GENERAL INTRODUCTION

THE MISSION

Updating transportation in urban America for economic progress and green living.

Americans work harder for less. For the first time since the 1930s, most of us believe the country is declining. Pundits agree insisting we must rebuild. But they fail to tell us that building more of the same increasingly expensive and congested transportation infrastructures won’t do anymore.

True economic progress requires infrastructure changes making transportation easier and affordable. Early canals, railroads, transit, highways, and airports thrived because building these infrastructures was more convenient, cost-effective, and efficient than not building them. The infrastructures of the cities and suburbs of the future must do the same: Add convenience now and later. Reduce costs now and later. Be more efficient now and later.

With transportation improving, development pays its way reversing the deficit. Taxes and subsidies shrink. The cost of living drops. But metro areas and their residents are not the only winners. Mother Nature and her residents benefit as well with growth reducing sprawl, energy use, and pollution.

THE WEBSITE

This website is organized in Sections. New sections will be added as appropriate. All original ideas will be considered and their proponents credited.

Section 1: MINIHIGHWAYS. Sustainable transportation cannot be achieved with greener cars alone. In metro areas with expensive congested highways, the most cost-effective solution is to build new low-impact roadways (minihighways) for new vehicle types (minicommuters).

Section 2: TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT. Congestion pricing: No, it’s a tax. Congestion pricing/crediting: Yes, it rewards productive behavior.

Section 3: MASS TRANSIT TWINS. Sustainable transportation cannot always be achieved with new mass transit. In large modern cities with old mass transit, the most cost-effective and greenest solution is to transform the rail systems already in place for greatly increased capacity.

Section 4: RAILPLANES. America is ready for high-speed intercity rail but not as developed in Europe and Asia. We can achieve much higher speeds at lower costs and greater conveniences. And we can do so (relatively) quickly.

Section 5: THE VAULT. The changing infrastructures of the American Dream culminate in “the Vault,” the iconic infrastructure of the 21st Century.

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THE AUTHOR

My Professional Worldview

I’m an architect and sole author of The Locomotion Initiative. Few if any fellow architects envision a true metamorphosis of America’s transportation infrastructure and the cities transportation creates. Most favor increased subsidies for more of the same; mainly, more for mass transit, more for highways, more for airports.

That development strategy is not productive anymore. Mass transit, highways, and airports were the essential growth infrastructures of the cities and suburbs of the 20th century. But development with these infrastructures as primary engines for growth is not sustainable today because—as currently operating—urban rail, highways, and airports are past their golden age. All three infrastructures require growing subsidies.

True economic progress can only be achieved with new or renewed transportation infrastructures that pay their way, as done before:

When a growing number of people and products move about with reduced congestion and costs.

That’s what smart growth is really all about. It requires a changing mix of transportation infrastructures and technologies: New transportation solutions that are more convenient to use, more cost-effective to build, and much more efficient than the status quo.

My Bullet History

• My name is Alfredo M. Gonzalez.
• I was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
• I have a 5-year Bachelor of Architecture degree (1970) from The Catholic University of America’s School of Engineering and Architecture.
• I settled in Puerto Rico after college becoming the youngest partner at Toro & Ferrer Arquitectos, at the time the island’s most prestigious design firm.
• I opened my own practice after that—AMGonzalez Associates—and later moved to the mainland.
• I last worked in New York with Hillier Architecture (now RMJM Hillier) as partner for Puerto Rico projects until early 2006.

• I study the transportation breakthroughs of the past—technologies, infrastructures, and how they co-evolve—because the solutions of the future begin there.
• I’m a practicing urban environmentalist. (Yes, I gave up my car. No, it isn’t easy but it can be.)

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF ECONOMIC PROGRESS

America benefited from five distinct periods of economic transformation and expansion. Great wealth was created when game-changing infrastructures were being built. The largest and most consequential infrastructures sustaining growth were transportation. But unlike today’s highly subsidized transportation solutions, these infrastructures and technologies paid their way. In descending order of scale and costs, the other growing infrastructures were sanitation, energy, and communication. The following decade-by-decade timeline shows how this development process unfolded:

The UNDERLINED DECADES show long timeframes of sustained economic transformation and expansion. Each period was unique with new self-funded (and in most cases for-profit) infrastructures growing fast. Subsidies were small or nonexistent by today’s standards, especially in transportation. Each multi-decade periods created unprecedented wealth and a stronger middle class.

