Reconnecting Roots

At TowHaul, we value the creativity and hard work that built this country and improves our lives, by supporting education towards careers in manufacturing and the trades. TowHaul proud sponsor of Reconnecting Roots and public television. Support for Reconnecting Roots and public television is provided by Taylor Stitch, Taylor Stitch is responsibly built for the long haul and is proud to partner with brands that inspire hope for a more sustainable future. Muletown Coffee Roasters is honored to be a part of Reconnecting Roots and it's hope to inspire the future through lessons of the past. Muletown Coffee Roasters is all about slowing things down digging into community and encouraging good for goodness sake. Music Ranch Montana sharing a common passion for music and community in beautiful paradise valley. Music Ranch Montana's mission to support musicians and provide a place to enjoy it together is reflected in Reconnecting Roots. Roam if you want to Roam around the... Whether it's a road trip or just a quick hop across the pond we have a lot of options for travel. Just about anybody can actually afford to the buy an airline ticket from point A to point B. There's an artificial intelligence to send you to the right capsule at the right moment. Today we hit the road to see how people get around so well on Reconnecting Routes. Roam if you want to opening music I'm Gabe McCauley Join me as we explore the values of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow. beautiful for spacious skies, amber waves of grain, purple mountain majesties on the fruited plains. We're home. Hooooome, Hooooome. Framing the future through the past. This is Reconnecting Roots. Home I get around. Get around round round I get around. From town to town America in the late 1960's was a nation that loved riding, driving, sailing and soaring. and nearly everyone was able to obtain some method of personal transportation. People could go where they want whenever they wanted. we have a Lift off on Apollo 11. Three brave souls risked their lives, squeezed inside of a tiny capsule hoping this contraption of fire and steel would hold together. Tranquility base here. The eagle has landed. Apollo 11 launched America into the stratosphere and beyond to explore this last frontier firsthand or first foot. that's one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind. What Americans and people across the world were seeing was hard to believe. The stuff of fiction, not science. Of dreams, not reality. Having explored every continent and all of the seven seas, mankind could now navigate among the stars. By 1973 NASA had spent 25 billion on the Apollo program. And back then the cost to make a single trip to the moon was two and three quarter million per flight. That's roughly the amount Americans spend on travel every day, here on planet earth. Even when we're just sitting around, we're still a people on the move. Perhaps it's that old frontier spirit that wants to see and explore. Perhaps it's just survival. There's something that has led us to this moment. How did it become so simple for us to go places? Well, I pulled out of Pittsburgh rolling down that eastern seaboard Half caff, dirty chi. Hold- Not too dirty. It's impossible to deny the deeply rooted car culture here in America. There you go. Thank you ... Six days on the road and we rely on our cars more than any other modes of transportation. So we try and take care of them. When you have a sweet ride, (engine revs up) try and pamper it a little. ...take little white pills and my eyes are open wide Of course, there are all the places that our vehicles can get us to. Think about all the places where we never have to get out. We are a bit spoiled being behind the wheel and staying there. In California, the hot seat of American car culture some new developments to mass transit, could help our over dependency on cars, with a twist and some familiar drive through technology. upbeat music Tube travel. Once a dream of Jetsonian proportions is becoming a reality at high speed. This full size passenger capsule is the product of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, who plan to send these capsules through tubes linking cities around the world. And here in this So-cal hangar once owned by streamlined aviator Howard Hughes, I got to experience their vision of transportation. From at first glance, they're looking at it saying 'Oh well, it's a train inside of a tube. Or it's, you know, a version of the subway above ground and you know. What are the misconceptions. Imagine to take a capsule like this. You take out the air from the tube, so there's no resistance. Now you can move the capsule from point A. to point B. at almost the speed of sound using a tiny fraction of the energy. To demonstrate the effects of air resistance in a tube, Bibop dropped a chunk of metal down inside. The magnet accelerates at the beginning due to the gravity force and then