Minicommuters are urban-only vehicles slightly bigger than average motorcycles. Minicommuters are designed with full-sized ergonomic seats for the driver and, when applicable, a second seat behind it. The driver and his passenger are both located on the exact centerline of the vehicle surrounded by an enclosed wraparound glass cabin, not unlike jetfighters, providing creature comforts and security.

I love mass transit but only when it works as it does in New York where I lived until recently. But the economics of building new mass transit systems serving postmodern highway-dependent megacities is at best marginal and generally not even that. Minihighways change that for the better because sprawl is checked and population densities increase again in a sustained city-centric way.

Minihighways transition sprawling lower-density megacities into more compact higher-density built environments making new mass transit solutions economically viable. A new planning paradigm emerges primarily for two reasons:

1. Commuters can now access their rail stations via convenient and mostly self-funded minihighways, not gridlocked subsidized highways, and
   
   
2. With development closer to the Center sustainable again, distance and time of travel are both reduced.

Minihighways and mass transit quickly become growth infrastructures, with minihighways preceding mass transit by a few years or decades depending on the needs of each megacity.

But there is another all-important benefit: existing highways become sustainable growth infrastructures again because they loose traffic to minihighways in particular and growth in general.

Second question first:

Other very profitable transportation infrastructures are possible, even likely. (I address some of these in my first book, which I hope to complete next year, and will be addressing some of these here.) But these Next Stage Solutions to America’s urban locomotion needs are highly customized to their specific urban environments. Although all minihighway networks are designed to reflect local needs and desires, all large metro areas benefit when a convenient cost-effective alternative to congested highways becomes available.

And now to the first question:

Minihighways are the essential First Step because this roadway-vehicle combo accomplishes three goals contemporary development practices fail to achieve:

FIRST: Minihighways require little or no subsidies because (properly customized to local needs) they are uniquely cost-effective.

SECOND: Minihighways reduce congestion throughout the megacity making existing highways productive growth infrastructures as they exist.

THIRD: Minihighways make new and renewed mass transit systems economically viable, even profitable, over time.

The best way to fight economic dinosaurs is to keep our eyes on the price: Evolving to grow sustainable and profitable again.

Car companies might be reminded that they are in the transportation business (not the car, SUV, and truck business) and can benefit more than most if they “evolve to grow.” After all, car companies everywhere are already loosing money, in part, because roadway infrastructures across the globe fail to sustain strong growth with private vehicles a growing population needs and can afford. (Sooner or later, growing car markets like China and India will peak. Then what?)

Car companies can reverse their fortunes by proposing to build and operate minihighway infrastructures for profit, not unlike early urban transit entrepreneurs. The deals they propose might include partial conversion of exiting highways and non-highway rights-of-way as well as annual license fees and one-time compensation payment for each minicommuter provided by competitors.

Oil companies might be reminded that they are in the energy business and can also benefit if they “evolve to grow.” For example, with car-dependent megacities across the globe growing efficiently again—this time with minihighways—new and mostly poorer participants in the economy create wealth. Soon enough the new middle class starts building new homes, businesses, and neighborhoods, many of them in developed suburban areas transformed for non-sprawl growth by minihighways.

With cost-effective development in the ascendancy once more, the need for energy grows. But so does the opportunity to growth with green technologies. The economics of development are such that many old buildings are progressively demolished. New green buildings, most of them much larger than the original, take their place. With growth and development profitable again, everyone benefits including transportation and energy providers.

Yes, New York is quite alive and, for many of us, the center of the universe. But the city is not as successful advancing civilization and quality of life as it has been and can be again.

Congestion seems natural even desirable to us because it is part of the built environment as we experience it and it shapes our lives. But the negative consequences of growing unchecked congestion are very real. For all practical purposes NYC stopped building subways in the 1930s and highways in the 1960s. New York’s “vitality and strength” is a lingering residue of that limited manmade resource, which was build mostly for profit with subway fares and highway tolls. But for some time now, building more of the same rail and highway infrastructures requires extraordinary subsidies adding little growth potential to the city or value to its inhabitants.

