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We need something a little more flexible than rail, a little more rigid than current roads. That said, we need rail more than anything because.
- We know it works and how it works.
- Is a solution we can do tomorrow if we actually wanted to.
- Was a solution till modern cars decided to throw all that out the window.
Self-driving cars on a semi-rigid road system is either going to be the solution that is in the middle for everyone, or something we just completely abandon and we try our best to make modern rail happen.
I’m a big supporter of more rail, but I’m not completely against car-train hybrids. I just would like something better than what we’re currently dealing with.
I’m not completely against car-train hybrids
Do you mean like people-movers, trams, or bus-rapid-transit?
What are all these amazing technologies Musky hasn’t invented yet?!
Yeah I can’t wait for him to invent the train.
Didn’t he somehow get involved in the high speed train that’s supposed to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco? (That they’ve been talking about for 30+ years.)
Yeah that’s them. I know there’s likely a better then more specific than mass transit and less specific than say GLR, trams, etc…
Bikes on trains should do it. The train gets you within a few miles, the last part can be done with your bike. All the efficiency of a train for long distance, all the flexibility for short distance.
With pedal assisted cargo bikes people can even haul a surprising amount of stuff. People here are already using those pedal assist bucket bikes for getting toddlers to school.
Imagine you can rent bike at train station and put them back at the train station. In Luxembourg we can rent bike for 19€ a year.
Yeah but that one day when the bike rack is empty except the one with a flat tire haunts you the whole year though.
It is a good thing for occasional use IMO, if I go to work every day I prefer the “safety” of having my own bike (I’m 198 too :-)
Yeah I agree with you some time I had to walk.
And as long as everything you need fits in a backpack that works great. And most people still but a car for the cases where it doesn’t work, and if you have a car anyway, why not use it more.
But those bikes in docks and the scooters do work great.
Rent the car too… here we have rental car by hour.
Depends on the cargo.
Doubt many train passengers would like it if people delay the train because they have so much cargo they need to unload and bring to their rented car.
True, maybe it is time to rethink things completely. Some time ago the SNCF was doing some wagon dropping. Letting a wagon with fret in some stations
Bc cars consume the space needed for people.
There is this kind of bike rack in most regional trains in France.
They are generally not really usable at rush hour unfortunately but the rest of the time traveling with a bike on the train is quite pleasant.
You can store most bicycles on trains, where I’m from people have fold-up bicycles that will fit under a seat even just for last-mile transport. Cargo bikes won’t fit on a train though, they’ll block aisles and standing room. I doubt hauling a whole-ass train car just for bicycles is cost effective.
It’s cost effective when you take the same amount of cars off the road and factor in what those cars would have contributed to
- road maintenance
- road congestion (mental health)
- environment
They are very common where I live. They are designed so that people can sit there if no bike is using the space. And usually they are bikes. Still not enough space for a cargo bike, but more than enough for a normal one.
That seems a classic chicken-and-egg issue. There is no room for cargo bikes because it’s not cost effective. That means people can’t easily take their children and stuff anywhere except with a car. Because everybody uses the car, the train cars are not cost effective.
I grew up in a small rural village separated by a small stream. To get across, we’d employ all manner of clever tricks - jumping across with a tire swing, old mattresses, dead animals, you name it.
I guess what I’m saying is: how about using a large catapult as a flexible alternative, with the option to launch dead animals at any naysayers?
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Trains are crabs of transport.
The YouTube Adam Something had similar comments. For example, the Hyperloop from Musk would be more efficient if you’d use pods on rails instead of Tesla’s, and make the pods longer like a train. It’s called a subway. Or other pod like ideas. What if you make them longer which would be more energy efficient, with one driving engine and carts behind it which you can fill with people or goods. It’s called a fucking train. Years and years of development into what we have now, then to have a stupid narcissistic scam artist wanting to reinvent something which works perfectly into some futuristic looking concept which would make a perfectly fine system broken and less efficient. “Please give me money, oh people on Kickstarter, as for I think I know better then years of evolution, research and development. Don’t do the math, trust me, I have a flashy computer animation to prove how cool my idea is. I did not finish school, my dad gave me a lot of money because he says I’m special.” Floating mega cities, pods, self driving cars, terraforming Mars, vacuum washing machines, vacuum tunnel systems, solar panel roads, etc etc etc. Next to Adam Something I can recommend ThunderF00t on YouTube. A scientist joking about Musk his stupidity and other tech kickstarter scammers, breaking their scams with science.
Ill be honest, when I first heard about the hyper loop, I thought the idea was to make trains cool again and kickstart national interest in public transit. In retrospect I was kind of an idiot.
The US is an idiot for not investing more in trains. The country literally was built with trains. People just stopped caring because air travel became popular and cheap. Just go invest in high speed trains, repair the tracks already out there, expand. Hoping someone would make trains sexy again isn’t stupid. Elon Musk is though. Falling for his scams is stupid too, but I’ve been there as well in the beginning. I was just not aware people could lie that much and get away with it. The to continue with even bigger scams. Guess I’m stupid too.
Most billionaires just want more money. They know how to sell something, so they try to get as much investors as possible for any stupid idea which they think they are able to sell. Same with kickstarter scammers. They become rich by doing the same trick. White collar scam artists.
Pretty sure freight is popular though.
Is it? Many trains are in disrepair, as well as tracks. There have been many accidents the past few years.
You weren’t an idiot. Musk was really good at marketing back then, and hadn’t yet revealed his true self to the world.
