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Why an eight-hour bus ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco might beat a flight

economist.com

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Re: Why an eight-hour bus ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco might beat a flight

#101

Post by et-al »

matthewowen wrote: post #89
et-al wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in this case we're talking about SF/LA, which is only an hour-long flight. I do this flight every other month or so and it's a breeze. You leave work a bit early on Friday, get to the airport in about an hour, board the plane, they serve you a drink, and the captain tells you to fasten your seatbelt because we're descending. It's 1 hour to the airport, 45 minutes through security, 1 hour in the air, and anothe…

Imagine that you aren't staying at a friend's house, but rather at a hotel or AirBnB. Avoiding paying for one extra night instantly saves you money. And if you don't expect to do much the night you arrive anyway, there's no real cost (plus you don't have to leave work early, which may be advantageous).

I think in that case, I'd rather take an early morning flight like sologoub mentioned.

And like dopeboy pointed out, if this was $100 RT, it would appeal to price sensitive people. And regardless of how comfortable they make it, for many of us in the States, it's still an 8-hour bus ride.

Re: Why an eight-hour bus ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco might beat a flight

#102

Post by Brakenshire »

knappe wrote: post #71
Brakenshire wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buses like this should be fitted with accelerometers, and drivers be rewarded for good driving. Actually the same applies to ordinary buses, a careful driver makes the journey much more comfortable.

While I agree with the sentiment, it does nothing to account for all the other drivers on the road. I don't really see how this is fair to the bus driver.

That's true, but a lot can be avoided with conservative driving. Anticipating what other drivers might do is major part of the skill. Also, stopping suddenly can be a serious health risk if you're expecting the elderly to use the buses.

But I do take the point, I'm not a big fan of the overbearing tracking that you read about, for instance, in the Amazon warehouses. Especially when you're asking for skilled performance but paying unskilled wages.

Perhaps it could just be asking a percentage of drivers to take extra training, but I do think it should happen to some degree.

Re: Why an eight-hour bus ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco might beat a flight

#104

Post by Retric »

vosper wrote: post #93
melling wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50 years ago in Japan they invented fast trains to cover such distances. We didn’t adopt them in California because Americans prefer cars. Fast forward 40 years and it’s not so easy to get the right of way to build straight track. Now 10 years in we’re hoping to invent an even faster method of transportation so we can take a longer route.

Not to get into this again, but California also only has 1/3 of Japan's population density, there's very little between the obvious Bay Area and LA endpoints, and there's no viable route up the coast so you have to go inland, which means putting rail through quite a lot of mountains. There's also no realistic world where you get from SF to LA on rail in close to the time it takes to fly (SF to Burbank is only an hour…

HSR works best when the population centers are separated by low population areas because you don't want to stop every 20 miles. So yes California is 163,696 mi² but ignore the paces with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California#/media/File:Califor...

EX: Modoc County only has freaking 8k people and it's 4,000 square miles.

Re: Why an eight-hour bus ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco might beat a flight

#105

Post by Nrsolis »

hmahncke wrote: post #81
mgkimsal wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any other taxi service trying to pick up fares from IAD are violating the contract between the Metro Washington Airport Authority and Dulles Taxi. Why would I care if I've violated a contract between two other parties?

Dulles airport police will not let other taxis pick up passengers at Dulles.

YUP.

REMEMBER: A taxi medallion is a component of a government-enforced monopoly on regional transportation for hire.

One of the great achievements of Uber is highlighting the gap between what's possible when a company is able to compete freely in the marketplace that's been effectively ruined by government.

Before Uber, the taxi companies had ZERO incentive to improve their product. You had no choice when choosing a cab company. Now you do.

Re: Why an eight-hour bus ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco might beat a flight

#106

Post by ghaff »

johan_larson wrote: post #103

If the problem with air travel on that distance isn't the flight itself but the futzing around getting to and from the airport at each end, maybe that is the problem that needs solving.

Well, part of it is security. Which, whatever the specific faults of TSA, isn't about to go away for air travel. Fortunately, in the US, trains are still largely exempt.

The other issue is that airports tend to be just big and sprawling locations well outside of city cores. So you have to build in lots of buffer for things like parking. Or, if they're near cities, parking's expensive and often scarce.

Finally (which COULD be dealt with to some degree) load factors and cancellation policies are such that you really don't want to miss most flights in a way that isn't typically as big a problem with trains.

Re: Why an eight-hour bus ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco might beat a flight

#107

Post by johan_larson »

valuearb wrote: post #48

There is going to be a lot of sex in those pods. I'm not sure I want to be next in one after.

Maybe sell that as a feature?

"All aboard the All-Night Express! It's not exactly sleeper service, you know? "

Re: Why an eight-hour bus ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco might beat a flight

#108

Post by brockwhittaker »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #3

This is like the night train I used to take from Oslo to Trondheim. It's about 660 km and takes less than an hour by air. But I live a taxi and train ride from the airport and my final destination is a two hour drive north of Trondheim. To get there before lunch I would have to get up before five in the morning and I would arrive tired or I could leave home at 21:00 the night before catch the night train at 23:30 and…

Not to mention the trains are incredibly smooth. Took the train from Trondheim to Bodø, woke up a few hours in and didn’t know we were moving until I took a snapchat of my face in the dark train and saw a speed of over 200km/h.

Re: Why an eight-hour bus ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco might beat a flight

#109

Post by burntrelish1273 »

cstoltenberg wrote: post #32

It would be appropriate to compare this service to the under-construction California High-Speed Rail. A more real comparison than the hyperloop.

California High-Speed Rail is better known as Obsolete, Slow-Speed Rail, Pork-Barrel-Wealth Transfer Edition. Even Homer Simpson could build a safer, cheaper and more usable transport line than the unfortunate, wasteful abomination that is CHSR.

Re: Why an eight-hour bus ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco might beat a flight

#110

Post by MiddleEndian »

Retric wrote: post #52
valuearb wrote: post #48

There is going to be a lot of sex in those pods. I'm not sure I want to be next in one after.

The Same is true of hotel beds and that's generally not a problem.

It's kind of a problem, we just ignore it. I like staying at hotels but if I try not to think too much about the state of the comforter.
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