing network. This could be accomplished with deep-drilled tunnels for inexpensive, heavy-duty and flexible underground beam traffic. The beam vehicles would carry both people, goods and motorcars. From the underground stations, one could operate elevators to reach street the level. In the case of the station being beneath a building, there is no reason why such elevators could not be combined the those of the house. In the semi-circular strip surrounding the nucleus, the various parts of the city could be tied together with two-way beam traffic bridges. It is generally the case that this strip is a bit "roomier" than the downtown area. These bridges would not be as broad as ordinary bridges for trains or motorcars, and they would be cheaper to build than tunnels with caissons.

inally, we have the existing suburbs. Ideally (and to promote democracy) each suburb could decide for itself to what extent one wants to tie in to the growing central beam network, and how eager one is to get rid of heavy motorcar traffic. This is clearly not only a matter of economics and travel comfort to the rest of the city. It is very much a question about improving the living environment in the suburb where one lives and is (perhaps) raising kids. A suburb mainly consisting of pedestrian paths and bicycle lanes instead of broad streets with thundering, noxious motor vehicles is a far better and healthier place to live! Land values in such a suburb would probably increase dramatically, too! A suburb, properly planned, could ultimately do away with most of its streets!

In existing areas with high-rise buildings, usually around a train station or bus terminus, one could go on building on available land but with a lower degree of exploitation. When the beam network enters such an area, one could trade living quarters for work sites and service facilities in the centrum of the area without having to consider the communication facilities. This means, for instance, that one does not have to gather all the stores in the same place. Shopping malls are very much products of the public transport systems and parking facilities we have in big cities today. But suppose one wants to run a pharmacy or whatever near where one lives? No problem with getting customers, thanks to the eas of riding with the beam vehicles! At the same time, the existing shopping malls will be easier to reach than today with the beam network. Ultimately (well, it does not have to be the last step!) one could tie together adjoining suburbs with direct traffic connections.