Annals of Motordom – 14
An occasional update on items from Motordom – the world of auto dominance.
DAVID BYRNE IN DETROIT
Yule Heibel passes on a link to musician David Byrne’s blog journal (he of Bicyle Diaries). He takes one of his well-illustrated bicycle tours, doing a kind of `Greatest Hits` review of this beleagured town – and Detroit has taken a sad toll of hits.
But here`s something about the GM bailout I did not know, that only adds to the sadness:
Speaking of debt, it seems that recently GM, post-bailout, split themselves in two. One part is, they hope, a keeper and somewhat profitable, and is called GM; the other part is abandoned, unprofitable, toxic and debt-ridden…and it’s been christened the Motors Liquidation Company. If you can carve off your cancerous debt-ridden toxic half you can then stand tall and pretend that your new self is viable, and maybe even profitable—and doesn’t owe anyone any money. See, we’re not bankrupt anymore! We don’t need (or want) the government to be telling us what we can and can’t do, or how to run our business. I don’t believe this for a minute.
Anyway, scavengers snuck into these plants and stripped out the valuable materials—the copper first and eventually they bring in welding gear and take out the steel girders and supports, causing parts of the structure to collapse. Sadly, this means these buildings can’t come back as loft apartments, art centers or anything else. Should someone get the belatedly smart idea that a new industry could rise from the ashes of these ruins, it won’t happen in these buildings.
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Michael Noblett, with IBM’s Intelligent Transportation Solutions office (and coincidentally a native of Detroit), was on a panel with me at the GreenLinks conference last week. Among many insights, the one that struck me was this:
The roadway transportation network is the only network I’m aware of where the network does not control its traffic.
Stop lights, speed limit signs, painted yellow lines and the like, are only suggestions. Until the roadway transportation network actually controls the traffic it will always be possible for two vehicles to try and occupy the same space at the same time.
Unlike the Internet, say, or even a railway, we’ve attempted to deal with the erratic nature of the roadway network by simply trying to build more of it, and hoping the vehicles will behave themselves.
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NAKED STREETS
Experiment: Town in England turns off traffic lights, surprising results.
I spent a couple weeks in Saigon and was in awe of the flow of traffic without lights.
Scooters galore, bikes, cars, buses, everyone weaving in and out of lanes – just going to where they wanted to go. No waiting at stoplights with engines idling…
When I got back to Vancouver, I was so frustrated waiting for a red light to change.
I must admit, pedestrians in Saigon have very little value – you cross a street at a very real risk:)
Top link didn’t work. I’d love to read it if you can fix it. =)
Actually, the company that was GM went bankrupted and is now called Motors Liquidation Company. As it has the debt and bad assets, it will be wound down and will no longer exist sooner or latter. The shareholders lost all of their investment in the old GM. Quite a fall from grace for what was once the largest and most powerful company on the planet. A new company was created which then was given the GM name and the good assets. It is owned by the US and Canadian governments along with the unions.
Even with all this government support, it is uncertain if it has a future. The industry still has way to much global capacity, spending on transportation is falling in the states and younger people aren’t buying cars the way they used to.