TECHNICIAN
monday september
15 2014
Raleigh, North Carolina
technicianonline.com
Professors propose futuristic rail system Harrison Allen Correspondent
Ever wonder what riding down Hillsborough Street in a light rail car similar to what George Jetson rode to work in would be like? Well, in the future this may be a reality. Marshall Brain and Seth Hollar of the NC State engineering department have developed construction plans for an elevated rail system called EcoPRT, some of which would go through NC State’s campus. Interestingly enough, the idea of a rail system going through NC State is not a novel one. “NC State has a corridor from the Hunt Library to the Hill Library that’s been on the master plan for 20 years and is labeled as a ‘monorail system,’” Brain said. However, EcoPRT is not going to be a standard monorail system. Rather, EcoPRT is a high-efficiency “entrepreneurial transit system” that Brain said will be relatively simple to install with little ground-level construction that would impact NC State’s campus. Brain described construction as
“Putting holes in the ground every 50 or 100 feet to put the equivalent of a phone pole in, and then the track just gets hung on those poles with a crane.” Brain and Hollar have also spoken with shopping developments such as Cameron Village and the city of Cary about extending EcoPRT. “If we put a system into NC State, maybe Cameron Village wants access to 30,000 students, so they can build a spur [of EcoPRT],” Hollar said. As far as construction costs are concerned, EcoPRT will be relatively inexpensive, according to Brain. “We are trying to create track that costs $1 million per mile and bring vehicle cost down to around $10,000,” Brain said. According to Brain, this is an extremely low cost considering that track for typical subway or light rail systems cost anywhere from $70 million to more than $100 million. Funding for EcoPRT will depend on who is building the track and where it goes. NC State would probably use its traditional payment scheme, such as student fees, to
CONCEPT IMAGE COURTESY OF SETH HOLLAR
NC State professors Marshall Brain and Seth Hollar have created a plan for a new futuristic transit system that would connect main and Centennial campuses. The plan calls for a low-cost, high efficiency monorail system similar to that from the famous cartoon The Jetsons.
cover the cost, according to Hollar. However, other branches of EcoPRT may be funded differently. If Cameron Village were to build a spur of EcoPRT, it would get paid
through fares, profits or revenue generated instead, Hollar said. If other developments charged a fare for riding the EcoPRT, it would still be relatively inexpensive.
“We would like to charge a fare on the order of 50 cents per mile,” Brain said.
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Research questions necessity of homecooked meals Talia Rodriguez Correspondent
GAVIN STONE /TECHNICIAN
Dave Matthews speaks at Farm Aid 2014. Farm Aid was an all day concert that took place in Walnut Creek Amphitheater and aimed to support small-scale farms.
Farm Aid draws support for small-scale farms Gavin Stone Correspondent
Farm Aid 2014 sounded the horn for farmers, hippies and self-aware citizens to come together in support of family farming. at Walnut Creek Amphitheater Saturday. Willie Nelson led the 29th annual Farm Aid. He started it in 1985 to raise money and awareness for struggling family farmers being squashed out of food markets by large, industrial farming companies. The event allowed the visitors who have never experienced the business side of farming first-hand to learn about the industry and its core values, while they listened to 12 hours of speakers and musicians advocate for a fair market for food growers. The event kicked off with a press conference with the Board of Direc-
tors, consisting of Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young, Dave Matthews, and representatives from Vollmer Farms and Operation Spring Plant, an organization that promotes the distribution of organic food to black communities and raises awareness about the plight of black farmers. During the conference, Dave Matthews criticized the corporate model of farming. “[The corporate model] doesn’t care about our country, it doesn’t care about our people, it doesn’t care about our children,” Matthews said. “It has no children. It only cares about money…money right now.” Matthews said the goal should be “cutting out the giant middle man that is crushing everybody” in order to make room for what he called the “future of farming,” which is the Farmer’s Market model. In order to compete with big busi-
nesses without being forced to join them, farmers have to get as close as they can with their consumers with the help of community Farmer’s Markets and other means or risk financial ruin and starvation. NC State’s Poultry Science Department is funded by Prestage Farms, a major growing company that reaches from the Midwest down through the Southeast that, by its own admission on its website, “…delivers genetically superior animals to our grower families along with feed that has been formulated for the animals’ specific needs.” Roland McReynolds, executive director of Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, a nonprofit with a governing board elected by small-scale farmers, said the primary means companies use to cor-
A new study conducted by NC State sociology professors found that although family bonding over a home-cooked meal is idealized in cultures around the world, madefrom-scratch cooking is not practical for many families. Associate Professors of Sociology Sinikka Elliott and Sarah Bowen have been working on this research, which was partially funded by the USDA, for the past five years. “We’ve been hearing a lot about this ideal of a home-cooked meal,” Elliott said. “It’s often presented as ideal, so if you care about your
family’s health, you should be doing this. We found that trying to achieve this ideal took a lot of time—which families don’t have a lot of these days—and took resources which families are feeling pretty crimped on right now.” Elliott said the researchers interviewed middle-, working- and lower-class families about the struggle to provide both meals and family time for their children. “So, we have working-class, poor, and middle-class families in the study, and all of them talked about lack of money to purchase the produce they prefer, or to cook the way they prefer, and so for working-class
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BY ELIZABETH DAVIS
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PARKcon 2014 took place this weekend in downtown Raleigh. Participants showed off their creativity by participating in various events and decorating squares of pavement.