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

Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back

ridecabin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 175 posts

Re: Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back

#151

Post by ghaff »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #115
dehrmann wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard a really good argument against high-speed rail in California. We only have so much money to spend on transit. Transit problems tend to be bigger within cities than between them--5 is under-utilized, 880 is over-utilized--so it makes sense to concentrate efforts where we'll get the most return. Projects like a second BART tunnel and Caltrain electrification have a bigger impact on people's lives than a train t…

See I kind of disagree. High speed train would let people live outside of SF which in turn would ease the pressure on the currently existing city transit.

HSR would let people spend a number of hours a day commuting to the Bay from Fresno at the cost a few hundred dollars per day. I doubt that would be attractive to all that many people except for those who commute into the Bay area for a chunk of the week and stay in a hotel. But at that point, they could be flying from just about anywhere west of Chicago.

Re: Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back

#152

Post by detritus »

sjtgraham wrote: post #141
gambiting wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>having it drive out to Tracy each evening and parking in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Do American supermarkets not have any time limits on parking? In the UK every single supermarket will have a 2-3 hour time limit on parking with anywhere between £70-100 fine for parking there for longer.

If this is true these fines are unenforceable. Parking tickets/fines are allowed in UK law for breaking the rules on public land. Parking on private land is governed by contract law. For a contract to be legally binding it needs to consist of the elements of a contract: offer, acceptance, and consideration, i.e. payment. Which UK supermarket charges for parking?

All of them, presumably - just not directly, as an ascribed line item on your receipt.

Re: Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back

#153

Post by refurb »

tedd4u wrote: post #138
refurb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you driving 120 mph? Airport to airport it should take maybe 2.5 hours (1 hr before flight + 1.5 for the flight) versus the 5 hr to drive between the two.

Refer to MythBusters episode 221, "Traffic Tricks.": https://mythresults.com/traffic-tricks For journeys shorter than 400 miles, driving is faster than flying. PLAUSIBLE The Build Team had a race of 380 miles (610 km) from San Francisco to Los Angeles, between Tory on a plane, and Kari and Grant driving. The bottlenecks of air travel (arriving early to get through security, waiting for the plane to start boarding, re…

I don’t disagree it could be quicker, city to city, but this was airport to airport. That would eliminate the drive to the airport for the person flying.

Re: Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back

#154

Post by atomwaffel »

garmaine wrote: post #133
atomwaffel wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sufficiently familiar with the geography of SF or LA – how does the door-to-door time and cost compare when you account for the fact that most trips don’t actually start and end at an airport? I’d much rather catch a sleeper bus/train in the city centre in the evening, sleep for 7–8 hours (something I’d be doing anyway) and wake up in another city centre the next morning with a full day ahead of me than deal…

Most trips don’t actually start and end at the bus depot either.

Exactly, that’s why I’m wondering about the door-to-door times for a typical trip, and I don’t know enough about American cities to give a qualified answer myself.

My expectation would be that they’re more central and less time-consuming than most airports. Then again, my experience with bus stations so far has also been that they’re even less inviting places than most airports and not usually as well connected either.

Re: Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back

#155

Post by ghaff »

rayiner wrote: post #148
rst wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In countries with real high speed rail, this is not the case. Tickets on Italian Freccia trains are comparable to US bus fares between major cities. Acela in the US is expensive because it competes with planes - and laughably slow by world standards (not much faster than trains ran on the same routes in the 1950s).

High speed trains can be very expensive in European countries as well: https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-adv-bullet-fare... > The French bullet train from Paris to Lyon is often cited as a line that is profitable, but it has a fare of 52 cents a mile. The German bullet train from Hannover to Wurzburg charges 46 cents a mile. > On the East Coast, Amtrak’s Acela system, the closest thing to high-speed rail n…

And the Shinkansen, while a great train system especially in combination with Japan's train system generally, isn't cheap. A quick look says $130 for Tokyo to Kyoto--a common several hour route--one way, no-reserved. (Which sounds about right from my experience although I always have gotten one of the tourist passes you can only purchase overseas.)

You get outside of Western Europe and Japan and trains tend to get cheaper--don't have recent experience with China--but western trains are pretty pricey generally, especially of the walk up to the counter and buy a ticket variety.

