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Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

southseattleemerald.com

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Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#301

Post by jaggederest »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #280
cyberax wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should buses EVER be a part of any solution? They are terrible, and always will be. It's simple math: buses have to either have long intervals, or be horribly wasteful (and thus too expensive). At the moment, the most realistic solution is to just wait 10 years for the self-driving cars to mature and then build infrastructure around them.

It'd be a shame if makers of self-driving cars stuck to actual cars and single trips. Something in between that and buses might be very efficient and practical, especially for things like work commutes, visits to the supermarket and the like. Having say 6 or 8 seats and picking up multiple parties who are heading in the same direction or going to roughly the same destination. It would likely be quicker than waiting f…

That just sounds like busses with extra steps :)

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#302

Post by afavour »

peyton wrote: post #299
kdmccormick wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demanding that a passenger railway be self-funding while also trying to massively increase its scope is... not a path for success. Unless I'm wrong you know of any continent-scale railways that bootstrapped themselves into success recently...?

A possible strategy is to use money from ticket sales to pay for priority, boosting on-time performance which increases the competitiveness of their product.

Do you really think no one has thought of this?

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#303

Post by 23B1 »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #292
23B1 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem really upset – tell you what, take a breather, step back and think about the larger point I'm trying to make here.

Do you have a source yet? Or are you just going to ad hominem and move the goal posts again with “the larger point”? > Let me ask you a different question, since you brought up air travel; what sort of ticket/buyer do you think accounts for the bulk of domestic airlines' revenues? You implied commuters are the major source of revenue for flights. I have asked you for a source four times now for this claim. You have c…

Sorry I upset you

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#304

Post by [deleted] »

23B1 wrote: post #303
mynameisvlad wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source yet? Or are you just going to ad hominem and move the goal posts again with “the larger point”? > Let me ask you a different question, since you brought up air travel; what sort of ticket/buyer do you think accounts for the bulk of domestic airlines' revenues? You implied commuters are the major source of revenue for flights. I have asked you for a source four times now for this claim. You have c…

Sorry I upset you

[deleted]

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#305

Post by mynameisvlad »

23B1 wrote: post #303
mynameisvlad wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source yet? Or are you just going to ad hominem and move the goal posts again with “the larger point”? > Let me ask you a different question, since you brought up air travel; what sort of ticket/buyer do you think accounts for the bulk of domestic airlines' revenues? You implied commuters are the major source of revenue for flights. I have asked you for a source four times now for this claim. You have c…

Sorry I upset you

Sorry you’re unable to hold a discussion outside of ad hominems and logical fallacies.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#306

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

jaggederest wrote: post #301
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be a shame if makers of self-driving cars stuck to actual cars and single trips. Something in between that and buses might be very efficient and practical, especially for things like work commutes, visits to the supermarket and the like. Having say 6 or 8 seats and picking up multiple parties who are heading in the same direction or going to roughly the same destination. It would likely be quicker than waiting f…

That just sounds like busses with extra steps :)

The difference is busses travel fixed routes and are not on-demand.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#307

Post by xnx »

throw0101a wrote: post #218
sfpotter wrote: post #3

Amtrak Cascade has trains that can do 125 mph but are throttled to 78 mph because of low quality tracks, as I understand it. Amtrak also recently just started running many more trains per day between Seattle and Portland. High speed rail is great, but maybe a good starting point would just be… fixing the tracks. Get 3 1/2 hours from SEA to PDX down closer to 2…

> High speed rail is great, but maybe a good starting point would just be… fixing the tracks. The problem is that there is little 'glory' in simple maintenance. The 'concept' is often called "state of good repair": * https://www.transit.dot.gov/regulations-and-guidance/asset-m... It's much more tempting to announce a new project with a ribbon cutting ceremony. The topic often comes up in Toronto, often as it relates…

/glory/money/s In the US public transportation primarily operated as system to transfer public money to large engineering firms, subcontractors and politicians. Any transportation utility is incidental. Cost over-runs are the rule and have no consequences (More money for everybody!). The US has the highest cost per mile because no involved parties benefit from making it practical and cost effective. Self driving cars are probably our best chance to break up this system and reinvent public transportation.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#309

Post by kspacewalk2 »

jaggederest wrote: post #80
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now compare to Spain.

Spain has double the population density of OR/WA, much less if you include BC. What's your point?

Population density of entire states/provinces is completely irrelevant. I trust you're aware that ~ 2/3rds of BC's population, for example, lives in a tiny strip of land (Lower Mainland).

There are 10 million people in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver metro areas, and the distance between the three is about 500 km. That would be more than enough density for high speed train in any part of the world. Spain's major population centres are a lot more geographically spread out.

I'm not sure I'd start with high speed rail in this corridor. The focus should be on high-frequency, high-reliability fast trains that may not hit the true HSR speeds, but at e.g. 200 kmh would be plenty fast enough for now. But the argument that "the population density isn't there" for HSR is absurd.

Re: Plans develop for high-speed rail in the PNW

#310

Post by adhesive_wombat »

3finmunchousen wrote: post #76
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the layout. They had a nice bypass set up, but the first day the train derailed and it has just recently re-opened. Sharing track with freight is a PITA: the freight trains don't care about going fast (so no really straight tracks) and they often have priority especially if the cascade is running off schedule, causing even more delays. Not sure where they are going to build new straight-enough HSR track unless…

Sharing the tracks is a huge problem that’s just becoming worse. Railroad’s have taken the strategy of running trains so long that they no longer sit in sidings. That means that it is now impossible for many freight trains to pull into a siding allowing other trains to pass. While Amtrak is supposed to have the right of way it’s often impossible for a freight train to do so. Additionally, railroads have shown no inte…

Well There's Your Problem is somehow most gloriously inefficient way to gain engineering information and yet somehow also the exact opposite. Rarely a regretted minute, even when you're, say, 40 minutes into Cold War geopolitics as a prelude to a tunnel fire.
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