Vers un Repère Mobile

Directeur de diplôme, Brent PattersonDirecteur de projet, Clément BlanchetDiplômé DESA, Martial MarquetEnseignant extérieur, David LeclercPersonnalité extérieure, Mathieu-Hô SimonpoliPersonnalité extérieure, Claire Malrieux

Introduction

A. Reading the influence of Car Culture on the urban fabric and its dynamics

1. Personal automobile, the freedom of travel2. Backyard dreams, idealization of the suburbs3. The birth of the architecture for cars4. Scenic experience 

B. Consequences of the car centric development

1. From the Street Cars to the Freeways2. Proliferating suburbs3. Overrunning - the cost of consumerism4. Death of the public life in Los Angeles

X. Defining the upcoming technologies

1. Upcoming technologies2. Challenged by the automobile of tomorrow3. Application perspectives, a new mobility paradigm

Draft, March 1st 2015

D. Definition of the next paradigm of mobility / Experience around

1. Transitioning from yesterday to tomorrow2. New rules set within the existing framework3. Collective benefits 

E-Existing frameworks

1. Metropolitan dynamics - Networks2. Established frameworks - Grid / Urban Fabric3. Civic mobility - Open / Public space

F. Experiencing spaces of mobility

1. Scenic experience in motion ; Motion, scenic experience2. Shifting mobility, defining the public space3. Indexation / Time-form : how space evolve through time upon use

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This inquiry will examine the potential effects of the evolution of personal transportation in the urban environment, as automated systems are planned to hit the consumer market in a matter of months. Focusing on the urban fabric of Los Angeles which developed over the XXth century with the private car in a primary decisions’ driving position, the research aim to challenge the relevancy of car urban equipments and infrastructures, looking for a re-definition of these spaces to benefit the local communities with their surrounding public spaces, meanwhile fostering new solutions to personal mobility.

This paper examines a new solution to personal mobility; namely, that of replacing today’s modes of personal transport with a fleet of shared autonomous vehicles, i.e., vehicle that are able to drive themselves in traffic, to safely and reliably pick up passengers and deliver them at their intended destination. This work will not design the new forms of mobility, though it will embrace the existing proposals and have a close look at the experiences these projects provide. The analysis will focus on the urban dynamics in the geography of Los Angeles, the enhancement of these new flows in the urban fabric, the potential in creating new public spaces around the redefined relationship with personal transportation around new experiences of urban mobility.

Outline

Personal transportation will have the opportunity to evolve drastically in the next decade. The first smart systems are already helping the user throughout inconvenient tasks, also by improving safety or by providing a new connectivity.

Public Transportation is evolving really fast in some environment such as Singapore or China where the cities are straining under the pressure of population increase or urbanization. However, America has been the heart of car centric urban development over the twentieth century and its major cities does not seem to implement new policies or developments for their public transit systems. Rapid transit systems are present (mainly rail, at the metropolis scale) but these networks are suffering to expand or evolve towards a more accessible cost, a wider range of operation and a higher efficiency for a new paradigm which the densifying urban environments needs. New standards of mobility are being define by the constantly evolving urban environments of today.

Technologies are being developed faster than ever, but policies are holding the breaks on their implementations. By the time public organization concede the problems and engage the unavoidable process, the potential solutions once voted will probably be outdated. This archaic operating politic systems raise the query if public organizations have the power to initiate the shifts needed in terms of urban mobility, or if the users could develop new systems through quickly adopting, valuing and spreading the accessibility and the quality of the new solutions. Policies will still remain the ground base to allow any public shift, but the implementation might be possible through a peer to peer distribution system instead of the actual centralized sourcing in public institutions and pressured by private corporations.

Introduction to the context

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This said, a new technology such as autonomous vehicle could potential-ly revolutionized people dynamics within their urban environments, using existing infrastructures such as roads networks. Therefore personal and shared mobility could develop new standards, questioning what is a trip, redefining the relationship with the transit system, challenging the experience of motion. Some parameters which was unalterable, looked permanent inputs of urban design can be interrogated because of the new standards define by the technology. Architecture could also benefit from this new parameters, gaining public spaces’ designs, being the interface between the different types of urban motions, redefining the use of outdated spaces, positioning itself closer to human scale and en-hancing inhabited mobility infrastructures, stitching these new programs to the existing urban fabric.