Re: Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back

#156

Post by gambiting »

sjtgraham wrote: post #141
gambiting wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>having it drive out to Tracy each evening and parking in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Do American supermarkets not have any time limits on parking? In the UK every single supermarket will have a 2-3 hour time limit on parking with anywhere between £70-100 fine for parking there for longer.

If this is true these fines are unenforceable. Parking tickets/fines are allowed in UK law for breaking the rules on public land. Parking on private land is governed by contract law. For a contract to be legally binding it needs to consist of the elements of a contract: offer, acceptance, and consideration, i.e. payment. Which UK supermarket charges for parking?

Literally every single one in the UK. But it's not even supermarkets, pretty much every car park in this country works like this, I've even seen ones next to pubs and cinemas have that(made for a fun viewing of Alien + Aliens in a promotional re-release few years ago, the staff at the cinema were warning everyone that if you parked outside and are here to see both movies in one go you will be charged for overstaying as the time limit is 4 hours). And those fines are very much enforceable - as long as the conditions are listed in a public view the company can charge you for parking over the allowed time(it's a charge, not a fine technically).

Clearly explained here: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/scotland/law-and-courts/pa...

Re: Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back

#157

Post by rdiddly »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #29
tathougies wrote: post #6

Wow, it's almost like there's demand for a high-speed, non-driving land route between LA and SF. If only we had a fixed route land vehicle that could provide a smooth, direct route that had enough space for people to do things like sleep, rest, and use the bathroom. Maybe I'll call this idea 'a high-speed train' and propose that California build one between LA and SF... oh wait.

> Wow, it's almost like there's demand for a high-speed, non-driving land route between LA and SF. We'll see, it's not like this service has proved viability yet. As other's have pointed out, this is about twice the price of an hour and 40 minute flight. While some commenters are arguing that there are some folks who would take it to skip the hassle of the airport, I think pretty much the only people who would take t…

Don't forget those with a severe hatred of flying. When things became a ridiculous hassle in 2001 I used a simple logic: I don't like this, so I'm cutting it (air travel) out of my life. I've made exceptions of course, but yeah I would pay for something like this.

Re: Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back

#158

Post by jmpman »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #117
jmpman wrote: post #79

The concept has just one niche I can see (besides people who are scared of flying)... getting into downtown SF before 8am without the chance of your flight being delayed due to fog. If you absolutely need to be at a meeting at 8am, currently you’re flying in the night before, grabbing an Uber from SFO to a hotel generally close to your morning meeting, hoping you’ll get a good night sleep and then dealing with the mo…

$0.20 a mile in an RV? Fuel alone will be more than that.

Electric is the only way to get down to those operating costs. So your electric RV would need to supercharge by itself on the trip. $0.20/mile is 2.5kwh/mi at $0.08/kWh... seems possible.

Re: Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back

#159

Post by throwaway1777 »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #115
dehrmann wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard a really good argument against high-speed rail in California. We only have so much money to spend on transit. Transit problems tend to be bigger within cities than between them--5 is under-utilized, 880 is over-utilized--so it makes sense to concentrate efforts where we'll get the most return. Projects like a second BART tunnel and Caltrain electrification have a bigger impact on people's lives than a train t…

See I kind of disagree. High speed train would let people live outside of SF which in turn would ease the pressure on the currently existing city transit.

It would be too expensive to use for a commute, so I doubt it would let too many people move outside the city.

Re: Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back

#160

Post by jmpman »

TheDong wrote: post #136
jmpman wrote: post #79

The concept has just one niche I can see (besides people who are scared of flying)... getting into downtown SF before 8am without the chance of your flight being delayed due to fog. If you absolutely need to be at a meeting at 8am, currently you’re flying in the night before, grabbing an Uber from SFO to a hotel generally close to your morning meeting, hoping you’ll get a good night sleep and then dealing with the mo…

> Which in a strange way will alleviate Bay Area housing shortage - when you’re living in an RV, do you care how far away it’s parked from work if it’s self driving? I can't wait to park my RV 30 miles away from work, go to sleep, and be woken up at 4am due to jostling and rush-hour noise as a fleet of hundreds of RVs all try to self-drive themselves into the city. I can't wait to use one of the least fuel-efficient…

That or living in a $2000/month studio apartment in the Tenderloin? I’d take the self driving RV. If it’s electric, charged by renewable energy, is it really that bad for the environment?
Post reply on HN