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Hyperloop One to shut down

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Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#221

Post by jazzyjackson »

mynameisnoone wrote: post #178
korse wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrarian take, but tons of truck traffic on interstate highways makes driving far more fun (as long as there isn't road maintenance or undue stoppage). I'm actually looking forward to future me being able to ride my motorcycle around a freight-train's worth of semi-automated cargo-haulers on interstates that are mostly devoid of vacationing families.

Only in Wyoming where, unlike Texas, truckers have the sense to stay to the right. Also, there is de facto no speed limit there because there are only a handful of WSTs. I suggest avoiding Wyoming Colorado unless you have nose plugs or no sense of smell.

Wyoming is exciting because a gust of wind can blow a semi into you at any second.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#222

Post by tedunangst »

trhway wrote: post #134
thechao wrote: post #12

There is a world where we dig tunnels under federal highways, and stick freight trucks down there. They'd run on a monorail, at 120+ mph. Surface vehicles would be dramatically limited in terms of height, width, and length. Maybe people buses could go down there? In my imagination these tunnels are, like, 200' down. Like mole people.

Why go underground (expensive 3rd dimension down) when we have the whole 3rd dimension up almost unused? The freight can be trucked by large Zeppelins for example (and electric at that with the most of the energy generated by the solar panels covering the upper surface of the Zeppelin https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38017937 ). The issues are pure engineering ones. These freight Zeppelins can be fully automated,…

Just shoot durable goods around with a railgun.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#223

Post by dangus »

standardUser wrote: post #195

I think we should accept that, at least in the case of the US, most future transit infrastructure will be built on existing roads. Every other options is an order of magnitude more expensive. Plus, we have so many roads! If we didn't use them it the most inefficient way possible - cramming them full of giants cars for single people who also happen to be terrible pilots - we could get a ton of bandwidth out of them. A…

Incorrect. The US is made up of a huge swath of towns and cities that wouldn’t even exist without railways.

https://vividmaps.com/railroads-in-america/

You say that every other method of travel is more expensive…but that doesn’t really pass the sniff test, does it?

The Big Dig in Boston adjusted for inflation cost more than New York City’s “world’s most expensive stretch of subway.” The California high speed rail project, also notoriously expensive, is in the same ballpark.

We just assume trains cost more money because we put the blindfolds on for highways. Voters salivate over highway expansions because they loathe being stuck in traffic, while the reality is that this style of building induces demand while more transit options make driving better.

I often think about how thousands of American businesses pay for short-hop commercial flights between destinations like New York and Pittsburgh where a proper high speed train could cover that distance in about 2 hours including stops. How much money are we paying employees to show up at the airport 90 minutes early and put their laptops away for takeoff and landing when they could spend the whole train ride productive?

I know my company will pay for a checked bag as a travel expense. How much money is wasted on putting bags in airplane holds? It must be billions!

Car ownership has huge personal costs (car purchase, operation, depreciation, maintenance), collective costs paid by taxes (maintenance of roads, etc), and societal costs that nobody really pays for (excess deaths from crashes, pollution, opportunity costs).

I’d like to know which method of travel besides cars costs an average of $5,000 per person per year on a personal spending basis before even starting to put tax money toward road maintenance. That number balloons to $10,000 if you buy cars new.

Which country’s train system kills 30,000 people annually? Which train system emits more pollution per passenger mile than a car?

If cars are the cheapest way to get around, explain why the poorest countries have the lowest car ownership. Shouldn’t they all be jumping on cars and highways if it’s so cost efficient? Maybe all those people getting on trains in Mumbai should head down to their local Tri-County Ford dealer!

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#224

Post by bobthepanda »

heads wrote: post #166
yuliyp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like railroads but worse. What's the advantage? Tunneling is incredibly expensive to do, yet you're proposing it in a situation where it'd need enough coverage so as to ban large freight transport over roads.

I’m not arguing with you here but it would be interesting to know what about tunnelling is fundamentally expensive. Things I can think of: it is slow, so you burn through a lot of wages. To compare with road building the only major road I can think of, built in my lifetime, was the M40. It is 90 miles long and took 4 years to build but I don’t know what the cost was. The channel tunnel is much smaller than a freeway…

The most expensive parts of tunnels are where you come to the surface. The Channel Tunnel is cheap in that regards because there is countryside on either end and no exits in the middle.

Designing a high capacity train station or highway exit in the middle of a city is quite expensive.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#225

Post by bobthepanda »

abathur wrote: post #186
MBCook wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one advantage I can think of is no weather to deal with like snow/ice.