With the dimension of the fleet of vehicles in the Los Angeles Basin, the local urban development was probably one of the most influenced by the car culture. Its urban fabric and dynamics are mainly governed by the private automobiles. Despite the heavy fondation of the private car culture present, this makes this environment one of the most fertile place to initiate any transportation shift based on existing road-like networks. Los Angeles can be the “city of the future”, by being a laboratory of new forms of urban mobilities.

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Vers un repère mobile, my first intentions were oriented towards the per-ception of the urban context through the different means of mobility of today. Observing more and more while in motion, I became more aware of my point of view to my surroundings. So I started to multi-task in a way, trying to be over-aware of the urban fabric I was traveling through. I was looking for my personal extended mobility, in my urban environment.

It became so obsessive that it went too far beyond the A to B, my initial itinerary. Even though I planned on the way to have a look to place Z while biking to the subway, I also listed out to re-take pictures of Y, X, and V as this morning should have a great light going west on the Expo Line, and W’s silhouette too, that one was in contre-jour on the other side of my way to Exposition Boulevard. Once there, I knew I would experience a great view of the endless urban environment of Los Angeles, being perfectly just one or two floors higher than the 99.9% of the buildings of Los Angeles, which are one or two floors top.

Then I would hope again on my bike, and this time experience a vivid pleasure as riding fast on Venice blvd, which offered me a bike lane. Let me redefine that space, it is just two white line on the asphalt. It was not protecting my ride, but I have to confess this is why I liked it so much. The boulevard is rather straight, the ride was not about the track, but all about what would be around. Sometimes I happened to be very careful, making the ride all about observing the others riders around me (mainly drivers). I would try to guess all sort of things on their trip, are they in between home and work? Where could they come from? Do they have any stops on their way? Could they use an other type of transportation? Will they switch mean of mobility at some point? This would go on as far as my ride. An endless excitation about all the unknown parameters that could suggest the few hints I could get through the vehicle they use, their

Personal experience of my personal reference-frame in motion, in Los Angeles.

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behavior, or their direction.

As biking, my lane was in between the two to four lanes of traffic to my left, and parked cars in front of the sidewalks on my right. I had three feet to me, at least I was supposed to. I quickly realized I should not grant that as my space. Looking after my safety or for adrenaline, the com-mute would transform to ride on a track filled with dangerous traps and fun jumps. Doors could pop-out of any cars parked along the boulevard, as the speed of a blink. These were the most unpredictable traps of a bike ride on a boulevard. Trying to keep my distance to this unpredictable, at the same time four lanes of huge automobiles are coming from my back left side. I could not do much but try to stay focus on my ride. The straight bike lane sometimes hybridizes to a giant slalom of trash con-tainers, of differences colors and sizes. Sometimes they would be laying low, as if their location was not odd enough, for containers. Approaching the cost, I would get more positive and imagine that the morning breeze would have laid them on the road. The definition was left to my percep-tion and my mood, even though that would not change the risks involved.

Biking gave me the opportunity to experience the scale of the roads, as scary as It could be to swing from my bike lane next to the side-walk, to the left hand turning lane, the fourth one. There I experienced being stopped almost in the center of two boulevards comport-ing height car lanes and two bike lanes each, such as Venice Blvd / Lincoln Blvd. This non-space was a very interesting example of how an oversized road can become much more segregating in the urban dynam-ics than a freeway. It did not look as gigantic because it’s mainly open space, unlike the freeway it has sidewalks and crosswalks. When experi-encing this type of spaces as a pedestrian or especially as a biker, the ef-fects on the urban fabric felt much more subject to it than when I would cruise through in my car. Biking provided me an interesting experience of the automobiles’ spaces, by the fact of being vulnerable in that space, also being naked compared to other users in a way, and by being much slower during the ride. The openness to my environment was a very different experience. Although sometimes I could enjoy a bike lane, most of the time and for most users I did not deserve my space on the road. As a biker in Los Angeles, you have to fade in between the cars in motion

