31–40 of 800 posts
Don't fully get the benefit of moving cars on rails vs. moving cars on wheels... Higher fixed costs to power the rail vs. just letting cars auto-drive with internal propulsion. What am I missing?
I don't get it. Much of the USA is faced with crumbling infrastructure and a lack of money for maintaining that infrastructure. How is creating a network of powered tunnels - which are much more expensive to maintain than surface roads - going to interact with this economic reality? This seems like technology that addresses mostly fun, theoretical problems - like traffic optimization, not ugly, practical ones like ti…
I am not sure the poor state of existing infrastructure precludes someone from building their own new infrastructure. Public transportation outside of the US is often run by private companies, and they make plenty of money. Even in the US, passenger rail is typically run by the government or government-like bodies, while freight rail is just private companies. I don't think there's an intrinsic reason for that, it's…
If you're advocating for a private transportation network, then I'm theoretically OK with that as long as it's not subsidized directly or indirectly by the taxpayer. No special tax loopholes or favourable deals on digging rights please.
Autonomous ground travel optimization, hyperloops, and air travel all work together to make a seamless system that make this seem redundant.
There's already a project to do just this, called SkyTran. It never gets any attention.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's unclear why this centralized control car-train approach even needs to be underground. Seems like you could do something very similar above-ground. It's basically freeways but without human operation.
But getting rights of way are more complicated above ground. That's probably the one thing that's going to kill the Hyperloop and it already strangles passenger rail in the US.
That being said the cost is currently extremely high, the tunnel that is finished boring and still under construction is estimated to cost 4.2 billion for 2 miles dug over 3 years.
This is a marketing fluff video untouched by engineers