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My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

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Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#161

Post by dexterdog »

kgermino wrote: post #83
dexterdog wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it wasn't free. Federal money for stuff like that usually has strings attached.

That actually was about as close to free as it gets. At least it was for the similar money (same program) that Wisconsin turned down. In Wisconsin’s case it was about $800MM with no local match needed and the catch was committing to running the service for 20 years. Even as someone who wasn’t a big fan of the project I’m still annoyed because we’ve now spent significantly more than 20 years of operating costs for wor…

What was the cost of running it for 20 years (both reported and then times 3 for realistic forecast)

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#162

Post by rayiner »

dredmorbius wrote: post #157
rayiner wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The biggest pitfalls of rail have been right-of-way acquisition in mature economic regimes (high induced land values, themselves a result in large part of improved transport, impede further transport development), transfers and mode-transitions (especially rail-to-local endpoint travel), and technological lock-in and stagnation. Rail is more expensive than roads in the US even where the right of way already exists.…

Which Silver Line are you referencing?

In DC.

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#163

Post by mikekchar »

hinkley wrote: post #87
p2t2p wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not two hours. The flight time from my home town to Moscow is 50 minutes. Whole trip is about 6 hours. Get to the airport, takes about 1 hour (drive 60k or 40 miles). If you don’t have a car - even longer. You arrive in advance, security, luggage check in then boarding, then runway. It’s been around 3 hours so far. Now you fly for 50 to 70 minutes and it doesn’t include the plane driving through airport after l…

From an article last year about new train prototypes in Tokyo: > Chris Jackson, the editor-in-chief of Railway Gazette International, based in London, said JR East wanted to raise their maximum train speed to 224 miles per hour to achieve a journey time between Tokyo to Sapporo that rivals flying. > Currently, the world’s fastest trains in regular service run between Beijing and Shanghai, in China, at speeds up to 21…

But you can only get to Hakodate... The shinkansen tracks to Sapporo aren't finished yet (unless I've missed something). It takes nearly as long to go from Hakodate to Sapporo as it does to go from Tokyo to Hakodate :-) I wonder if they are really serious about that...

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#164

Post by bryanlarsen »

colechristensen wrote: post #72
crooked-v wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$0.58 per mile is the standard IRS deduction for business use of a car, meant to fully encompass gas, maintenance, etc., which would suggest a total expected cost of about $348 if you include more than just gas.

It would but it isn't a great suggestion. If you're trying to optimize costs you can beat that by a huge factor. $0.58 per mile is about how much it costs to lease a car at $350/month and pay for gas, which is what you would do in an upper middle class job requiring lots of travel. So if you get a new, fairly nice car every three years and use it exclusively for Lyft, you won't make any money. If you want to make mor…

>So if you get a new, fairly nice car every three years and use it exclusively for Lyft, you won't make any money.

Doesn't Lyft require you to drive a fairly new, fairly nice car?

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#165

Post by OrangeMango »

tdhoot wrote: post #64
skinnymuch wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If making it on time to practice is really important, do you want to depend on a bus? Bus Being late to pick up or leave isn’t uncommon. I assume if something goes wrong along the way you should be able to get off with your stuff without too much trouble and order a ride. But if there’s a big traffic jam. And you might be able to save some time taking inside roads or what have you. A bus isn’t going to do that. You a…

I think he was talking about the author, not the football player. The football player was going to Buffalo so I assume the bus to Ohio wouldn't be helpful.

Yes, that is what I had meant. I should have been more clear.

I should also point out that if you have to fly through Chicago frequently, you must know that disruptions anywhere in the US can have a ripple effect and cause problems at O'Hare. The airplanes have to come from somewhere first in order to have an outbound flight...

Chicago is a huge Southwest hub, and Southwest flights almost never show up on travel sites. Additionally, the "nearby airports" rarely show Milwaukee or South Bend, both of which can be reached by train from downtown Chicago. The Amtrak Hiawatha stops at MKE (slightly over an hour from downtown), though it's a bit inconvenient to get to the terminals from the train platform. The South Shore railroad (about 2 hours from downtown) stops right at the South Bend terminal, and you are maybe 100 feet from the gates. Both airports have daily nonstops to all the big hubs in the eastern US, such as Newark and Atlanta. If you feel that you are "stuck" in Chicago, dig a little deeper: you probably aren't.