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and the ones parked. I did not feel I had my space on the streets, I would feel either as a pedestrian-biker on the sidewalks or as a driver-biker on the road. Neither way I had the feeling of belonging there, which I guess put myself as an observer. As bad as it can sound, I really enjoyed this position of in-between, it felt really helpful as a demonstrative example of the differences between the automobiles’ and the pedestrians’ spaces. The activities taking places in them, and the behaviors of inhabitants in them. More sensitive to architecture than engineering, the pedestrian space would intrigue me more. Indeed it was empty along most of my ride, revealing its sad poetry.

For my rides to happen, I was still going for a point A to B, otherwise it would not be motion. Sometimes B = A, which means I defined a loop. This could mean that I completed my journey (if continuous, a road trip for example) and I was coming back home, but it sometimes implied that my motive was only to be in motion most of the length of my trip, and traveling to different locations in the city. This is a very special kind of trip, I have to realize my passion about being in motion and my curiosity of places.

Being too focus about the observation of my surroundings in motion, I was missing the obvious. I was getting so used to be in motion that I forgot to observe my own behavior : I was traveling for the experiences I could reach while being in motion. That being the accomplishment of reaching a special point of view to the urban landscape ; the speed itself and all sensations that comes with it ; the fact of inhabiting urban infrastructures, places I could reach only doing so, and also extend my experience of them by maintaining my state of motion ; discovering more places in the city than my time could give me ; or simply the exposition to the urban fabric in motion. I would find more and more motives to be in motion, without realizing that I was spending more and more time in this state.

It became almost an urban redefinition of nomadism as my activities where not occurring in the same places. Or at least my life became par-tially nomadic when I would be in between home, and work. That became a good amount of my free time, I got more comfortable with this concept,

starting to define my ephemeral personal space in motion. What came to my mind much later is that my tentative of being an observer in motion, I was becoming an actor of my extended mobility. The outreach of my experiences was limited by the forms of mobility available today, indeed I started to visualize and feel the perspectives that could come. Though, I was not sure if I was inhabiting a mobile space anchored to my frame of reference or if I was inhabiting the urban landscape.

Photographs :

- Lincoln X Venice Blvds

- Freeway bridge from bike lane 

- Bike lane with containers

- empty side walks

- traffic in-between

(inserted)

B. Consequences of the car centric development

1. From the Street Cars to the Freeways

Los Angeles was a wide aggregation of Ranchos in the Los Angeles Basin. Miles of fertile fields were separation each Ranch. This seems assimilable to a pre-medieval pattern of mobility. During this Spanish Era, the inhabitants of the valley did not need to travel as much outside of their properties, which were at the scale of farm’s lands. The highest class could afford stables, most likely to be able to tow their stagecoach. This is probably the first form of personal mobility widely use whitin a social class in the Los Angeles Basin.

However after the second industrial revolution, the labour force needed to commute to the factories on a daily basis. Walking was of course the main mean of transportation at the time was walking. As technologies started to reach the lower social classes, a new form of propelled mobil-ity started to be widely used : the bicycle. It was powered by the energy of the user, was pretty affordable. It was at the time very efficient for the distance required. Cycling had a huge success, some large infrastructure project were even being developed. The California Cycleway first opened on the first day of the twenty-first century. It was an elevated bike path, reserved to bicycles to link Pasadena to Downtown. (…) The use of pro-ject quickly fade away as its cost became challenged by the upcoming Street Cars project. Later the Pacific Electric company will even buy and dismantled the California Cycleway. [Passing on] the great history of the Street Cars in Downtown, the system will have the same sad ending. The public transportation system will be force to stop its activity by now known pressures from lobbies, notably General Motors. The roads were wide open for the development of car’s economy.

The Ford T is notable as the democratization of the private automobile. It is the first mass produced car, which middle-class families could afford at the time. This had a huge impact on car uses. The growth was starting

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between the wars.

