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Friday, October 11, 2002

Transit Dreams

This morning I awoke from a most amazing dream: instead of developing a light-rail transit system here in the Twin Cities, we developed a Floom* transit system! I awoke breathless and excited and just a bit scared.
Constructed along the major highways were elevated water channels for the public transit floom system. Commuters would get into the large log boats throughout the Cities and travel (float swiftly) into the downtown area. At the very edge of downtown the water would boil, tumble and splash violently -- the lip of the descent! Now these elevated channels were quite high, maybe 25-30 stories up. You would know exactly what was going to happen when you shot over that last lip and be hurtled down the very steep pitch (60 degrees at least!), producing the most amazing block-drenching splash at the bottom. Yet no matter how many times you rode the floom system...

...your breath would catch in your chest and your heart would be pounding throughout your body, thumping madly in your ears, the moment you reached the last 20' of the level portion and then, just at the moment you were hanging mid-air before the rushing water released you downwards, all things would stop for the briefest moment and you'd panic. No matter -- into the hands of fate, screaming down towards the pool and the city core. Fa-loom! Spa-lash!
It was a great transit system (in my dream-land) as it was so much fun, always thrilling due to the speed and steep final drop, and what they found was that the downtown workers were extremely productive each and every morning due to the increased adrenalin levels in their bodies!
Who do I deliver my proposal to?

*What is a Floom? If you've ever been to Valleyfair you'll know. I'm sure they have them at other theme/amusement parks under other names, but it consists of a water-based ride and people get into a large 'carved-out log' which bobs along the watery route, under small water falls, through tunnels, etc, and eventually the 'log' gets hauled up a steep hill and released into the hands of gravity, zooming down the incline on the other side and into a pool of water at the end, producing great splashes of water. An amusing ride, to be sure.


posted by jeremy at 08:57 PM | On This Day: 2001

visitor chattering

Dear Sir,
After reviewing your proposal for a "Floom" transit system, I regret to inform you that there has already been such an idea submitted to the Metropolitan Transit System and indeed it is currently being used quite extensively by the Republican Party...

It is actually quite amazing how well you capture the emotions of a country being "Floomed" by the current administration. As we all ride the Floom of the Stock Market "your breath would catch in your chest and your heart would be pounding throughout your body, thumping madly in your ears"

This sir is sheer poetry of the relevatory kind.

Then, as we all ride the Floom of Evil Doer's ...
"Hanging in mid-air before the rushing downward, all things would stop for the briefest moment and you panic." soon to come to a screeching halt and directed, (against your will never mind the legality) to the nearest holding tank where you will be detaind ...indefinitely...

You should be the peot laureate of Hopkins

The only thing is...it gets 50 degrees BELOW zero here, wouldn't said water slide freeze? Does that screw up your utopian vision or does it just morph it to some alternate ice world luge sledding reality???

posted by: Jack on October 11, 2002 11:32 PM

Interesting idea...I'd been thinking a lot about mass transit myself, since I'll be working right in the middle of downtown in the new Block E.

My own idea was to simply get rid of roads above ground completely inside of cities. Large metro areas could be built around pedestrian and bike traffic while underground, a network of subterrainian roads and parking garages would accomodate traffic. A combination of people movers and skyways would help route people around the large downtown metro area. There would be no more waiting at crosswalks, no more ice-slicked roads, and no more problem finding a parking spot, (since almost every square block would have parking right below it.)

...but those are just my thoughts.

posted by: Lucifuge on October 12, 2002 4:03 AM

re: the 50 degrees below zero situation
one word: antifreeze! instead of having people surreptitiously flush their vehicular antifreeze into the drains leading to our lakes and rivers, they can dump it right into the floom system. Two problems solved!

posted by: jeremy w on October 12, 2002 9:27 AM

Anti Freeze???????
Anti Freeze is BAD for the environment...all that stuff sloshing around our streets...

I say we use single malt Scotch..that way we could kill 3 birds with one stoned ( ;-) )

1)Save the environment from glycol
2)Floom works in the winter and..
3)EVERYBODY is happy when they arrive at work...(though productivity may lag a bit, job satisfaction by way of happier commuting is a certainty)

posted by: jack on October 12, 2002 1:46 PM