111–120 of 255 posts
Hyperloop is such a bad idea on so many levels. Mass transportation is the future: trains, suburban trains and metros. Not cars or "mini metros for cars". Super fast trains are already there. Europe lives in the future compared to the USA.
The Boring Company's "cars in tunnels (maybe on sleds?) idea", which Musk is following up on, is even more dangerous and has worse impacts on cities. For one thing Induced Demand is a well studied, proven fact, so we know that the expansion of road infrastructure will incentivize more people to drive and create more traffic in the long term. This means not only that these tunnels will inevitably get as full as the roads above, but more importantly that the broader road network of the region will be severely negatively impacted by the new traffic induced by the tunnels. This is precisely the wrong solution at a time when municipal governments are more interested in reducing car use, because they understand very well the benefits in pivoting toward creating denser, more walkable, cities and are currently engaged in making this shift.
The vague notion of Hyperloop is awful for cities for the reasons mentioned in this article. Municipal governments are fighting a very hard, uphill battle right now to get basic funding for proven conventional public transit services which would dramatically make life better for everyone. Musk dropping the promise of Hyperloop (with no interest on following up on the idea) has provided ammo for transit cynics and opp…
I suppose the limit might be quite high, but I've never seen it discussed at all.
I wonder how much did Steve Jobs lock up Apple's fate the same way. The breathless hype for all Apple's products ultimately doomed Apple's future offerings to the same fate. If it didn't excite audiences as much as the iPhone or the iPad, it wouldn't survive on the Apple ecosystem.
If Apple has been circumspect of late, I attribute part of it to this
" Musk’s visions are valuable because they show that even people far outside the field of urban planning can be frustrated with the world others have built for us. They, too, should have a say. " That is a good point. Taking Musk and the HyperLoop seriously is a mistake---unless something has changed that hasn't percolate down to me, it has major problems and probably wouldn't solve the problem it purports to solve i…
His company made a rocket capable of re-entry ffs
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it will not be economically viable Government projects don't (and shouldn't) have to be "economically viable." They can be services to the citizens with no hope of profitability.
"services to the citizens" that no one wishes, no one would pay for if had a chance (considering the actual prices), but still somehow paid by the citizens.
However the fact those parks are there does make life better.
Measuring that though is tricky. How much is a child's laugh worth?
Difficult topic. You can make this argument on any new transformative tech. You could have made the same arguments about smartphones 10 years ago. On the other hand, I am still not clear how a pod that can carry max 12 people can compete with trains that can carry hundreds.
If we take two lines (one rail and one hyperloop) and compare the number of people that can be transported in an hour, then we can judge if multiple 12 person pods can transport more/less than trains over the same period. I suspect that pods might have a pretty good shot at winning.
"Sealed capsules carrying 28 passengers each that travel along the interior of the tube depart on average every 2 minutes from Los Angeles or San Francisco (up to every 30 seconds during peak usage hours)"
So, that's 28/pod, not 12. At 30 second intervals, that would be 56 passengers/minute or 3360/hour.
For trains, we have (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity#Route_capacitie...):
"Tram and light rail systems have in theory very high route capacities, but in practice route capacities of 12 trains per hour is a practical upper limit. For High Speed Rail a route capacity of up to 18 trains per hour may be possible. The Punggol metro line in Singapore uses a moving block system to achieve a headway of 90 seconds, so the route capacity is 40 trains per hour."
So, let's take 12 trains an hour. Then, each one would have to carry 280 passengers to be on par with the maximum mentioned by Musk. That's ballpark what https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R160_(New_York_City_Subway_car... delivers, but about a third of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_2009_Stock.
So, I think an optimistic view would say you need two hyperloop tubes to get capacity of a single subway rail line (optimistic because it rounds down train capacity, and accepts Musk's claim of 120 pods/hour)
High-speed train may be different, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCF_TGV_Sud-Est has a capacity of 350, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela_Express#First-generation... about 300, both ballpark the top of Musk's claim.
On the other hand, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_374, used on Eurostar, has 900 seats. So, I guess TGV and Acela use multiple carriages in a single train. That, again, would mean you need two hyperloop tubes for one train.
The problem with the Hyper-loop and Elon Musk in general, isn't that Elon Musk is wrong or that the Hyper-loop won't work. The problem is that he engages in a nepotistic political-industrial complex. That is, he subsidizes his risk for the benefit of the shareholders and himself at the expense of the taxpayer. The same tax payers who are often in a state of financial uncertainty and destitution of education. The same…
Actually, that is the problem. The thermal expansion problem has not yet been solved, or even seriously addressed. Hyperloop proponents are completely ignoring it, giddily betting that a solution will somehow magically present itself because technological optimism always wins. Well, no, it doesn't. The only thing that always wins is the laws of physics.
The problem with the Hyper-loop and Elon Musk in general, isn't that Elon Musk is wrong or that the Hyper-loop won't work. The problem is that he engages in a nepotistic political-industrial complex. That is, he subsidizes his risk for the benefit of the shareholders and himself at the expense of the taxpayer. The same tax payers who are often in a state of financial uncertainty and destitution of education. The same…
https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Democracy-Political-History-Am...
Hate the game, not the player.