Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An underground delivery train comes to the Atlanta suburbs

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 196 posts

Re: An underground delivery train comes to the Atlanta suburbs

#171

Post by pylua »

conductr wrote: post #112
keyboard_slap wrote: post #98

What problem is this system trying to solve? It seems to be, in this initial deployment, that the office park is too far away from the restaurants its employees want to visit, compelling them to drive there. I feel like a better solution would be permitting denser and mixed-use development, so employees can walk to their favorite restaurants on the ground floor instead of driving >1km to them or paying for a delivery…

I feel like comments like this always come up. Basically reducing it to, why not just become Manhattan? They want a solution for today, not decades from today which is what urban planning would take. But also they likely want the neighborhood they built/moved to. They don’t want to live in a super dense mixed use plaza. They also want solutions that the plethora of communities like theirs can replicate. They just wan…

Maybe I am missing something — But what problem is it really solving? They want a hamburger quicker? I personally enjoy the dichotomy between the burbs and city personally especially in Atlanta.

Re: An underground delivery train comes to the Atlanta suburbs

#175

Post by jjav »

keyboard_slap wrote: post #98

What problem is this system trying to solve? It seems to be, in this initial deployment, that the office park is too far away from the restaurants its employees want to visit, compelling them to drive there. I feel like a better solution would be permitting denser and mixed-use development, so employees can walk to their favorite restaurants on the ground floor instead of driving >1km to them or paying for a delivery…

> their favorite restaurants on the ground floor instead of driving >1km to them

There may be a restaurant on the ground floor but your favorite one might still be >1km away.

Re: An underground delivery train comes to the Atlanta suburbs

#176

Post by jjav »

keyboard_slap wrote: post #134
treis wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand these sort of objections to convenience in favor of density. This is awesome and I can see it being a utility similar to water pipes or electricity going to a house for the same reason we all have mailboxes. Delivery is convenient and this could make it cheap and fast.

I'm not objecting to convince in favor of density because there isn't a choice to be made between the two. You can have convenience in low or high density development. The difference is in cost and complexity; high density development has all the convenience with fewer delivery costs

> high density development has all the convenience with fewer delivery costs

This seems intuitively true, but is it true?

Is food delivery cheaper in Manhattan than in some sleep midwest suburb?

Re: An underground delivery train comes to the Atlanta suburbs

#177

Post by averageRoyalty »

keyboard_slap wrote: post #165
sfifs wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to this is actually very simple and used all over the world by shopping centres and shopping district associations. You just run a free loop bus for a few hours during lunch time to bring people to and from the shopping district. Even in the US I have seen airport hotels do this in NY, SF and LA. I wonder why the default answer in US is often not simple public transport.

Because most public transit simply isn't profitable

Why would it need to be profitable? It's _public_ transport, paid for by public funds.

Re: An underground delivery train comes to the Atlanta suburbs

#178

Post by averageRoyalty »

chfalck wrote: post #159
sojournerc wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think it was generalizing an entire country of people with an "us" vs "them" tone

Yes. It’s especially interesting to hear people say this when some states in the US are larger than some countries in Western Europe. For example Texas is slightly larger than France, and Montana is slightly larger than Germany. Of course, crossing state boundaries in the US does not introduce you to as much diversity as crossing many country boundaries in Western Europe. However, when you consider there are 50 state…

I hear this argument a lot, Americans insinuating their different states are effectively almost different countries.

It is nonsense. Americans are Americans. Of course you have regional differences, no different to people from York and Bristol would. But you're not as diverse as you think.

Outwardly I'm sure Brits, Australians, Chinese, Indians etc all get lumped together in your head, despite each of those countries having extremely differing internal cultures spread across the respective countries. That's how the rest of us see Americans - LA and New Yorkers are not different, except in subtle ways only obvious to you.

Re: An underground delivery train comes to the Atlanta suburbs

#179

Post by averageRoyalty »

Animats wrote: post #9

There's a project in Switzerland to build an underground network of cargo tubes.[1] Cargo Sous Terrain has been making animated videos since 2016, though, and as yet has very little hardware to show. Their proposed tunnels are 6 meters in diameter and have 3 lanes, traversed by AGVs. [1] https://www.cst.ch/en

> Their proposed tunnels are 6 meters in diameter

Wait, I'm lost. How many bananas is this?

Re: An underground delivery train comes to the Atlanta suburbs

#180

Post by cpursley »

sojournerc wrote: post #144
rgmerk wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's pretty fair to suggest that the United States (with very limited exceptions) is the least pedestrian-friendly country in the developed world.

Fair, but that doesn't mean every American is so lazy as to lack the ability or desire to walk places, as was suggested. Also, the US is a big country and shouldn't be treated as a single thing. Colorado, where I live, has an amazingly active population relative to other states. It's worth applying a little nuance, instead of broad brushes based on stereotypes.

Last time I was in Colorado I got yelled at by a driver for crossing the street (legally, via a crosswalk). Here in the south, motorists are often intentionally aggressive towards pedestrians and cyclists (especially brodozers). Not a very nuanced situation, unfortunately.
Post reply on HN