Projects to ensure the economic survival, disaster recovery, and healthy lifestyles of Floridians:
Elevated Bike/pedestrian/ltwt electric mass transit paths. These would be weather-proof paths connecting common major destinations within Pensacola (Libraries, schools and colleges, downtown, neighborhoods, beaches, hospitals, churches and malls). Several bicycle-auto and pedestrian-auto deaths have occurred in the short time I have lived in FL. Crossing town by car often takes longer than the same trip would by bicycle at 20 mph. If school children had a safe pathway, they could ride bikes to school and counter some the sedentary lifestyle habits that automobile/bus-based transp. encourage them to adopt. The link below shows an elevated bikeway in the Los Angeles area. Thanks to E. Robinson for the link. http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0600/ob.htm
Urban campgrounds- The purpose of these city developments would be to provide temporary housing for newcomers, vacationers, travelling students, emergency and hurricane repair volunteers. Units would be based on a "microtel" design - tiny, minimalist, but would be far more affordable ($5-15 per night) than the $60 typ for a motel/microtel. Some of the ideas for units are lean-tos based on cement culvert, sod roof huts, and yurts. Fees would be on a sliding scale with Social service agencies being offered units to temporarily displaced residents or any clients with temporary housing needs.
Seawater mist global warming amelioration.(Near shore or off-shore) See the NYT Science section for Tues, June 27 for the details on this. This would offer some protection from heat and UV related health risks for the Pensacola area.
Xeriscape and green design initiatives. Tax incentives could be provided to retrofit existing or design new commercial and residential properties with xeriscape to reduce water us for irrigation and low energy-use features such as ground temperature coils for heat pumps, solar hot water to reduce unnecessary waste of power.
Line-of-sight high speed tunnel trains from Pensacola to Mobile, New Orleans, Orlando, Atlanta.
The significant feature of line-of-sight tunnels is that they are subsurface and provide free (gravity) acceleration during the first half and braking during the last half of the trip. When coupled with maglev and vacuum tunnel design, this makes for a very low energy cost design which could be non-dependent on fossil fuels.The tunnel feature obviates the need for disruption of surface activites except for the terminals or access ports. Excavated materials would be helpful in providing near-coastal fill to protect against storm surge and replace eroded beach materials.
I hope you find these ideas useful. Please let me know if there is a compilation of suggestions that have been made so far available for review. Thanks.
Best Regards,
Mark Robinson
435-6807
This idea is one in the "50 goals for my life if I live forever" idea. This is instead of "50 ...Before I die" which seemed to put the emphasis on aging and mortality:
Growing hollow trees (biotech) to replace houses made from other materials. http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?d=nytdsection%2b&o=e%2b&v=Science%2b&c=a%2b&query=anthony+atala&date_select=full
see the NYT article link above to see a parallel now being used in medicine (growing bladders in the lab for transplantation into humans -successfully accomplished.