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#166

Post by jdeibele »

learnfromstory wrote: post #136
envy2 wrote: post #42

This is a fun story—but he should've just booked a round-trip rental car, and dropped it off in Dayton anyway. I've done this a bunch of times, and all they'll do is charge you the one-way rate and grumble a bit... Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Once I rented a car in Seattle one way to Vancouver. Apparently there is some shitburg nobody has ever heard of called Vancouver, WA but I was going to the more famous Canadian city. The flunkie at the counter booked the domestic trip and I drove to the proper Vancouver. When I got there they tried to charge me over $8000 in fees. I think there is no practical upper bound to what they'll try to charge you for such th…

Not to mention that the one in Washington is the "original", founded 60 years before the one in British Columbia.

I will concede that some people in Portland call it "Vantucky" because it's trended more conservative.

https://www.ahundredmonkeys.com/a-tale-of-two-vancouvers/

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#167

Post by logfromblammo »

jedberg wrote: post #48
logfromblammo wrote: post #21

An interesting solution, but I probably would have tried a Penske box truck first. I wouldn't entirely trust a U-Haul to make it the full 300 miles without some kind of a mechanical problem, even when the box is empty except for my suitcase and carry-on. Moving truck rentals are better set-up to do one-way trips than the airport car rentals. Also, you won't get the airport surcharge. Might be a little more expensive…

I see someone else has watched "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles".

Or "Home Alone".

Kenosha Kickers? Pol-ka, pol-ka...

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#168

Post by bobthepanda »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #149
dredmorbius wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rail passengers to Denver, CO, in 1869, numbered nil. Construction of the 100 mile Denver Pacific spur line to the transcontinental railroad route in Cheyenne not only increased that somewhat, but saw Denver's population grow from 4,700 th over 35,000 within ten years. Induced demand is a thing.

You can only induce as much travel demand as there are people to potentially travel. No amount of induced demand will let US travel infrastructure transport the number of people that Chinese travel infrastructure does.

As a less extreme example, Paris - Lyon was the first TGV line in 1980. In 1980 they were about the same size as Chicago and Cleveland today, except there’s a lot more built up between Chicago and Cleveland to serve.

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#169

Post by CaptainZapp »

mikekchar wrote: post #163
hinkley wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an article last year about new train prototypes in Tokyo: > Chris Jackson, the editor-in-chief of Railway Gazette International, based in London, said JR East wanted to raise their maximum train speed to 224 miles per hour to achieve a journey time between Tokyo to Sapporo that rivals flying. > Currently, the world’s fastest trains in regular service run between Beijing and Shanghai, in China, at speeds up to 21…

But you can only get to Hakodate... The shinkansen tracks to Sapporo aren't finished yet (unless I've missed something). It takes nearly as long to go from Hakodate to Sapporo as it does to go from Tokyo to Hakodate :-) I wonder if they are really serious about that...

No, you didn't (miss something that is).

When I was in Hokkaido the opening of the track was rumoured for about 2030. (usual disclaimer, you got it from a guy on the internet, etc)

Also, the trip through the Seikan tunnel (the 33.46 miles undersea tunnel connecting Honshu with Hokkaido) enforces relatively slow speeds, since it's shared with other, slower trains. They would probably have to implement significant extensions that it could be approached with Shinkansen speed.

That said, the train trip between Hakodate and Sapporo is a rather nice one. Aided by a Bento box and a couple of Asahis it's a pleasurable experience. Even if you don't have the over-the-top Shinkansen luxury and speed.

On the minus side I had to stay a night in Hakodate, because appart from the first two trains to Tokyo there was no seat available on any other train. No matter in which class, alas, that was the Sunday, which marked the end of golden week.

Hakodate, while certainly not what you expect of magic Japan, has its attractions in its own rights. Especially when you arrive during the end days of the cherry blossom and there's that really great sushi place, which was a lot cheaper than anything comparable in Tokyo.

I digress, most definitely, but - ahh - I really want to go back to Japan.

Re: My 300 Mile Lyft Ride From Chicago to Bradford

#170

Post by tempestn »

geofft wrote: post #128
tempestn wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually wouldn't count as theft! As I learned from another post on HN a few weeks back, it would be 'voluntary parting'.

According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18332918 (surprisingly, on the SERP for "voluntary parting"), that's an insurer's term, not a lawyer's—but the police might still refuse to take a police report anyway. (Though I do wonder if "Hi, I'm a photographer and I lent my camera on the internet" and "Hi, I'm with the loss department of a major national rental car company" get you different responses from the p…

Ha, yeah, you're probably right.
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