[growth post WWII, Space companies, Aircraft industries etc (Soja) ]

Beginning in the 1940s, most urban environments in the United States lost their streetcars, cable cars, and other forms of light rail, to be replaced by diesel-burning motor coaches or buses. Many of these have never returned, though some urban communities eventually installed subways. Though Los Angeles did not reinstalled its Red Cars.

A majority of families were owning cars, the booming economy in the region drew a massive amount of wealth and so people in the Los Angeles Basin. The city was heavily expanding. People desires changed too. The acquisition of the said freedom of travel was the premise of the suburban dream.

2. Proliferating suburbs

Suburbanization, people where looking to realize their dreams, idealiza-tion

Development of the city, sprawl, shift of the urban typologies, change of pattern of movements

New demands from car users.

— Illustration : Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), David Hock-ney, 1972 —

Sprawl

Real estate speculation

Endless expansion of the city

Reference The Good Life, as described by William H. Fain.

“The desire for the Good Life is familiar. Los Angeles once promised it to the work, promoted by compelling imagery like John Van Hamersveld’s Endless Summer poster from the 1960s advertising the beach life-style and iconic worship of sunny outdoor living, sports and fun. Beach Boys anyone?”

p21, If Cars Could Talk, Essays on Urbanism, William H. Fain, Jr. , Balcony Press, 2012

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3. Overrunning - the cost of consumerism

Massive access to mobility

Significant development of the boulevards across the urban fabric

ref : Los Angeles Boulevard: Eight X-Rays of the Body Public, Doug Su-isman, ORO Applied Research + Design, 2014

This was the birth of architecture welcoming cars, especially along boule-vards.

News specificities for acrchitecture

Pop C-ARch but also big boxed super markets appeared, surrounding by large surface parking lots arrived along the boulevards.

Linear center start to shape themselves

ref :  The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles, Kazys Varnelis, ActarD Inc, 2008

But mono use.

The city was becoming a victim of its success. The public realm was starting to be hurt, but the post lights and poster were blinding the visions of the city of Angels.

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— Illustration : Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, Ed Ruscha, 1968 —

4. Death of the public life in Los Angeles

Sir,–I am delighted with the suggestion made by your spirited correspondent Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey that all pedestrians shall be legally empowered to discharge shotguns (the size of the shot to be humanely restricted to No. 8 or No. 9) at all motorists who may appear to them to be driving to the common danger. Not only would this provide a speedy and effective punishment for the erring motorist, but it would also supply the dwellers on popular highroads with a comfortable increase of income. "Motor shooting for a single gun" would appeal strongly to the sporting instincts of the true Briton, and would provide ample compensation to the proprietors of eligible road-side properties for the intolerable annoyance caused by the enemies of mankind.W.S. Gilbert, a British magistrate and famous librettist, letter addressed to The Times, 3 June 1903

:

How well downtown was working at the golden age of the Street Cars? 

Future planning for the rail transit in L.A.

G.M. scandal : the murder of L.A. Red Cars, the death of public transit.

(Bus at the time?)

Planning of the freeways

First freeways built

Ref : Robert Moses, NY public infrastructures

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Car almost became the only viable commuting form as people changed their was of inhabiting, especially decentralizing the location of their residence further out from the dense parts of the city (Downtown, Holly-wood, etc)

How the large scale planning of the networks throughout the urban fabric of the city forced people to adopt a mobility form.

“Today, few people perceived L.A. as a promised land. Due to urbaniza-tion and increases in population density, it now has the reputation of being one of the most traffic-choked cities in the U.S. Smog has become synonymous with L.A. With disproportionally small amount of public spaces per population, its iconic beaches are now overrun.

( … great critics of today!)

