… por lo que se necesitará visión para darse cuenta del increíble potencial de los eVTOL’s, los taxis voladores y los drones para revolucionar la movilidad aérea urbana
(by Bill Stremmel) Access to Playa La Barqueta on the Pacific Coast of Chiriqui Province in the Republic of Panama is not great. The road through Guarumal and other hamlets is paved. But it is narrow and rather crooked, with many driveways and intersections. The trip from the airport or central David can take between 20 minutes to a half-hour, depending on whether the motorist is held up behind slow-moving agricultural machinery. Frustration is certain to mount as more of the beachfront properties are developed and more people from the rapidly growing provincial capital venture out for vacations, holidays, and weekend parties.
In a country with ample rural land the solution would be straightforward: Widen and straighten the road. But Panama is a country where land is a precious resource. The isthmus is less than 100 miles wide in most places, it is bisected by a rugged spine of volcanoes and mountainous highlands, and thanks to dense tropical jungles is one of only three countries on earth that remains a net carbon sink despite a thriving economy. The lowlands are a rich agricultural resource so subtracting even a few square meters performing photosynthesis and carbon sequestration has a severe ecological cost. It would also take a direct human toll as there is much casual life taking place at roadside establishments and introducing more vehicles traveling at a higher speed would place life and limb at risk.
¿Qué hacer? Los avances en las aeronaves eléctricas de despegue y aterrizaje vertical (eVTOL) de corto alcance pueden desvincular el transporte de la infraestructura de superficie. Los medios de transporte aéreos brindan un servicio directo al destino que puede rivalizar con la conveniencia de dejar en la puerta de entrada una vez que los techos están equipados con plataformas de aterrizaje.
See these articles from 2022 issues of The Economist and Financial Times:
Taxis aéreos: ¿vuelo de fantasía o realmente listo para despegar?
Los autos voladores se han acercado más a la realidad a medida que miles de millones se vierten en la "movilidad aérea urbana"
JANUARY 31, 2022 .…… and also this article in Bloomberg:
No, en serio, los taxis voladores se están acercando al despegue
por Christopher Jasper
Se han invertido miles de millones de dólares en empresas que trabajan para cambiar los "eVTOL" de un truco a un modo de transporte estándar.
And the June 7, 2022 edition of SMART CITIES DIVE summarizd a report by Deloitte with a scenario of EVTOL’s performing an integral role in ride-hailing and ride-sharing service within and between cities by the 2030’s.
EVTOL aircraft could become common in cities in the 2030s: Deloitte | Smart Cities Dive
Una historia anterior en Bloomberg de diciembre de 2020 describió una iniciativa tomada por la ciudad de Los Ángeles que promueve los vehículos aéreos urbanos (UAV) como parte de una estrategia general conocida como "Movilidad aérea urbana" (UAM):
Para citar a la directora de LADOT, Seleta Reynolds:
“"Mientras pensamos en el espacio público sobre el terreno, esas calles y esas aceras, ahora es el momento de que pensemos en tres o cuatro dimensiones y consideremos el espacio público sobre nuestras cabezas... ¿Cómo va a permitir este cambio que las ciudades resuelvan algunos de estos desafíos con los que nos enfrentamos en el terreno, y cómo podemos asegurarnos de no repetir algunos de los mismos errores que cometieron nuestros antepasados y antepasados cuando diseñaron el sistema de transporte terrestre"..”
The key word is ‘dimensions’. Opening up the skies means that cities are freed of all of the right-of-way limitations, existing utilities which cannot be disrupted, unavoidable impacts, knee-jerk NIMBY opposition, and other impediments which have increasingly stymied transportation improvements. Aerial tramways and gondolas and ski lift-type systems were actually a huge step in this direction because the pylon supporting the cable is the only disturbance that needs to be in the ground, but dispensing with that allows planners and property developers to now focus on landing pads for the plethora of flying machines on the horizon.
