FERNANDO DE ARAGON

The future of Ithaca, NY is guided by the knowledge and disciplined thinking of Fernando de Aragon, and he understands the engaging potential of podcars. He will bring his perspectives and insights to PCC9 (Nov 4-6, Silicon Valley). The 2nd Podcar City conference was held in Ithaca in 2008 before a podcar feasibility study was undertaken there.

Intelligence center for the Ithaca-Tompkins Co. Transportation Council

Fernando is MPO director for this small oasis of urban life. Ithaca is located at the southern end of a NYS Finger Lake and home to Cornell University, Ithaca College and other lively institutions. It is known as a cool, happening place with both traditional and counter cultures. MPO stands for Metropolitan Planning Organization, public agencies that coordinate transportation investments, hopefully in synch with community land use objectives.

With roots in Puerto Rico and early years in southern Florida, de Aragon has worked in Ithaca seventeen years. Topography and special demographics make it challenging to meet current needs and future goals. He studied city and regional planning at Rutgers University in New Jersey and has a PhD in energy management and policy from the University of Pennsylvania. He recently published a novel about the Spanish conquests in the Caribbean.

Come meet him and understand what MPOs are all about at PCC9.

MARCUS SHARPE

To Marcus Sharpe, PRT is common sense. The appeal is obvious and the benefits will be substantial. He wrestles with the status quo of metro planning which a recent FTA report has labeled dysfunctional.

Sharpe lives up to his name.

Marcus is a native Georgian studied telecommunications as a journalism major and now works for MARTA.  Helping plot out a strategic growth plan for a progressive transit agency, his certification for business analysis of complex projects comes in handy as does work with Africa 10. He routinely balances the demands of people long for more and better transit services and like living in multi-story TOD districts, as well as those who savor the convenience of cars and see a house and yard with trees as the basis of the American Dream.

Clayton County Options

Much of Sharpe’s sharp thinking these days goes to Clayton County, the other side of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. C-Trans’s meager bus service stopped several years ago, but last fall voters approved a 1 cent sales tax hike to get it back and rail service too. MARTA could extend its metro past the airport, but at a cost unattainable from sales tax revenues.  Marcus sees extending the landside airport APM as a lighter, more viable option. Many locals get excited by commuter rail possibilities.

Pods have a scale that Skytran conveys to Marcus.

Skytran images inspire Marcus to go beyond the images of the past.  He has had positive talks with Clayton officials, although one quickly cautioned that  PRT/podcars do not qualify for FTA funds.  In 2015, under Obama and Secretary Foxx, is that valid?

BOB CAPORALE

Born and raised in the shadows of the countless skyscrapers of New York City, Bob Caporale moved to Mobile, Alabama to join the publishing and research house known as Elevator World in 1993. The founder and editor Bill Sturgeon already thought vertical and horizontal transport people should talk to each other more. In 1995 Bob as editor continued the dialog, encouraging it in many ways through articles and workshops.

With Assistant Brad O'Gwynn, Caporale
snaps a pic with journalistic flare.

Caporale approached and still approaches a wide range of related architectural, planning, regulatory and contractual issues with an open, flexible mind that sometimes conflicts with the hard worlds of mechanical engineering and public safety. This takes a good listening ear and a careful use of words.

Although still a Yankee who knows the challenges of winter, Bob has become addicted to Caribbean breezes and to West Indies Salad --  a crab dish special to the Mobile Bay. He retired from EW in 2013, and has stayed along America’s South Coast. He still finds time to contribute to www.highrisefacilities.com and his interest in smart horizontal movement innovation remain sharp. 

BILL JAMES: MOBILITY LIBERATION

Bill James of Jpods is a man on a mission of liberation. He sees himself upholding the United States Constitution by undoing a Federal "monopoly" on transportation. Bill despairs over the oil-guzzling stupidity of our road-focused infrastructure, He knows well the agony of bloodshed especially when it’s over something as mundane as gas and oil. “Our dependency on oil is a lot like the antebellum South’s dependence on slaves.” He calculates that a barrel of oil is the equivalent of twelve slaves for a year. We need to stop this.

Bill James;s happy solar vision,

James’s thinking focuses on US constitutional issues that have produced intolerable congestion and carnage on our Interstate highways of the oil-giddy 1950s thanks to General Dwight D. Eisenhower as president in the 1960s. He argues that Government needs to get out of monopolistic assumptions that cars and streets are the beginning and end of American life. Young people today are not as infatuated with cars. Smartcars are emerging as major generational shifts take place. Jpods  aims at them as it integrates solar power collection into PRT designs. “PRT technology is not the issue. Morgantown’s decades of safe and reliable service is today’s baseline.”

Jpods has obtained formal consent from the New Jersey town of Secaucus to install and operate within their jurisdiction. James works with Atlantic Energy, a Sacramento-based manufacturer of solar roofing tiles. With a network of West Point classmates and friends, he is opening new mobility dialogs with Boston – the City and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And he may yet be the first to break podcar dirt in Silicon Valley.