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Waymo in Portland

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Re: Waymo in Portland

#311

Post by davidgay »

NoGravitas wrote: post #244
briffle wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at taking the train from my town to Glacier National Park along with my bike. The route goes from Portland and Seattle to Chicago, and has a stop at south glacier. Step 1, get to the local train station in my town. There are 6 trains daily between me and Portland. Also, amtrak on the cross country trains requires the bikes to be in a box, in storage cars. So I gotta get a large bike box, and get myself, my b…

Most of this is just that the US rail system is amazingly shitty by global standards.

This is an extremely simplistic view. For instance, the US moves more of its freight (by percentage) than all western European countries except Switzerland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag...

Re: Waymo in Portland

#312

Post by skyyler »

dmix wrote: post #288
meowkit wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesh go to literally any other industrialized part of the world and see how ** backwards the US is on trains I’ve become quite radicalized on trains after visiting Japan and Switzerland myself.

Not like the US didn't try. California spent 15yrs trying to build a high speed train and failed. Canada has been talking about building trains forever too and it usually goes nowhere because the budgets explode like every major infrastructure project these days. UK spent $100M just to deal with bats in a single train tunnel, which is representative of the issue https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wryxyljglo

I wonder what's different between these English speaking countries you mention failing to build out rail transit, and places like Japan and China that have built fabulous rail networks.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#313

Post by rhubarbtree »

ggreer wrote: post #274
blks wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is an expensive taxi service, not a solution to public transport.

In 2025, TriMet had 262 million passenger miles at a system cost of $812 million, for a cost of $3.09 per passenger mile.[1] Fares covered 7.8% of their costs. The other 92.2% came from payroll taxes and federal grants. For comparison, a Lyft or Uber in the same area would cost you $1-2 per mile. Obviously it's not feasible for all 200k daily riders to take Uber/Lyft, and the Uber/Lyft cost doesn't include externalit…

What about infrastructure costs for lyft and uber?

Perhaps it isn’t expensive once you consider the peak load and externalities. How many new roads would you have to build to do that?

Re: Waymo in Portland

#315

Post by 0xffff2 »

soiltype wrote: post #302
dzhiurgis wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the ad hominem? I've lived and travelled in a ton of places. Trains in low density cities are simply not working well enough. I now prefer to live in exurb and drive everywhere. It's so good.

Guessing you're American is ad hominem?

> ad hominem: appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect [0]

Pretty much by definition, yes.

0: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ad%20hominem

Re: Waymo in Portland

#316

Post by jandrewrogers »

coryrc wrote: post #297
array_key_first wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an implementation problem, not a problem with the underlying concept. Public transit like buses and lightrail are significantly more efficient per person than personal vehicles. This is because they can transport many more people for the same amount of space and energy. They also typically run on set tracks, which yields more efficiency gains. The US is really, really bad at doing public transit. It doesn't h…

> in your comment you're excluding road cost Partially not, as gas taxes cover part of it. I think gas and diesel taxes should cover the full cost of roads, which would help. Still doesn't mean transit should be run so inefficiently.

FWIW, some States require roads be funded exclusively with gas and use (e.g. vehicle registration) taxes. This does seem to significantly incentivize efficiency and long-term planning because their budget has to anticipate variable revenue.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#317

Post by bradleybuda »

array_key_first wrote: post #286
ggreer wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2025, TriMet had 262 million passenger miles at a system cost of $812 million, for a cost of $3.09 per passenger mile.[1] Fares covered 7.8% of their costs. The other 92.2% came from payroll taxes and federal grants. For comparison, a Lyft or Uber in the same area would cost you $1-2 per mile. Obviously it's not feasible for all 200k daily riders to take Uber/Lyft, and the Uber/Lyft cost doesn't include externalit…

This is an implementation problem, not a problem with the underlying concept. Public transit like buses and lightrail are significantly more efficient per person than personal vehicles. This is because they can transport many more people for the same amount of space and energy. They also typically run on set tracks, which yields more efficiency gains. The US is really, really bad at doing public transit. It doesn't h…

> This is an implementation problem, not a problem with the underlying concept.

I agree. The question remains - why do U.S. municipalities universally and repeatedly fail to successfully implement rapid transit at an efficient price point? Buses, trains, and subways in America have ever-growing budgets (both in absolute and per customer mile terms) with ever-declining quality of service. Just asking for more tax revenue again and again is not the solution.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#318

Post by rootusrootus »

meowkit wrote: post #283
Jblx2 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Trains are great I wonder how much that sentiment is that based on steampunk and 1880's nostalgia?

Yesh go to literally any other industrialized part of the world and see how ** backwards the US is on trains I’ve become quite radicalized on trains after visiting Japan and Switzerland myself.

OTOH, on my visits to Europe I am simultaneously impressed with the prevalence of passenger train options, but disheartened by the price. If Europe struggles to provide really affordable trains, there isn't much hope for the US. Aside from regional train options in the densest areas, we just have too much distance to cover. Infrastructure costs would kill the plan. At this point maybe we should just be trying harder to produce renewable fuels for planes.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#319

Post by shimman »

ggreer wrote: post #274
blks wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is an expensive taxi service, not a solution to public transport.

In 2025, TriMet had 262 million passenger miles at a system cost of $812 million, for a cost of $3.09 per passenger mile.[1] Fares covered 7.8% of their costs. The other 92.2% came from payroll taxes and federal grants. For comparison, a Lyft or Uber in the same area would cost you $1-2 per mile. Obviously it's not feasible for all 200k daily riders to take Uber/Lyft, and the Uber/Lyft cost doesn't include externalit…

Oh wow I didn't know Uber solely relied on private roads, had their own DMV, or fleet of millions of cars; truly an innovative company that doesn't rely on public infrastructure!

Re: Waymo in Portland

#320

Post by rootusrootus »

tormeh wrote: post #309
meowkit wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesh go to literally any other industrialized part of the world and see how ** backwards the US is on trains I’ve become quite radicalized on trains after visiting Japan and Switzerland myself.

Those are two unusually competent countries when it comes to trains. Try Germany or the UK for a more average outcome.

Ha, even using the UK as a counterpoint, they do pretty well. I enjoy taking the LNER, and appreciate that it is a 'slow' train that happens to run 50% faster than the top speed of Amtrak in all but a very limited set of tracks in the NEC. And maybe I've just had unusually good luck, but LNER has almost always been punctual.
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