Tuesday, April 5, 2011

New Electric Motorcycles Good or Bad Idea?

     I read an article on treehugger.com about motorcycle charging stations in Spain, and I thought this was really cool.  Then I thought it twice, this would be great in small cities not in really big and crowded cities.  Since these electric motorcycles hold one person this would increase traffic.  I would also presume that most people on these bikes would use them mostly for short distances, and therefore requie many charging stations which costs the government money.
      I believe companies and the government should spend there money creating a new system of electromagnetic train stations ,or the proper term Maglev, instead.  There could be local trains that travel between local hotspots like malls, attractions, and schools.  Then there can also be state trains that travel to poplular cities.   These trains would be good places to socialize and people won't get tickets for texting while going from destination to destination. Oh and did I mention you'll be going about 300 mph.  This would definetely be the best solution for teenagers going to their work or a library. 
      Even though these new electric bikes are a lot better for the environment that gasoline cars, I percieve these bikes as luxury vehicles that wouldn't replace a car.  When electric cars or hybrids are released  then I believe these bikes will become popular, but until then lets not worry about having to dispose large quantities of batteries which of course are hard to recycle and can not be dumped in land filles.
     I hope these Maglevs become devopled in more cities, and these train could not only give us easy and fast transportation but could provide many people with jobs.  Engineers, labor workers, and metal providers will benifit from these projects.  If this seems costly we can use most of the metal from old railroads and trains that seem unused beside for carriage.  We could install seperate systems for carriage or use the same rail from the Maglev system.  To many this seems impossible but its been done before, just look at the construction of the first transcontinental railroad during the 1860s.  If we could do it then why not now.         

2 comments:

  1. Many major cities in the United States make use of light rail trains, subways or elevated trains. I used to walk two blocks to a station when I lived in Portland, Oregon and catch the rail downtown. There is a great bookstore there, Powell's City of Books, where I used to pick up second-hand paperbacks and read them on the train on the way home...and it was delightful.

    Nashville has a light rail as well..unfortunately it goes from downtown to Lebanon, TN and would be a pain for us to catch from where we are.

    Maglev trains exist in Japan...but I don't think that they are running right now due to the earthquakes. Funny thing, but they deal very effectively with 'drag' friction that we were looking at with dragsters in class today!

    Motorcycles scare me...electric or gasoline! Yikes!

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  2. BTW...my daughter Erin...who was with us at the ASCE Bridge Competition says "Hi!" and that she likes the picture of the little car that you have on here.

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