Let's Build Gonave, Haiti!

In many of the site's older blogs I talk about rail.  Most of the options are light rail vehicles.  The idea is to either connect the entire island by rail of some sort, and possibly start a leg connecting Anse-a-Galets to Pointe-a-Raquettes first.  Light rail is cheaper than heavy rail.  Think of the New York subway system as heavy rail.   Light rail is the type of rail that forms the backbone to Portland and Seattle's transit lines.  Then you have streetcars which are even lighter in weight than a light rail train.  These can look like San Francisco's iconic streetcar, or the modern streetcar that you see in Portland and Seattle. There is another option as well that is lighter than the streetcars and even cheaper.  A typical light rail vehicle can weigh 100,000 lbs, and cost as much as $6 million per vehicle.  A Utlra Light Rail Vehicle costs as much at $1 million or less, and weighs about 10,000 lbs.  Many tourist resorts and ...

While I mentioned in a previous blog it makes sense to build dense, given the island of Gonave's size, but to build using concrete is also important.  This is due to Gonave being in a hurricane zone as well as earthquakes. I want to break down how the first housing blocks will look, streets, utilities, retail, etc.  Today I will tackle streets. For now I will talk in generalities.  Let's take the buildings in the bottom right (2 white and grey buildings). The first construction could be easily done with two towers.  These buildings are about 35 stories tall.  There is a much smaller building in the middle of the two, which will usually contain retail, laundry facilities, small amount of office space, etc. So how do you start with these two buildings, that will eventually look like this large housing project, and connect it with roads?  Simply put, you don't.  The best thing for Gonave initially is to avoid massive road infrastructure, gas ...

Why rail? Building a light rail before roadways seems a bit backwards in most parts of the world.  The problem with roads are the large amount of vehicle pollution, road take up a large amount of space, and roads are expensive to maintain. Keep in mind, Gonave is a very tiny island.  Roads and highways should be built, but shouldn't be the initial first piece of land transportation.  Given that everything has to be imported, you would have to import fuel for all of the vehicles, and even import the vehicles themselves.  It all adds up to major expenses. If a light rail line was built, the initial costs would be pretty expensive, however the lines and rolling stock vehicles would last for a very long time.  Also wind turbines  could power the entire initial system.  Again the initial costs would be expensive.  A wind turbine cost $3-4 million for a 2 MW system.  A 2 MW system could power some 30,000 US homes.  A light rail train co...