The following is a quote from the USDOT:

“Growing congestion is not simply a nuisance. It has become a drain in the economy, badly impacts families and quality of life, drives up costs, increases pollution, distorts real estate markets and development patterns, reduces labor pool accessible to employers, decreases safety, and increases emotional stress.”

Nice summary of the mess were in, don’t you think? The socioeconomic and environmental consequences of growing congestion can not be reversed with existing or new mass transit and highways as we plan for them today. Furthermore, the architectural solutions today’s transportation infrastructures promote are not sustainable. We need to transform the city and our way of life again.

As in the past, this is best achieved with new transportation infrastructures that are more convenient, cost-effective, and efficient. With more and more people using the new infrastructures—in this case minihighways serving New York City and a fast growing number of its suburbs—high cost highways loose traffic to low cost minihighways. With congestion retreating and costs in check, development is reenergized. The USDOT quote above can now be rewritten:

“Shrinking congestion is a great asset. It strengthens the economy, enhances families and quality of life, drives down costs, reduces pollution, creates sustainable real estate markets and development patterns, increases labor pool available to employers, increases safety, and decreases emotional stress.”

Now, wouldn’t that be great: a wealthier, healthier and less expensive New York! Not only is the vitality and strength of Greater New York renewed, with all congested metro areas across the country retooling competitively so as not to be left behind, America’s vitality and strength is also renewed.

Architects like you and me have more work than ever. We start building the cities of the future—nor because our buildings are more exciting (which they will be); not because we’re smarter or more virtuous (which we won’t); not because of legislated mandates, taxes or subsidies—but because more convenient, cost-effective, and efficient “growth infrastructures” are finally under construction. The transformation of the American way of life begins in earnest unleashing market forces that make other transportation solutions viable as well. (See following Sections.)

Urban highways are 3-D environments including extensive manmade topography with over and underpasses. Since total right-of-way volume, not pavement square footage, is the dominant factor controlling costs, doubling the total number of lane miles with new half-lane/half-height minilanes reduces the impact of the new systems to 1/8th the effective volume of the existing highways minihighways complement. (A cube with halved sides is 8 times smaller.)

That pronounced volume and cost reduction assumes that nothing but lane width and vertical clearances change. But in fact many other design standards do change creating further structural efficiencies with profound cost benefits. Some examples:

• Live design loads and turning radiuses are greatly reduced.
• Maximum slopes are greatly increased.
• Expropriations are mostly avoided.
• Existing highways and buildings remain untouched.
• Construction timeframe shrinks to years, not decades.

These new minihighway standards create savings several times better than an eighth cost reduction, say 1/32nd or 1/48th.

But there is another economic opportunity bringing costs down even further: Good old-fashioned competition. The marketplace takes over with private investors building minihighways for profit. The only incentive government must still provide is free use of public lands and rights-of-way. This should overcome any legal challenges because similar no-cost deals have been struck before with spectacular results. The most prominent were railroads, which built America’s continental infrastructure, and early mass transit systems, which built America’s modern cities.

But there is yet another all-important cost-benefit. Although this one is indirect, it may prove to be the most consequential to our economy:

With congested urban highway loosing traffic to minihighways, with new mass transit solutions increasingly viable and with metropolitan airports productive growth infrastructures as they exist, transportation subsidies are greatly reduced. New government policy redirecting these subsidy savings could build many minihighways from start to finish. This makes minihighways profit centers for funding other much-needed infrastructures, especially mass transit and high-speed rail.

But there is more. See THE BENEFITS of Minihighways earlier in this section for further benefits to the economy, natural environments, global warming, and national security. Once all direct and indirect benefits are considered, projections for a 1/100th cost saving vis-à-vis an equal number of doubled highway lanes may prove to be conservative.