all of a sudden starts to slow down and stabilize in the center as you're seeing. Oh wow! (laughs) It's an empirical way to actually demonstrate the concept. I got to try that. Yeah please. That's cool. That's pretty cool. Pressurizing the tubes to remove the air eliminates friction and sets up a novel locomotion system. This is a medium that's not particularly connected. If you study it doesn't exert a lot of magnetism. But as soon as you move it there is, the drag force creates a current that reacts and generates a drag. So the faster this goes, the more electric you get. At a certain speed it allows you to generate a very powerful magnetic field on the bottom that allow you to levitate the capsule without using electricity. This is called passive levitation. That means that you only need some energy to push to the beginning and then it flies like in space. Getting stuck in a terminal may be a non-starter for some but the Hyperloop station's plans, lifted an idea from another people mover. So it's like a giant elevator when you go to the mother elevator right now. You put a number, you don't push the button anymore. There's an artificial intelligence that sends you not the closest elevator, but the most efficient, the one that will serve more people in the shortest amount of time. Imagine a light with it or it's a hunter elevator that will send you the right capsule at the right moment that will feed your need. With full scale equipment in testing, the Hyperloop should be arriving soon, making our world a little bit smaller and our neighborhoods a little more global. And I love to travel through time and space. But in the future, travel is instant, thanks to tele-portation. So I'm going back to the past, to experience the golden age of.. the golden age of travel on earth My name is Gabe Mc... Gabe McCauley. and this is Reconnecting Roots. The first roads weren't made by humans. They were shaped by large animals, such as buffalo and elk. Native Americans followed these paths since their survival depended upon these animals. And their foot paths were the foundation for our roads. (buzz) Some of these roads were built into roads made of lumber or stone pavers by the colonists. Like the Boston Post Road, which King Charles the Second integrated into the Kings Highway going from Massachusetts to Charleston, South Carolina and the Great Wagon Road, which ran 700 miles from Pennsylvania to Georgia. The national road led west and the wilderness road carved out by the legendary Daniel Boone, allowed passage through the Appalachians. (wood being chopped) My scanners indicate these routes were made for transporting goods and migration, not for leisure, never harsh but vital for developing the frontier. Check out this ancient tech. These boats are powered by exploding water. Steam engines the to work out of traveling upstream. You could travel on a steamboat in half the time you would spend in a wagon. Port cities saw an explosion of growth, which is New Orleans and Cincinnati. Water transport was superior at this time. And man made canals increased trade routes beyond the existing rivers. (horn tooting) Like the Eerie Canal in New York. It ran across almost the entire state of New York, connecting the Hudson River to the Great Lakes. Farmers and merchants had a new gateway to sell their goods. (zapping) The state's economy boomed and New York City became the biggest port city in the nation. (zapping) Steam tech was tracking progress in other ways too. As locomotives came gliding on streams of steel, rail companies made in-roads where there weren't any kind of water ways, hauling freight across the continent. By the end of the 1800's a complete network of transportation connected every state to both oceans, providing a framework for fast commerce and easy travel. Over the centuries, the routes, we traveled across changed, along with the vehicles we used. My personal favorite, the almighty board of skate. (rock guitar chord) Listen, I've traveled every road in this here land" I've been everywhere, man I've been everywhere, man Crossed the desert's bare, man I've breathed the mountain air, man Of travel I've had my share, man I've been everywhere. I've been to Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, Ombabika Schefferville, Jacksonville, Waterville, Costa Rica Pittsfield, Springfield, Bakersfield, Shreveport Hackensack, Cadillac, Fond du Lac, Davenport Idaho, Jellico, Argentina, Diamantina Pasadena, Catalina, see what I mean I've been everywhere, man I've been everywhere, man Crossed the desert's bare, man I've breathed the mountain air, man. Of travel I've had my share, man I've been everywhere I've been to Pittsburgh, Parkersburg, Gravelbourg, Colorado Ellensburg, Rexburg, Vicksburg, El Dorado Larimore, Admore, Haverstraw, Chatanika Chaska, Nebraska, Alaska, Opelaka Baraboo, Waterloo, Kalamazoo, Kansas City Sioux City, Cedar City, Dodge City, what a pity I've been everywhere, man I've been