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— Illustration : Lower Manhattan Expressway, Paul Rudolph, 1967-72 —

— Illustration : Streetcars, Broadway at its golden age —

Urban Infrastructure, p. 60, If Cars Could Talk, Essays on Urbanism, Wil-liam H. Fain, Jr. , Balcony Press, 2012

The Death of Downtown

“City within a city” - scale issue, example Century City

— Illustration : Metropolis II, Chris Burden, 2011 —

X. Defining the upcoming technologies

The speed of the development of new technologies is increasingly rapid. Their Capacity to be adopted is even faster. Their accessibility is easier than ever, many of these new systems being totally virtual. Soon the affordance of revolutionary technology will empower the users to change the urban habits of today, very quickly and drastically. The virtual revolution is fading out in our physical environments. Some new way of experiencing the urban environment are on the horizon. 

1. Upcoming technologies2. Challenged by the automobile of tomorrow3. Application perspectives, a new mobility paradigm

Autonomous vehicles are closer than ever. 

-A look at current developments and releases

BMW I-Serie, integrated services, multi-modal suggestion when entering a city, parking assistance, etc.

AudiX X X

Tessla

This is the implementation of some of the technologies used for driv-erless vehicles. And these systems are already heavily applied in the production and fabrication industries.

Self-Driving Cars

The term self-driving is used today for a spectrum of different technolog-ic abilities of vehicles.

The range of upcoming projects discussed under that term goes from an evolved cruise control to an autonomous system of mobility. Commercial uses are already taking place today in announcements, to sell self-park-ing to cruise control systems.

GM made headlines everywhere with Super Cruise; the Los Angeles

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Times announced, GM will introduce hands-free, foot-free driving in 2017 Cadillac. Engadget wrote, “GM: A Cadillac that can (almost) drive itself is coming in 2016. These over marketed vision of the upcoming systems are part of the advertising game. Though these systems will be able to change the relationship between the driver and the car. The vehicle will gain autonomy to manage the speed and the direction of the vehicles. The technology literally takes control of steering, acceleration and brak-ing at highway speeds or in stop-and-go congested traffic situations. The system might be enable to handle the control of unsafe situations. This might be limited to typologies of roads such as highways. But it is possible to say that this is one of the first sign of autonomy for vehicle on open roads, and that accessible to the consumer market.

The more appropriate capabilities of the term self-driving is a vehicle which is completely autonomous. 

Google has been developing prototypes for several years. They achieved development phases and are currently testing the behaviors of theirs systems on open roads. This shows that their integration to the current infrastructures will happen very soon. The release of these technology is depending on how politics will welcome or contain these systems. The undergoing testing will provide the necessary feedbacks on safety, inte-gration, and efficiency concerns of the cities. It is likely that research lab such as Google’s will have the resources to develop adapted solutions to the infrastructures’s rule sets, legislative parameters and people expecta-tions and needs for the different urban environments. Some says, devic-es will be ready to hit the consumer market by 2020X, or 2030X, anyway this event will happen at a relatively short time scale for a technology which could provoke consequent shifts for urban mobilities.

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Policies. California is at least open the the development of this technol-ogy. The state released 25 driving licenses for autonomous vehicles on January 1st, 2015. Google Obtaining 23 of themX

Evolution of the relationship to the car

“Imagine if Detroit have gone down the roads of technology, safety and electric for their cars industry?” 77.The Vergecast 141 : Vaping Alone with Wikipedia 

Apple is the most powerful private company of the 21st century. Apple needs the next thing. The company needs to connect their phone to the rest of the world. They are trying to do that through Apple Pay to shops, Home Kit for private residence, and through Car Play for cars. Though the manufacturers will probably not give up the control of their cars to the devices companies, whereas it is for the IOS, Android or else mobile platforms. They will not give up controlling your speed, the AC or the windshields wipers to a devices’ company. Even though more and more controls are enabling controls to shift to other forms, sharing. Cars manufacturers has not been the most welcoming environment for technology compared to other spaces we inhabitate.

If your car would know about when you get in, and the vehicle and the smartphone could connect and provide services together. Today car sys-tems and smartphones or alike devices are competing. It is quite obvious that connected devices have much more abilities and connectivity than what the experience of a car provide today. Though that might comes

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down to the experience of driving, which is limiting the ability to interact and connect to information while remaining focused and safe on the road. Indeed the global and extended mobility is concerned by informa-tions and personal matters.

