Importance

Loading Importance Indicators...

Abstract

A multi-level, elevated system for providing urban areas with a grid of transportation and transit Right-Of-Ways for automated-driving vehicles as large as a mobility bus of an approximate twenty five foot length, and for human-driven ambulances and police vehicles with the same size limit; all vehicles having fully loaded weight limits—allowing such vehicles to move by means of vehicle elevators back and forth in connecting with existing ground level transportation and transit Right-Of-Ways, and optionally to be driven manually when on such ground level existing Right-Of-Ways. Additional levels include: a Not-a-wall architecture level, a utilities level, a parks level, a housing level, a heavy lift level, an energy roof level, and an airplane level. The underlying idea is to develop what might be called “people rivers”—grids of infrastructure that allow people, goods, commodities and utilities, ground and train-air hybrid system, and even housing, to flow along these grids in the same way that water flows in rivers. One key design element of the present invention is Not-a-wall design and architecture. Because almost the entire infrastructure of the present invention will be elevated, people to move freely and pleasantly through urban environments that will become increasing less congested as transportation moves above ground. Because the present invention will be built and maintained almost entirely with automated means, the real economic cost of transit and housing will drop drastically, allowing basic human needs to be met economically for low-income people; however, through the judicious use of taxation, the investment value of all current infrastructure, including housing stock, will not be impaired. Because the utilities level can be integrated with existing infrastructure, over time the maintenance and expansion cost of utility service will also be greatly reduced; the ability to separate potable and waste water will also result in many cases in major environmental improvements. We also face a critical ethical issue: with our ability to automate virtually everything, is it moral or ethical to continue to build transportation and other systems, and elements of systems, that we know will kill people? A central premise of the present invention is that with today's capabilities, it is no longer ethically or morally justifiable to do this.

Loading the Abstract Image...

First Claim