Perhaps not no weather--water intrusion/management will still matter.

Also as a practical matter, a lot of systems stop running to discourage traveling; the underground may be safe but you still have to travel on the surface to your final destination

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#226

Post by dangus »

dougmwne wrote: post #201
standardUser wrote: post #195

I think we should accept that, at least in the case of the US, most future transit infrastructure will be built on existing roads. Every other options is an order of magnitude more expensive. Plus, we have so many roads! If we didn't use them it the most inefficient way possible - cramming them full of giants cars for single people who also happen to be terrible pilots - we could get a ton of bandwidth out of them. A…

I’ve slowly lost my innocence when it comes to public transportation in the US. At this point I can see that 95% of the country is absolutely locked into low-density single occupancy transportation at least till we invent sky cars. We have trillions in sunk cost that covers nearly every road, every home and every business in America. We will never, ever be Europe.

The Netherlands had a very similar problem and made very simple and inexpensive changes to roadway planning.

For one thing, I think a lot of American suburbs could be way more bike friendly if people just had a safe path to ride in. We are talking a half a lane worth of pavement.

Another thing is that this isn’t all or nothing. Still owning and perhaps needing a car but reducing the number of trips per week is a win.

Look at pictures of European countries that used to use their central squares as parking lots. It can be done.

Change certainly won’t happen via defeatism.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#227

Post by prometheus76 »

dougmwne wrote: post #201
standardUser wrote: post #195

I think we should accept that, at least in the case of the US, most future transit infrastructure will be built on existing roads. Every other options is an order of magnitude more expensive. Plus, we have so many roads! If we didn't use them it the most inefficient way possible - cramming them full of giants cars for single people who also happen to be terrible pilots - we could get a ton of bandwidth out of them. A…

I’ve slowly lost my innocence when it comes to public transportation in the US. At this point I can see that 95% of the country is absolutely locked into low-density single occupancy transportation at least till we invent sky cars. We have trillions in sunk cost that covers nearly every road, every home and every business in America. We will never, ever be Europe.

Do you understand how much bigger and more climate-diverse and elevation-diverse America is?

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#228

Post by iampims »

dangus wrote: post #226
dougmwne wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve slowly lost my innocence when it comes to public transportation in the US. At this point I can see that 95% of the country is absolutely locked into low-density single occupancy transportation at least till we invent sky cars. We have trillions in sunk cost that covers nearly every road, every home and every business in America. We will never, ever be Europe.

The Netherlands had a very similar problem and made very simple and inexpensive changes to roadway planning. For one thing, I think a lot of American suburbs could be way more bike friendly if people just had a safe path to ride in. We are talking a half a lane worth of pavement. Another thing is that this isn’t all or nothing. Still owning and perhaps needing a car but reducing the number of trips per week is a win.…

Roads safe for cycling is half the battle. The other half is around zoning and mixing residential with businesses.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#229

Post by wussboy »

prometheus76 wrote: post #227
dougmwne wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve slowly lost my innocence when it comes to public transportation in the US. At this point I can see that 95% of the country is absolutely locked into low-density single occupancy transportation at least till we invent sky cars. We have trillions in sunk cost that covers nearly every road, every home and every business in America. We will never, ever be Europe.

Do you understand how much bigger and more climate-diverse and elevation-diverse America is?

This is a common rebuttal, but it doesn’t hold water

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#230

Post by acdha »

dougmwne wrote: post #201
standardUser wrote: post #195

I think we should accept that, at least in the case of the US, most future transit infrastructure will be built on existing roads. Every other options is an order of magnitude more expensive. Plus, we have so many roads! If we didn't use them it the most inefficient way possible - cramming them full of giants cars for single people who also happen to be terrible pilots - we could get a ton of bandwidth out of them. A…

I’ve slowly lost my innocence when it comes to public transportation in the US. At this point I can see that 95% of the country is absolutely locked into low-density single occupancy transportation at least till we invent sky cars. We have trillions in sunk cost that covers nearly every road, every home and every business in America. We will never, ever be Europe.

Yes, and we have generations of people trained to think that walking further than a hundred feet is an extreme workout to be avoided and that transit systems are full of criminals. It seems like that culture is headed for a cliff, however, as the cost of cars continues to increase (the average sale last year was a year’s median pay!), budgets for road infrastructure become tighter, and climate change becomes harder to deny. It feels like we’re headed for a messy upset when all of the conflicts come to a head.
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