Kyle Harrison
concept

Transportation

Transportation

In the wiki, transportation shows up as the backbone of city-building, not a standalone domain. Walt Disney and the Promise of Progress City treats it as load-bearing: the proven monorail-plus-WEDway-PeopleMover transit system is “the principal reason Walt thought EPCOT could work as a city.” Disneyland’s monorail and PeopleMover were live durability tests for the systems Walt wanted in his real city; apartment dwellers wouldn’t even get parking, relying on transit, short-range EVs, or rentals. The “pedestrian shed” — a transit stop a few steps from home — is called “the secret to EPCOT’s success,” tying transportation directly to transit-oriented development (TOD) and New Urbanism. Victor Gruen, the one urban planner in Walt’s library, likewise treated transportation as one of the “utilitarian functions” a high-vitality city depends on, while complaining the monorail’s underlying tech “had been around since the 1890s.”

The concept also organizes a cluster of people Kyle has met around mobility. Matt Curwood is a transportation/mobility consultant (shuttle/coach operations, overnight buses, scooters, water transit) who flags water transportation and big-city commuter services as the key Trends to watch. David Pickeral works on “New Mobility” — smart cities and the institutional frameworks / public-private partnerships he argues are required for smart transportation to actually get built, and he is skeptical of big tech’s “smart city” rhetoric. Adam Cohen is a shared-mobility researcher at UC Berkeley focused on autonomous vehicles, land use, and parking, who led the national evaluation of USDOT’s Mobility-on-Demand “sandbox” grants.

Where this appears

  • Walt Disney and the Promise of Progress City — monorail + PeopleMover as the EPCOT transit backbone; the pedestrian shed as “the secret to EPCOT’s success.”
  • Matt Curwood — transportation/mobility consultant; shuttle/coach ops, water transit as a key trend.
  • David Pickeral — “New Mobility” advisor; smart-city transportation via public-private partnership.
  • Adam Cohen — UC Berkeley shared-mobility researcher (AVs, land use, parking).
  • Quick Capture (June 29th, 2021) — saved a Curbed piece on Stockholm transit and kids in Europe.

Quick Capture links — June 29th, 2021

Reading-list links from Kyle’s June 29th, 2021 Roam daily-note “Quick Capture” log.

Referenced in