Buscar: 

The advantages of elevated light routes

Light elevation is the solution in which all the possibilities that the computerization of transport will offer to solve the problem of speed separation meet. In order to move light vehicles at high speed it is the safest, cheapest, most ecological solution and the one that is most in agreement with the urbanism of the 21st century.

It is the safest solution, along with underground routes, because elevation radically separates fast vehicles from the ground level, where human, animal and vegetable activity develop. Certainly, on a continuous bridge birds can settle, but it is not common to run over a bird, given its rapidity of reaction. However, on a elevated route with restricted access children, pedestrians, dogs, cows, horses, wild boars or deer are not run over. There will be no crossroads to present the danger of collision. Crossroads on elevated routes will be avoided using different levels. As far as the possibility of deviation or derailment with the fall of the vehicle is concerned, we must imagine parapets sufficiently solid to prevent it.

It is the cheapest solution, mainly because of the ground saved in cities, but also in the fields. There will be detachable routes, made of metal or of lighter materials, with columns that will not need work on the ground, but only a foundation with portable concrete buckets; so that the whole route will be able to be transferred from one place to another. The lightness and the narrowness will allow great savings on bridges and tunnels, as well as on land clearing and filling. The small irregularities of the land will be compensated for by means of height variations in columns, without the need to work on the ground.

It is the most ecological solution because it disturbs human, animal and vegetable life much less. High routes cross forests and grass without danger to the wild or domestic fauna. The plants grow underneath their structures which do not interrupt water channels either. They do not require such aggressive action against the land as roads do.

    
It is the solution that is most in agreement with the urbanism of the 21st century, which will be a pedestrian urbanism where children will play on streets without danger; where pedestrians will not have to stay continuously on guard; where there will be no curbs that separate pavements and roads; where animals, mainly dogs and horses, along with human beings will abound; where all types of vehicle will pass slowly: cranes, excavators, tractors, load platforms, cars of the disabled, delivery units, fast vehicles at the beginning or end of their trip, bicycles… Multiple elevated fast traffic routes will cross the city on some streets. Possibly the noise from quick vehicles will be limited by incorporating passages made of glass or transparent  plastic into the route.

The necessary technology to construct and to obtain profit from the first elevated light routes is already available to the large companies that are linked to transport. They will surpass high speed trains when they get a safe frequency of one per minute for automatic 15-seater units on a conventional track.

Let’s imagine a first long elevated light route in an area with strong technological initiative and economic prosperity in which elevation brings special advantages. These three conditions occur between Munich and Lyon, passing through Zurich, Bern and Geneva. This is a very developed and very mountainous European region. Light elevation is suitable to ascend passes without snow causing many problems. Given the large snowfalls snowplows that push the snow off the bridge will be needed. This operation is easier than clearing it off the road.

Starting off from the centre of Munich and arriving quickly in the centre of Zurich, and so on in all the cities would not be the least important advantage of the route.

The speed contribution that small vehicles offer with the mere fact of needing fewer stops is not insignificant. A 15-seater vehicle whose passengers’ journeys are combined by a computerized program will often start off with 15 travellers from the station of origin and will deliver them all to the station of destination without needing pauses along the journey to gather or drop off other travellers. On many other occasions, only two or three stops along hundreds of kilometres will be needed.

Which will be the first company to tackle the commercial race of light elevation?

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