By Tom & Carol Braford
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a working model must be worth a million and a working prototype, a billion. This is the rationale behind ICB’s Reliable Alternative Freight and Transportation (RAFT) system and our strategy to get it going and growing in St Louis with a grant to fund it.
Last month, we talked about our collaboration with That Uppity Theater Company to expand the tourism industry in St Louis in a number of ways. One is to open RAFT Station #1 as the Museum of the Future of Freight and Transportation (MOFFT). It will house a scale model of a raised pod system that could quickly and silently move 4 to 5 passengers or a ton of freight across a network of raised platforms running along alleys and other public right-of-ways between stations at evenly distributed networks of Ecovillages and Green Business Parks. The platforms and pillars holding them up would be constructed of artfully repurposed windmill blades, something that is already happening in Europe.
This month we are hoping to engage several partners in creating a 2-block long, full scale prototype along the alley that runs down the middle of the Ecovillage, along with a robotic parking facility where you can park while being shuttled around to other sites throughout the city by members of the Green Electron EV Car Co-op. This one application would enliven a number of birds with one stone by:
- Letting visiting EcoTourists explore the whole city without adding one iota of CO2 to the atmosphere.
- Alleviating the issues with parking and transportation in the central corridor.
- Supporting City climate commitments.
- Providing a model to address vandalism to communication and power lines along alleys by securing them in the raised platform system. We could also include a vacuum tube source-separated waste removal system in poles and platforms to address trash-strewn alleys, illegal dumping, skyrocketing waste removal cost and wear and tear on this infrastructure caused by heavy trucks.
Please reach out to your local, state and national elected officials to encourage them to get behind this initiative.
Contact: braford@sbcglobal.net
www.ArizmendiEcovillage.com