It is not surprising that the experience of driving failed to evolve at the speed technology, because of safety issues and lobbies of major corpo-rations.

Jim Cain told Popular Science that Google’s full-coverage LiDAR system, which serves as their car’s robotic eyes, is perhaps the biggest stumbling block for mass adoption. No vehicle from GM, Tesla, or any other retailer features anything close to the sensor array necessary for true driverless machines. And no one has yet figured out how to adapt the technology for affordable mass production. Creative ideas to drive down the cost of autonomy-enabling hardware exist, but sticker prices remain shocking.

Though looking at the upcoming battle between the multi billions dollars Sillicon Valley giants, that are Apple, Google, Uber, Tessla all investing today most advanced knowledge into autonomous vehicle research. It is most likely that some technology will be applied in the “real-world”. These companies have already made technological revolution, such as

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Connectivity and communication

Connectivity and communication is key in the establishment of autono-mous vehicles. 

Michigan are planning on building 120 miles of “Smart Highways”, to experiment on that subject1.

This is a step forward in term of research but thinking about a larger scale and application to existing infrastructure, it is difficult to imagine to have to update the current roads networks. Even though there are not in their best shape today, it is not likely that cities could afford such tremendous works.

Car-to-car communication looks like a more interesting perspective.

Connectivity of cars / sensors / mapping / real-time virtual / the physical world could blend with the virtual

As the speed of our communications developed through our connectiv-ity anywhere at anytime, informations has reached the highest level of accessibility ever reached. The presence of smartphones in X millions pockets provided the possibility to measure and share incredible amount of data. Innumerable numbers of life changing uses happened, from access to the informations at anytime up to social revolutions (Twitter in corrupted and censored countries).

1 Bloomerg.com, Keith Naughton, Sep 8, 2014

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87% of Angelinos drive cars to work11% use Public Transit2% Bike

Why not develop better public transportation system? All these perspec-tive would be easier to apply if they would be shared between users.

The numbers of user cases is augmenting. Need for more flexible sys-tems

Finished with UBER plans to open on SHARING and NETWORKS

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D. Definition of the next paradigm of mobility

The upcoming new paradigm of mobility will be made by the citizen and the tech companies.

Technology is allowing affordances to people like never before. Informa-tions are able to spread almost instantly, it is already effecting people habits. 

Services such as Zipcar, ...

are already deployed in several major cities. With no private funding, but structured around connectivity of its user and smart digital manage-ment, these systems are already effective without public support. These mobility services work within the existing urban rule sets. The revolution already started, public support would unlock many further possibilities and facilitate the access for lower social classes. 

Danger because accessibly starts from the top classes. If only people inhabiting gated communities can afford these new systems, then the mobility segregation will increase between social classes. Companies such as Uber, which is researching on self driving cars for its taxi system would release a massive fleet of such vehicles, the cost would see a difference as it already happen these past few years with the completion against regular taxis

But if the shared economy it could happen from the mass

1. Transitioning from yesterday to tomorrow

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2. New ruleset within the existing framework

3. Collective benefits 

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E-Existing frameworks

Main center

Sub-center

Micro-center

Main link

Sub-link

Indirect or non existing Sub-link

Micro-link

Legend for distributivity diagrams

The centralized system

The decentralized sytem

The Distributed system is promoting small and medium sized elements, improving their inter-exchanges.

1. Metropolitan dynamics - Networks

A. Distributivity diagram, centralized system

B. Distributivity diagram, tree like centralized system

C. Distributivity diagram, decentralized system

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Greater Los Angeles dynamics

D. Distributivity diagram, Los Angeles system

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D2-x : Suburban road network, Turtle Rock, Irvine CA.

D2-x : Suburban road network, Turtle Rock, Irvine CA.

2. Established frameworks - Grid / Urban Fabric

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Typical Block Size of Irvine business complex, New York, San Francisco and Portland.,

D2-x

D2-x

D2-x

D2-x

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D3-x : Century City D3-x : Downtown

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Diagramatic map of the population per parcels,Downtown, 1: 50.000

3. Civic mobility - Open / Public space

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