OK then, here goes. There’s a lot of explanation to do even on this half finished version, but I hope you can see where it’s going. The basic concept is a bit of an anti-dote to what you can currently see on Flightmapping.com, and makes the following assumptions:
- Imagine a futuristic world, around 2050 (probably closer to the end of the 21st Century, but how many of us will still be around by then?). Maybe I should make it 2075 when I hope to be 100! Correction - I will either be 100 or dead!
- The high extraction and carbon mitigation cost of oil and widespread availability of renewable energy make long distance high speed train travel significantly more favourable than air travel for the majority of passengers on the majority of routes.
- By 2049, the 100 year old Geneva convention becomes obsolete as conflicts between countries are entirely based on economic prowess, rather than military skirmishes. (Perhaps George W Bush will posthumously be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for making it impossible for any democratic government to ever make a case for war again).
- Most countries around the world have a Shengen type agreement, or it is at least possible to take trains freely across borders without the need for long and complex customs inspections.
- Advances in tunneling technology make a link between Indonesia and Australia possible, whilst entente between Taiwan and China also connects these territories, and a United Korea is connected to Japan (the latter project having already merited discussion between the two parties as of 2009).
- The idea of a Transatlantic tunnel is slowly moving from science fiction to serious proposal - although Futuretimeline.net currently puts such a mammoth engineering task as a project for 2090.
Draft of a World Tube Map for 2050
Mapping style
- The map is inspired by the famous Tube maps of Harry Beck from the 1930s, although a number of additional developments are added:
- Countries are re-sized according to their ‘current rail relevance’ - an index made up of numerous different factors, including annual tourist spend, population and kilometres travelled by rail.
- Major world cities are situated along grid lines. Originally developed as a ‘chess board map’ featuring a grid of 9×9 dots, the World Tube Map is expanded to a grid of 13×9, to fit fully onto a sheet of Ax paper, and allow for the fact that much of the world’s developed area sits on a single ‘axis of Airbus TLS’ encompassing Tokyo, London and San Francisco - taking in Chicago, New York, Amsterdam, Berlin, Moscow and Shanghai along the way.
- The full version of the map is being produced to print at A0 scale, although it is envisaged that colour prints will be produced at A1, and a compact version will be made to fit a sheet of A4 paper, or a standard widescreen computer screen or TV display.
- The current version of the map uses differing city ’dot’ sizes according to significance, although these may become uniform as the map develops.
- The thicker lines represent existing, proposed or ‘likely to be developed’ routes which are seen as most suitable for a high speed network at current or near-future speeds of up to 400mph. Thinner lines would either need to operate at super-fast speeds in order to compete with air travel, or would be more likely to be kept as conventional rail.
Future developments
- World Knowledge Map - Using a similar tube map style, plotting the major developments in culture, science and technology, and the people and companies behind these developments.
- World Thought Map (train of thought) - similar to the Knowledge map, following ‘trains of thought’ from one place to the next, making connections through naming, cultural or historical events and people.
- World Film Map.
- World Airport Code Map.
Hmm, looking back to last Friday’s post, I know I should be posting 3 times each week. But better to post just the once than not at all. Still nothing revolutionary to say this evening, but I hope a few quick notes about what I’ve been up to can show that things are moving along slowly:
- Monday - I went to a debate about Heathrow’s third runway and the future of air travel marketing, hosted by CIMTIG. Lot’s to write up about this I promise, but not sure when I will get round to it. I’ll have to say that some of my reservations about Heathrow’s 3rd runway have been mitigated, but I’m not yet fully swayed.
- Tuesday & Wednesday - I’ve made further progress on the first draft of the “World Tube Map” - talking about it to a couple of people on Monday night also got an excellent response. I have something ready to print off, and I’ll probably do an upload early next week.
- Thursday - not really up to much, apart from watching Question Time in the evening - two excellent contributions from the non-politicians David Starkey and Dambisa Moyo.
- Today - pretty quiet too, but I am doing a bit of a twitter catch up. I have a lot to learn before I get the social networking balance right, but this should all come together by the time I have the World Tube Map ready to publish, and Flightmapping’s long awaited new site launch is finally underway.
So can I offer one decent tip for the week? Well, one thing about getting more active on twitter is that there are hundreds of people out there to learn from who will be much better than you. That’s not to say that newbies can’t carve their niche - of course, there is plenty of space for everyone, but to quote Emmerson, ‘Everyone is superior to me in that I can learn from them’. Tonight, I’ve read a couple of posts by Bob Wheeler, and his comments on why blogs are the most important tool in social media are pertinent. To quote his own blog:
In fact, if you listen you’ll hear just about every social media guru say, “If you don’t have a blog you don’t exist online”.
Of course, there’s no point in having a blog if it isn’t kept updated. So I’ve set the reminders to have something worthwhile posted up before this time next week!
Have a good weekend.
Letters to the editor
Coventry Evening Telegraph
Monday 11 October 2008
by hand
Dear Sir,
What is the point in spending billions of pounds regenerating the centre of Coventry, if we can’t even attract a single tourist to visit the city through our own airport? Meanwhile, local visitors will continue to be put off, as long as shabby Coventry station is run by the tremendously arrogant, incompetent and rude staff employed by Virgin Trains. And with the current state of the credit crunch, wouldn’t it be much better to just apply a new lick of paint to the much loved market, rather than opting for an all-out blitzkrieg?
We’ve seen enough damage to Coventry done by the Nazis, and then by the well-meaning, but well past its sell-by date Gibson plan, so why should we now place any trust in some dodgy Californian architect who is much more accustomed to helping casinos empty their patrons’ wallets, rather than building genuinely liveable urban spaces?
The so-called concrete collar which goes round Coventry might well be monumentally ugly, but it does at least keep traffic moving. So, rather than turning over more roads to under-used busways and expensive tram systems, can’t we just learn a little bit from some of our twin cities about how to make Coventry much more accessible for pedestrians and cyclists? I’ve had a good look around all the glossy images that the Jerde partnership have drawn, and I have yet to see a single bicycle in any of them. If there are 9 million bicycles in Jinan*, then surely it isn’t too Batty^ to propose working towards having one million in Coventry?
Notes:
*9 million bicycles in Beijing was written by Mike Batt for Katie Melia. Coventry is twinned with Jinan, China - approx 300 miles south of Beijing.
