Well ain't that something
|
Long-distance/intercity buses suck. Nothing here to change my mind
|
If only we had high-speed rail to provide an alternative to some of the fights between certain city pairs (Los Angeles - Bay Area is one of the busiest air corridors) and provide connectivity to small and medium-sized cities.
|
I'd LOVE the ability to book a bus from the airport. The idea sounds like partially a marketing redo, but it also fills a transportation need at a reasonable price.
Intercity buses can be grimy, but that's not inherent. They're simply the only way you can get between most cities without a car or a plane ticket. Make them more popular and you immediately dilute the problem. I took Greyhounds in a big US circle decades ago, then a Greyhound once maybe five years ago and a Bolt around the same time. No problems and both very quick. |
Metrolink is First Passenger Rail Agency in the Nation Powered by Renewable Fuel
https://metrolinktrains.com/news/met...enewable-fuel/ Quote:
https://content.presspage.com/upload...3205.jpg?10000 |
Switzerland Moves Ahead With Underground Autonomous Cargo Delivery
https://spectrum.ieee.org/cargo-sous-terrain Quote:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-libr...200&height=807 |
Of course.
|
Canada might be getting a 1,000 kph vacuum-tube train
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/f...oop/index.html Quote:
https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/q_...2-transpod.jpg |
I see someone's trying to get Canadian politicians interested in a boondoggle instead of just going for that actually working technology that is HSR?
|
Always pregnant with the future. I guess Canada is inflicted with that too.
|
A new rapid transit hovercraft service coming to Niagara Region and Toronto in summer 2023
https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...812095312.html Quote:
|
Quote:
|
|
Not sure what underground battery operated forklift highways with a whopping max speed of 18 miles per hour but cost eleventy-gazillion dollars to build using TBM's offer. Eventually there will autonomous electric trucks that can operate on conventional highways which will make the whole idea unnecessary. What the trucks can't do, hmm, do the Swiss have trains ? /s
|
Quote:
I think this actually a good idea. Where some family lives, in College Station, TX, the regional airport (Easterwood) has expensive and low frequency puddle jumper flights to DFW and IAH. It's about 90 miles from Houston and 75 miles from George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH). I've flown from Easterwood to DFW before plane(usually a prop plane like an ATR or Saab) never even gets above the clouds, you literally take off and then land. College Station, because of Texas A&M, has an above average amount of travel demand for flying. In the past, there were passenger trains(hence the name) but nothing has ever gotten very far in reviving them. So what you see in CS that you don't see elsewhere are a couple local companies that run sort of upscale Sprinter vans down to the airport in Houston. The biggest one is called Ground Shuttle. They have a "terminal" building and a private park and ride facility in College Station and you see their vans on highway 6 going back and forth constantly. Suppose an airline like American or JetBlue or Spirit branded some buses and had a kind of virtual airport terminal in cities like College Station where you could go through TSA and check your bags and everything. Then the bus would run to the actual airport, and go directly to the terminal to a special bus station that is essentially just another gate, past security and everything. Your checked bags get unloaded by the bus by a crew and get hauled over to the plane by a crew just like if you were on a connecting flight. Tangential, I read an article about how in China, they have what they call trackless train stations for high speed rail. In places that the lines miss, they have a whole terminal but you get on a bus to take you to a hub. Same concept. |
holy mackeral singapore changi airport, already the nicest major airport, is about to build a new terminal 5, which will be as big as terminals 1-4 combined and which will also not be in isolation, but an extension of the city state:
more: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/s...cmd/index.html |
hmm … it flew for 8 minutes:
Alice, the first all-electric passenger airplane, takes flight By Jennifer Korn, CNN Business Published 7:01 PM EDT, Tue September 27, 2022 more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/27/tech/...ght/index.html |
Quote:
Having a nice bus that goes, in this case, DT College Station - University - Airport - DT Houston, that would be real nice probably. Especially if it was run in cooperation with the airlines at the airport so you could book the whole trip in one go as one ticket. |
Quote:
outside of a direct terminal linkup, why not if its feasible? the more busses you can take to an airport the better. |
Terawatt plans electric truck charging stations from LA to El Paso
By Joseph White Reuters Oct. 20, 2020 "DETROIT, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Terawatt Infrastructure will develop a U.S. network of charging stations for medium and heavy trucks along Interstate 10 between Los Angeles and El Paso, Texas, the electric vehicle charging startup said on Thursday, anticipating a significant increase in electric truck traffic along that largely desert corridor. Terawatt said in September it had raised more than $1 billion from investors to begin building large-scale charging centers for commercial vehicle fleets..." https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...so-2022-10-20/ |
|
Insanity.
|
and ummm...yee haa?!
What could possibly go wrong? Startup wants to let you fly personal chopper over NYC with no license and an hour of training By Ben Brachfeld Posted on November 2, 2022 A Texas startup is hoping to zoom into New York’s aerial tourism business by letting customers fly personal, ultralight helicopter-like craft over city airspace — with no pilot’s license and less than an hour of training. more: https://www.amny.com/transit/startup...hour-training/ https://www.amny.com/wp-content/uplo...8db597_mv2.png A LIFT Aircraft eVTOL in action. LIFT Aircraft |
|
^ I honestly can't even muster up enough energy to say something quippy.
|
And another of these snake oil proposals sputters out.