BOXED DECADES show periods of pronounced economic contraction: the latest multi-year great depression or growth limit. Except for these ruinous decades, poverty levels shrank as we became increasingly urban: 25% in 1860; 50% in 1920; 75% in 2000. Short-lived economic panics and bubbles are not shown.

CROSSED DECADES show timeframe of mixed economic performance. Although the wealthy prospered, Americans worked harder for less. The country was indeed declining with the 2000s worse decade for working class Americans. A calcified transportation infrastructure—not the usual suspects like monetary policy, taxes, or big government—was most to blame for weak economic progress.

1. The Industrial Era in America started in the 1800s to 1820s: the 1st great economic transformation. Some of the transportation infrastructures changing our way of life for the better were toll-canals, private macadam highways, and paved city roads and sidewalks. Others were urban well water (sanitation), timber and animal oil (energy), and daily newspapers (communication). That growth period ended with an unprecedented economic contraction in the 1830s. Chronic unemployment devastated families, but not for long.
   
   
2. The 1840s to 1860s were decades of sustained economic expansion too. Some of the transportation infrastructures of this 2nd transformation were steamboats, ferries, and city and intercity rail, all built for profit. Urban water pipes, sewer, coal, gas lighting, and telegraphy helped progress along. Then the 1870s hit hard. This second sustained growth limit changed everything again.
   
   
3. The late 1870s to early 1890s experienced the strongest but shortest expansion yet: the 3rd great economic transformation. Some key transportation infrastructures were privately owned city trolleys and elevated trains as well as transcontinental railroads. Others were enhanced water distribution and sewer, neighborhood electrification, and telephone. The painful 1890s put an end to all of that. But an even wealthier and much more urban world was dawning…modern times.
   
   
4. The 1900s to 1920s was the Golden Age of the Modern Era. This 4th great economic transformation included subways and early airports, all built for profit. Other infrastructures were modern water collection and distribution, urban electrification, and movies. Everybody got rich, it seemed, until the Great Depression of the 1930s: the ultimate growth limit.
   
   
5. The Postmodern Golden Age shined bright through the 1940s to 1960s: the 5th great transformation since colonial times. The transportation infrastructures changing our way of life for the better included toll-sustained limited-access highways and metropolitan airports. Dams, national electric grid and gasoline distribution, and TV played important roles.
   
   
6. But since the 1970s, all decades have shown signs of economic weakness due to structural imbalances. The 2010s could be a ruinous boxed decade or more mixed economic performance. Or it could be the start of a much-delayed 6th Economic Transformation and Expansion. Since sanitation, energy, and communication infrastructures and technologies are already changing—some remarkably—the structural benefits and general profitability of new transportation solutions will determine success or failure.
   
   
   

CLOSING THOUGHTS: A personal view

I believe America is uniquely positioned to renew its economic supremacy, avoid economic contractions and mainstream the green solutions of the future.

I believe that poverty will start approaching zero (again) when we start building cost-effective cities (again).

I believe that the livable cities of the future will emerge from today’s congested and expensive metro areas. That sprawl and deforestation will be stopped. Pollution and global warming tamed. These things will happen when we relearn the central economic lesson of Industrial and Modern America. Mainly that…

Democratic capitalism works. But only when we build real things that last and people use. This construction process is the measure of true economic progress. It is not achieved with sophisticated investment strategies making fast money. Economic progress requires a proactive government advancing new transportation infrastructures built for pride of ownership and sustained profit.

The Locomotion Initiative envisions new transportation infrastructures and technologies you never heard off. All proposals build on America’s infrastructure strengths and uniqueness. All ideas are transformational in the spirit of America’s great industrial achievements. Read on…

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