We Need Wackier Ideas

I said recently that we need more and younger ideas – ideas generated from the young population, political, ecological, sustainability ideas. But we also need far more off-the-wall ideas. Far too many “innovators” are thinking inside the box and getting nowhere.

Hi. Today’s Zen Cookbook Idea is that we’re becoming a bit too settled again. Time to shake up the innovation sector. For my first one I’m looking squarely at the Victorian State government (Australia, y’all) who are ploughing on with roadways and tunnels for private vehicles and were also off-the-wall in the opposite direction far enough that they wanted to charge EV owners a per-kilometre tariff because they’d no longer be using fuel, and the Govenment gets a lot of income from the fuel tariffs.

And then there’s almost every city in the world that’s making it faster to traverse their streets by car at the expense of cyclists, scooter riders, pedestrians. It’s (and excuse me for R-rated words) fukken ridiculous. Pedestrians have to wait for traffic, and traffic lights, crossings, lane marking, and every facility favour the speedy and convenient passage of vehicles.

Here’s The Crazy Off-The-Wall Idea:

Stop it! STOP IT! STOP IT!

We’ve seen, thanks to COVID lockdowns, how quickly our environment starts to try and repair itself. And we’ve seen, thanks to those lockdowns lifting, how quickly we can crap all over our nests again as soon as we’re encouraged to.

BTW COVID is still raging, and people are still dying from it in far greater numbers than at the “peak” of the “pandemic,” but pharmaceuticals manufacturers have stopped looking for better vaccines because the money’s no longer there. The government has discouraged reporting of the figures because it means people got a taste of what a better work environment could look like during the lockdowns and working remotely means valuable city business district real estate stood in danger of losing tenants and that is a not inconsiderable input to the economy.

— no citation, so Nyahhh!

So we can infer that “the economy” is the biggest driver of the planet today, not “humanitarianism” nor “conscience” nor even “stewardship”of the planet. We’re going to consume the planet even if it kills us in the process. We’re hardly acting like rational beings. From that I infer that our current “conventional” innovations are almost entirely capitalism-driven.

And I’m sorry but capitalism has to go. The most important thing in the world is no longer delivering a profit for the shareholders but for ensuring that the planet can recover. To that end we need the cities to have a totally different infrastructure – one where small ePUTVs (Electric Public Utility Transit Vehicles) rule supreme – no ICEVs (Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles) at all may operate.

Pedestrians and scooters can operate there, but also a three minutes maximum wait time policy has to be enforced. If you call for an ePUTV it should be there in under three minutes. Any destination in the city centre designated area needs to be reachable, and any transfer area where the central area interfaces with inner urban environment needs to have the same three minute max wait time policy.

Inner urban regions should allow for privately-owned EVs as well as ePUTVs but only if the EVs are managed by the same traffic queueing software. Suburban areas should allow for human-piloted EVs but within geofenced limits, and all areas should for the interim have specific “danger roads” that only ICEVs are permitted on.

We have perfected eTags and can read them (and number plates!) from a gantry across major roads for charging tolls – it’s just as easy to identify an EV with a particular class of tag from an ePUTV with a particular class of tag from an ICEV with only a number plate or a number plate and toll tag to separate the traffic flows as vehicles cross zones. It’s not rocket science. It just takes impetus and a desire to do it.

And there’s no better way to create a VERY LARGE desire to institute such measures than to start by tieing up existing road systems with more “public safety” measures. Vehicles are to give way to pedestrians at EVERY crossing no matter what. Increase the number of cameras backed by AI to catch the drivers breaking the public safety rules. Have traffic lights cycle with far longer road lockout times to allow for pedestrian traffic and bicycles etc.

Use this period to start defining the “danger roads” that only ICEV traffic is welcome on. Bollocks to making new tunnels more ICEV-friendly, make them EV and ePUTV friendly right from the get-go. To help the government get their precious income from vehicles, put toll eTag gantries at measured distances along country roads too. Among other things, you’ll get an idea of how people actually are using their vehicles.