Richard Branson to sell Virgin’s stake in Hyperloop project https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...rloop-project/ |
Quote:
If, however, we assume the technology is sound............$18 billion to connect 2 cities of 2 million each and only 300 km long? That's bizarre and wouldn't get a nickel from Ottawa until HSR is built in the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor. |
Quote:
But hey, don't worry, because as long as stuff doesn't break people won't die! And training isn't that important because it'll switch into remote-control mode based on criteria similar to a past oopsie or two! |
Ostrich Lake Ferry - a ship with overhead line
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...hre_Steffi.jpg
Ostrich Lake Ferry (German: Strausseefähre) in Strausberg, Brandenburg, Germany (source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...hre_Steffi.jpg ). She is propelled electrically whereby the electricity comes to the boat in form of DC with a voltage of 170 volts by an overhead line, which has with a span width of 370 metres the longest span of all overhead lines used for the power supply of vehicles. |
|
major decarscalation!
the mayor explores getting rid of cars around grand army plaza in brooklyn: City considering car-free redesign for Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn: report By Ben Brachfeld Posted on November 13, 2022 more: https://www.amny.com/new-york/brookl...nd-army-plaza/ |
Quote:
It's encouraging to see that they are finally getting serious about this. That said I really don't understand how they think they are going to accomplish this as the IRT & BMT subway tunnels would likely make it impossible to put the sections of Eastern Pkwy, Flatbush or Vandy that run through the plaza oval in a short tunnel. And if you can't do that, if you can't physically grade separate the heavy traffic arterialss that funnel through the plaza, how are you going to accomplish pedestrianization? And shifting those streets to the outside perimeter accomplishes nothing in regards to pedestrian safety or experience and woukd make residents heads explode. |
Forget tolls. Here’s how Toronto can turn the Gardiner and DVP into much-needed money-spinners
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star...-spinners.html Quote:
|
|
Some people just can't help themselves. How many times do they need to be scammed?
Kentucky may be next to get an Elon Musk Boring Company tunnel https://www.teslarati.com/kentucky-elon-musk-tunnel/ |
No coincidence he's now the darling of the conservative know-nothings.
|
https://apnews.com/article/omaha-war...04a22652199977
Warren Buffett jumps into local politics to fight streetcar OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett broke with his practice of staying out of local politics to urge his hometown of Omaha to abandon its planned streetcar project because he says it’s too expensive and not as flexible as buses. Buffett wrote a letter to the editor of the Omaha World-Herald and met with the mayor this week to lobby against the $306 million project and urge the city to let residents vote on it. But city officials are moving forward with the streetcar because they believe it will spur development, including Mutual of Omaha’s planned $600 million headquarters tower downtown. Buffett said in his letter that he decided to make an exception to his policy of staying out of local issues even though “it can be off-putting to many to have a wealthy 92-year-old tell them what is good for their future.” He said he wanted to weigh in on the streetcar because it’s “going to be hugely expensive if implemented.” |
"not as flexible as buses" means the same thing it always has: "won't let me double park everywhere with impunity".
Not a single thing he says on transit is to be taken as anything other than BS. |
The headline is so comical the joke just writes itself. At least he's self aware with the quote at the bottom.
|
Free Transit?
Cities are experimenting with free buses. So far, so good.
Those who complain that the price tag is too high aren’t looking at the costs of keeping things as they are. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinio...nsit-rcna63670 |
Widening Highways Doesn’t Fix Traffic. So Why Do We Keep Doing It?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/u...s-traffic.html Quote:
|
Quote:
Kansas City and Cincinnati's worked because those cities have a lot more than just parking lots and vacant office buildings in their downtown. KC has a somewhat urban "corridor" from Downtown to Country Club Plaza that is a line of relative density and lots of destinations people want to reach. |
the free movement:
Free transit: Is it a public good, like libraries or schools? By Sophie Hills Staff writer January 18, 2023 WASHINGTON more: https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Societ...ies-or-schools |
|
Spanish transport secretary resigns after new trains too big for tunnels
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ig-for-tunnels Quote:
https://i.imgur.com/JcLOKsz.jpg |
|
|
^ busbahn! :haha:
|
I think the trackless tram is kind of cool but the arguments both in favor and against it both seem to miss the point.
I don't think it's a gadgetbahn because it's just a bus, and any service that the trackless tram can offer could probably be substituted with a normal bus if the tram broke down. But it's also not a replacement for rapid transit. The point of rapid transit is not steel wheel on steel rail, it's bridges and tunnels and stations with platforms and ticket collection. It's certainly possible to build a rapid transit system but with buses as that does exist obviously, but then it just needs wider paved road space and more stuff vs tracks that are smooth and last a long time. Also because it's not on rails it has tires which have to be changed and also the road surface needs to be very well maintained. That's probably the one big flaw this thing has - nonexistent ground clearance combined with length, I would be willing to bet it would get stuck in dips, speed bumps, or railroad grade crossings. Hitting a curb or some debris in the road would do a lot of damage. |
more road dieting broadway northward from 23rd st:
NYC begins new phase of ‘Broadway Vision,’ street improvements from Madison Square to Herald Square Published: Mar. 12, 2023 By Jillian Delaney | jdelaney@siadvance.com MANHATTAN, N.Y. — Mayor Eric Adams and Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez have big plans for the streets from Madison Square to Herald Square. As per a press release, the mayor and commissioner began construction today in the next phase of the “Broadway Vision.” “Two years ago, the pandemic devastated Midtown and our business districts, but it gave us the opportunity to reimagine our public spaces,” said Mayor Adams. “Beginning this week, our Broadway Vision will come to life with vibrant, new public spaces and safer streets from Madison Square to Herald Square. Midtown is back, and New York City is back.” more: https://www.silive.com/news/2023/03/...ld-square.html https://www.silive.com/resizer/xpfBo...HK7YODVKU.jpeg Rendering of Greeley Square after capital construction work is completed. Credit: “New” New York Panel |
All times are GMT. The time now is 10:35 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.