everywhere, man Crossed the desert's bare, man I've breathed the mountain air, man Of travel, I've had my share man I've been everywhere. I've been everywhere (music transition) From carts to cars, transportation has become both easier and more accessible. Increases mobility has also increased economic mobility. All the options available for getting from point A. to point B. open up a larger world of opportunities for work and commerce. The public transit might be what gives people a lift out of poverty. A recent study showed that cities with the best public transportation options also provided the best chances for moving up economically and socially. As a result, Americans have cut the amount of time spent working and increased their leisure time by nearly the same amount in the last 50 years. The cumulative effect spared the average household about thirteen hundred dollars in yearly taxes due to the revenue generated by travel and transportation. The mobility provided by a wide ranging infrastructure has also made an impact on our culture. In 1913, the man behind the Indianapolis 500, Carl Fisher, put together a plan for the first Continental highway. The Lincoln Highway connected New York City to San Francisco and would inspire today's interstate system. Then the road trip became a thing and people were hitting the highways just to see the sights and some roadside attractions were made especially for the traveling tourists, like the world's largest ball of twine and a place where you can sleep in a teepee. Travel for leisure became the norm for the average American family whether it's camping at Yellowstone or a trip to your favorite amusement park like Wally World. Families can create memories together by traveling the world without breaking the bank. If you want to fly halfway across the world just to get a few cool pictures to post on Instagram, do it. Want to travel across country on a bus full of strangers? Well, you can do that too. We're gliding along the by- What is happening? It's a wonderful happy feeling Why are you all singing? on my way... (car horns blowing) Well, I guess we're going to be here a while. So, we might as well talk about the drawbacks of our wonderful transportation system. (laughs) Don't get me wrong It's great that such a high percentage of Americans have their own personal transportation. Really it is, (car horns blowing) unless it's rush hour. The average commute time in America has been driven up to 25 and a half minutes one way. That means the average commuter is spending nearly an hour in the car every day. And traffic is also costing us more than time and patience. A 2014 study claims that traffic congestion took a toll on the economy to the tune of a 124 billion. Talk about highway robbery. Call me now. Part of that number includes an estimated 300 million dollars in wasted fuel, which leads us to another drawback, our over reliance on fossil fuels, especially from foreign sources. Supply and demand means that more vehicles on the road creates demand for more fuel, while reducing our limited supplies. Leading to price increases in both fuel and vehicles, not to mention an increase in smog and air pollution. Road rage is also a byproduct of too many idiot drivers on the road. (beeping horn) Move it people. Let's go. (jazz sound) When the HOV and DOT waste your MPG on the highway of love, you gotta... (man honks car horn) C'mon buddy. (laughs) Just as moss won't gather on a rolling stone, with a highly mobile society, we're seeing fewer people lay down deep roots. Census data shows the average American changes their address eleven times. In the process our communities can be neglected. Rural areas feel the impact of out migration the most. As the best and brightest young people leave the local talent pool, with the world at our doorstep, are we losing touch with what's in our own backyards? The local color, the neighborhood identity? air travel is both a that home to me (music transition) Air travel is both a major convenience and a major headache. Since the deregulation of the aviation industry, the amount of affordable destinations has expanded wildly, while the rest of the flying experience, keeps shrinking. Airlines are currently driving an over economized, Mctravel culture, robbed of the glitz and glamour that made the journey as important as the destination. Ladies and gentleman Passengers traveling on Continental Airlines Gold Jet Service to Honolulu with continued service to Sydney, Australia should proceed to gates for immediate boarding. Getting ready to experience Pan Am. Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away In Los Angeles, people are rediscovering the high of the jet set traveling in first class. It's the Pan Am experience, recreating the excitement stirred by the now defunct airline. It's like the best experience that anyone can have. We would know. We chose it for the most important day of our life. The first time we flew was for his birthday. The second time we flew, we got married on the airplane in front of everybody as a surprise experience for everyone onboard. You'll be sitting in our clipboard plus cabin And that's good right? It sure is. Great! It's just the grooviest class of all classes. (big band music) It's an interactive museum in a Hollywood back lot, complete with pre flight instructions, magazine service and even a smoke with the captain. And don't' worry they're not real smokes. But everything else is authentic from the stewardess uniforms to the first class service they provide, recreating what was once the most elevated dining experience. The best plain food I've ever had. (big horn song ending) How far has someone actually traveled to experience this fake version of travel? We had a family of four come from Delhi, India. And I remember the night because the very first drink they ordered on the airplane was coffee. Cause I think that literally come in the day before. Anthony Toth is an Aviation Collector who was enchanted by Pan Am's legendary mystique as a child. And people are now paying him to experience this by gone era of luxury. And people that come to this experience they dress up as well? Yeah we encourage everyone to kind of dress period specific to the 70's, mostly because it makes the pictures look really cool. And that was a time where people often did dress up to travel and that stark contrast to today where you roll out of bed you're in your pj's or yoga pants or whatever you get on a plane. It was considered somewhat elitist to get on board an airplane. And you wore your best clothes. I mean today you know it's not flying isn't just for the wealthy. Just about anybody can actually afford to buy an airline ticket from point A. to point B. - Which is an awesome thing. It is affordability is absolutely something that's fantastic about the air transportation system today. But back then, flying was really special. But for the most part, travel was more about the destination and how quickly and efficiently you can get there. Yeah! These days it's so commonplace that sort of lost some of the appreciation. It is and if I look at the younger generations when they come on board this airplane you can't even imagine that you'd walk on an airplane and it would look like this today what you consider airline interiors today. The passengers that sat here had the exclusive use of this space and the upper deck. Think about the real estate in terms of an airplane today, how fantastic flying back then was. (soothing music) Over the past few decades innovation in computer technology went into maximum overdrive. The phones we carry in our pockets now have the power to summon a ride whenever you need, with just a few screen taps. In select cities you can hop into a driverless cab, thanks to Waymo and Uber. We even have programs where you can rent someone else's car, bike or electric scooter. (electronic beep) You don't have to own a personal vehicle in order to use one. Which explains why millennials own fewer cars than prior generations. Well that and crushing amount of student loan debt they have. All of these innovations take away roadblocks we faced in the past. For my great grandparents and their parents, the question for them was usually where can you go? Now the question is, where do you want to go? I'm a poor wayfaring stranger Lost and here below There's no sickness, no toil, nor danger In that bright land above. I'm going in to see my daughter, going in to mortal road I'm only going over Jordan. I only going back home. I'm going in to see my daughter, going in to mortal road. I'm only going over Jordan. I only going back home. I've seen the shadow gather round me Though the pathway's rough and steep In golden fields she'll say she found me. My weary eyes no more shall weap. (closing music) Reconnect with us at reconnectingroots.tv. where you can check out blogs extra videos, behind the scenes, a podcast and the album from season two. And don't forget. Follow us here. Support for Reconnecting Roots an public television is provided by Taylor Stitch, Taylor Stitch is responsibly built for the long haul and is proud to partner with brands that inspire hope for a more sustainable future. Muletown Coffee Roasters is honored to be a part of Reconnecting Roots and it's hope to inspire the future through lessons of the past. Muletown Coffee Roasters is all about slowing things down digging into community and encouraging good for goodness sake. Music Ranch Montana sharing a common passion for music and community in beautiful paradise valley. Music Ranch Montana's mission to support musicians and provide a place to enjoy it together is reflected in Reconnecting Roots. At TowHaul, we value the creativity and hard work that built this country and improves our lives, by supporting education towards careers in manufacturing and the trades. TowHaul proud sponsor of Reconnecting Roots and public television.