Key documents in retooling transportation:
PERFORMANCE STANDARDS FOR RIGHT-OF-WAY ACCESS TO FREE MARKET INNOVATIONS
WHEREAS, Returning communication infrastructure to a free market in 1982 resulted in vast innovation, better service at lower costs and millions of jobs;
WHEREAS, Privately funded freight railroads average over 400 ton-miles per gallon efficiency;
WHEREAS, Establishing performance standards based on economic work accomplished per unit of energy consumed may allow free market solutions that repeat communication infrastructure success in transportation infrastructure;
WHEREAS, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment Study PB-244854 (1975) identified Automated Guideways and Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) networks as a solution to the 1973 Oil Embargo and the PRT network at Morgantown, WV has delivered 110 million oil-free, injury-free passenger-miles since starting service in 1975;
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED,
Non-exclusive access to City rights-of-way will be granted to transportation systems providers meeting the following free market principles:
(1) Privately funded construction, and
(2) Privately operated without Federal subsidies, and
(3) Exceed 120 passenger-miles per gallon, or equivalent efficiency, and
(4) Exceed safety performance of transportation modes already approved for use.
THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, Regulation of free market innovations shall be based on:
(1) System design, fabrication, installation, safety, insurance, inspection practices shall be compliant with the ASTM International, Committee F24 on Amusement Rides and Devices, and
(2) Environmental approvals will be granted based on a ratio of energy consumed per passenger-mile of the innovation versus transport modes approved to operate in the rights-of-way, and
(3) All taxes and fees assessed on the transport systems providers, passengers and cargo shall be limited to 5% of gross revenues and paid to the aggregate rights-of-way holders by transportation systems providers.
Background:
Plan for 5 million jobs by 2015
Constitutional basis for free markets in transportation
The above framework is simple. As noted in Federalist #62, simplicity in legislation is essential:
...the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few, not for the many.
In the mobilization to fight World War I the Federal government monopolized/socialized communications, power and transport infrastructures as "natural monopolies. In 1984 communications infrastructure was restored to free markets resulting in millions of jobs, vast innovation and better services at lower costs. That success can be repeated when power and transportation are restored to free markets.
Government control of the means of production in power and transport violates the Constitution. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights culminated an intense 37 years effort to structure government based on individual liberty. In the effort to secure ratification of the Constitution the Federalist Papers were written to explain the intent of the Constitution. Federalist #62, James Madison:
"What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he can have no assurance that his preparatory labors and advances will not render him a victim to an inconstant government? In a word, no great improvement or laudable enterprise can go forward which requires the auspices of a steady system of national policy."
Federalist #45 (Madison):
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."
Building of highways ("the internal order, improvement") was intended to be a State function. Had States managed infrastructure the Special Interests of oil and automobiles would have tempered and slowed the creation of civilization killers of Peak Oil, Climate Change and Debt. Persistent wars to protect foreign oil would have been unnecessary. As noted by West Point's System Engineering manual, alternatives might have been found:
"In fact, one of the most significant failings of the current U.S. transportation system is that the automobile was never thought of as being part of a system until recently. It was developed and introduced during a period that saw the automobile as a standalone technology largely replacing the horse and carriage. So long as it outperformed the previous equine technology, it was considered a success. This success is not nearly so apparent if the automobile is examined from a systems thinking perspective. In that guise, it has managed to fail miserably across a host of dimensions. Many of these can be observed in any major US city today: oversized cars and trucks negotiating tight roads and streets, bridges and tunnels incapable of handling daily traffic density, insufficient parking, poor air quality induced in areas where regional air circulation geography restricts free flow of wind, a distribution of the working population to suburban locations necessitating automobile transportation, and so on. Had the automobile been developed as a multilateral system interconnected with urban (and rural) transportation networks and environmental systems, U.S. cities would be in a much different situation than they find themselves in today.
What is important here is not that the automobile could have been developed differently, but that in choosing to design, develop and deploy the automobile as a stand alone technology, a host of complementary transportation solutions to replace the horse and buggy were not considered."
Federal funding of the Interstate Highway system created an unconstitutional Federal commercial monopoly, caused the loss of tens of thousands of miles of railroads. With 1/3 of miles driven on Interstates, Federal interference in free markets shaped how American cities were built and mandate that for Americans to earn a living they must buy a car and oil.
Federal unconstitutional monopoly of communications caused a century of rotary telephones. Once liberty to choose networks was restored to the people in 1984 vast innovation and better service at lower costs resulted. Following is a resolution to restore liberty to choose transportation networks to the people: