Reducing Traffic to Beirut

 Every person who drives at least once a week from North of Lebanon passing through Jounieh and to the Capital Beirut is tired from traffic. The above picture is an example of how messy things could get.
The traffic problem is getting worse and worse every year due to the increase of population and the Lebanese habit of one person per car. It is also getting worse due to the lack of quality in public transportation; Lack of bus stops and lack of proper bus lanes.

This article is a short simple suggestion for a bus lane that could reduce the traffic considerably. The solution is to make the right side of the highway a bus lane at least from Jounieh to Dbayeh and then continuing this bus lane from Dbayeh to Bourj Hamoud on the Searoad. People would park in Jounieh next to Fouad Chehab Stadium and take a bus to Bourj Hamoud.
.

Source: http://nationwideradiojm.com

 The line would be at least 15.5 km as shown in the picture below and the cost would be simply coloring the road to notify drivers. On the Searoad the same can be done but also separators can be added to force drivers to commit to the car lane and avoid the bus lane.

The buses can transport people to  Bourj Hamoud and stop at the Bourj Hamoud Dump BJD (used to be) which can be turned into a huge parking space for commuters and taxis. From BJD people would take taxi cars from a newly established BJD taxi station.

The cost of this idea would simply be a logistic cost to reorganize the road and inform the drivers. Additional cost would be adding check points for the police to ensure that drivers are committing to the system and avoiding the bus lane. A car on the bus lane would be fined.
Additional cost could be turning BJD into a large parking spot for busses , taxis and commuters. The BJD location is simply a suggestion, other large spaces are available near Bourj Hammoud and can be turned into parking areas. It is even possible to build a parking of several levels to accommodate thousands of cars. These cars are you usually on the road and contribute to the traffic.

So, if we have buses on a non stop lane, the buses would travel fast , transport more people . The buses would make more profit and more people would use the buses. So for buses it is a win !

There will be less cars on the road so less traffic. For cars it is a win !!

Taxis would transport more people inside Beirut from BJD taxi station. So for taxis it is a win !!

The government will have reduced traffic , thus more productivity and less wasted time . Citizens will make more profit from their jobs , because they will have more time to do their jobs. With more profits government will gain more money from taxes. For government it is a win !!

ForkedUp (Mini Articel 1)

This article will be one of many suggesting change to tools that have not changed much
.
I have asked through a post on Facebook.
"Do you know a tool designed and used by humans that has not changed for 20 years ? 50 years ? 100..."

 I have received several replies from friends and one of the simplest tools mentioned is the Fork.
Yes the fork has not evolved much for thousands of year and the reason is the same for it as for the spoon and knife , these tools are very simple and perform the task very easily. We never needed to improve the design of a fork. Still there are small things about the modern fork we can improve.

Introducing ForkedUp !

The fork has several teeth aligned that allow the user to pierce through the food, hold to it and carry to the mouth. When the meal is over we clean the fork either by hand or in a dish washer. However, there i a small problem with the fork compared to the spoon; not all surfaces are accessible, and if we are eating sticky  greasy food, the food will stick between the fork teeth and it is not very accessible to be cleaned.

ForkedUp is a suggestion for a small change. Shifting some of the fork teeth up from the others will make it easier to clean the fork better.

Taking Planet Earth to Other Galaxies

So let us build our future ship "The Earth" and take it to other Galaxies. This article drifts a bit far from today's science ,maybe a bit into science-fiction but most probably in Future science.

Our Planet Earth is surrounded with the proper atmosphere for us to survive, it is at the proper temperature for water to exist in liquid state and our dear planet has the gravity field we are designed to live in as biological animals. So it seems , to build our perfect ship to space , we need to mimic the environment of life on Earth. Why not make Earth itself, yes the Planet , our ship into space.

Source paper4pc.com

What keeps earth orbiting in place is the gravity of the Sun, so we will have to overcome that "Huge" attraction and push the earth out of orbit. To achieve this we need to built new MEGA structures , the first step of making earth a ship ,"Boosters" that can push the earth out of orbit. Any structure too large needs huge amount of energy to be built in the first place; so in order to obtain massive energy amounts , we need to master nuclear fusion energy, the energy that fuels the Sun. Today we are taking steps towards that goal and we expect to achieve successful continuous nuclear fusion much earlier than 2050.

Our biggest source of Energy in the Solar system is the Sun, so we will be using the suns energy harnessed by solar systems , thermal systems and micro suns we create from the Hydrogen around the earth to power the industry needed to manufacture the boosters. The boosters also need material to be made of and as we are exploring the potential uses of carbon material , we will be able to build super high strength structures from carbon nano-tubes , Graphene , Graphite , Diamond and carbon fiber. Other planets in the solar system have carbohydrates , so the surrounding planets could also be the source for carbon and Hydrogen to build the "Earth Booster".

If we take the Earth far from the Sun , the planet will be deprived from the main energy source . So we need to create a Mega shell around the planet. This shell will include several mini Suns ( Fusion Reactors) that emit radiation on the surface of the earth from outside the atmosphere , so Ozone can still absorb any harmful radiation and earth's magnetic field still shields the planet surface from cosmic rays and other floating energy in space. So we replace the Sun by small suns we create and take with us wherever we go.

Now that we can move the Earth out of Orbit and we can replace the sun energy by micro suns, How do we find our way in Space and how do we protect the Planet through the journey ?

We will need scouting ships to gather info ahead on the 'road" , we will need a swarm of battle ships to protect the planet from meteorites or any form of space debris. The planet will also be surrounded with transport ships which float in surrounding space , gather resources and return to the "Earth Ship" cluster. So the system does not only feed on the planet resources , it feeds on all resources in surrounding space.

An artist’s concept of a Dyson sphere. Image via energyphysics.wikispaces.com

By achieving this design, our journey in space could be infinite and reaching other galaxies even if it is millennia away, is achievable. Maybe our first experiment on this approach will start when we have space technology developed enough and at the scale needed. Planet Earth will not probably become a ship before we turn Pluto into one , or maybe Mars.

Once we succeed in turning Earth into the Mother-ship and the journey starts , we could be able to enlarge the fleet , add another planet to it. We will need to decide if the Moon is necessary to take it with us , so that we maintain the tides and all other influences of its gravity. It is important to note that the shell around the Earth does not rotate with the earth but maintains the rotation of the earth by gravitational influence.

 So here is what the fleet is made of in brief :

• Planet Earth + Energy and Shielding hell 

• Resource collector ships

• Scout Ships

• Protection Battle Ships

One Last thing could be added to the system. The mega fabrication , a modular ship which builds any part needed for the fleet at any scale. Maybe the Mega Fabricator will have its own article on this blog

Reaper by Francisco Iglesias Perianez

So this is when we become a civilization type II and we can harness the entire energy of the sun and other stars. We can also harness all the resources of the solar system. Today we are Type 0 civilization , which mines some of the resources on the Earth surface and uses mainly fossil fuel for energy.

Picture Source thequotepedia.com