Everything becomes either a train or a commie block if you iterate enough on the idea.
Are trains the crabs of the transportation world?
Yes
There once was a pipe dream of a dual mode car/monorail vehicle. RUF utube video seemed promising, since cars & busses could dock together for longer stretches on rail.
I believe the furthest it went, was a test track loop and a couple prototype vehicles.Ah, a transport system with fixed entry/exit points after which the rest is manual transportation. We have a similar system in The Netherlands. It’s called trains and bicycles. You bring your bike onto the train or you take a public transportation bike at the railway station. Or a public transportation electric car at the railway station. Or a bus, subway, tram. You can even bring your bike with those. And no parking costs or searching for a parking spot. Just park your bike right outside your destination. Or right in front of your home, even if you live in an apartment in the city center. It’s revolutionary. Check This guy’s channel for more on Dutch infrastructure. We’re number 1 in the world for best roads.
I’m surprised to see the inventor still posting YouTube. The test track was torn down and the cars put in a museum 10-15 years ago.
It does solve a still increasingly relevant issue, but I really don’t think it will ever be done that way.
What about a train for cars to replace highways
This exists, Amtrak even runs one called the Auto Train, but it’s a lot more efficient to just leave the cars behind and put the people straight on the train.
reinvent something which works perfectly into some futuristic looking concept
We already have the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn
Seattle has this, but the train rides on top of the monorail. We call it… The Monorail
but how can the same system be made to work in areas with large distances between individual users and with the rails in disrepair?
The only solution I can think of would be using rails in citys and tires in rural areas with mechanisms like rail service trucks so as to meet the needs of rural individuals. I know they make up a minority, however if the government could fully replace roads with rails and bike lanes in citys it would be almost necessary to provide a way for rural people who occasionally vist to go shopping for goods that the mail system doesn’t deliver and local stores don’t stock (eg. appliances, specialty meats and vegetables, lithium ion batterys, specialty healthcare, and bulk goods).
Or we could just have subways with actual cargo space that’s secure, large enough to store 8x4 plywood, reservable in advance, and with a competent loading/ unloading mechanism for transfers from subway to train and ebike to subway.
Or we could have trains, subways, bicycle lanes, roads for cars and delivery trucks which we drive ourselves, airplanes and ships. Why do we have to reinvent the system we currently have? It works. Trains for long distances, trucks for the last part. Cycling in cities (at least in NL) and cars for longer distances. Subways, trams and busses for public transportation in larger cities, trains for travel between cities, ships for massive cargo, planes for fast casgo and traveling really far. More and more is changing to electric. We shouldn’t replace all roads with train tracks for individuals to use just because they are too lazy to drive themselves. There’s lots of work to do in the US, as that country is made for cars only. Look at The Netherlands, we’ve done a really good job changing everything to cycling and public transportation mainly. Or Denmark. Kopenhagen is insanely well designed for bicycles and public transportation, even though it’s a really old city. Tokyo is huge, their public transportation system is insane, it’s perfect in every way.
If you’re going to complain about train tracks in rural areas being in disrepair, why not repair them? Here in NL we have a track replacement train which drives at night and replaces the entire track during the time the track isn’t used. No manual labor, fully automatic.
Just because the US doesn’t repair and upgrade the systems they have and stubbornly sticks to mainly road travel even though there are many countries which have shown that doesn’t work but changing does, doesn’t mean we have to invent new stupid shit because the American infrastructure is so extremely dumb.
We will always need some cars/trucks/semi’s, we can just switch most of it to other forms of transportation which are already out there. Just learn to drive if you really need a car, it’s not rocket science. Otherwise take the buss.
but how can the same system be made to work in areas with large distances between individual users
You can also just look at history to see how this would work. Interurban cars (electric streetcars that are capable of sustaining speeds of 60+mph) would operate on flagstop routes, only stopping at stations if either a passenger onboard requested or a passenger at the station flagged them down. Additionally passengers could often flag the cars from anywhere along the tracks to pick them up (this would vary by system/line)
Combine such a system with bicycles and you’re already most of the way there to car-free/car-light rural living
they’re making an extra lane from Allentown to Philadelphia on the 476 highway when it would’ve been better to make a railroad.
Traffic will get better, then much worse. If you are unfamiliar it’s a concept call induced demand.
The funny thing is there is not a lot of traffic now. I think maybe it’s for truck traffic by having a third lane. The population in Allentown is increasing because everyone is moving from NYC and maybe they’re predicting more travel to Philly, but mass transit would’ve been better.
Pretty much the textbook definition of induced demand. The extra lane will speed it up and the road between will become an absolute traffic nightmare in a couple years. Really sad watching habit keep us making the same mistakes over and over again.
Raise your hand, if you want to transform all roads into a bumpercar arena. 🙋 Imagine how fun commuting would be.
I would fuckin love shoving people going 5 mph under the speed limit out of the fast lane. There are many times that I’ve wished I had a Romulan disruptor mounted to the front of my car so I could disintegrate the car in front of me and go about my merry way.
I’m just imagining having a shitty morning, commuting to work, and some little 12 year old twerp keeps smashing into me from behind at full speed while laughing their ass off…ugh.
I was talking about this recently with a coworker but I remember a modern marvels episode on the History Channel many many years ago that was talking about California experiments with highways for self driving cars. S
o they were embedding magnets into the ground and the cars had sensors to follow those and them they would pack drive like 10 cars nose to tail. This is what I’ve always expected from self driving cars. It wild were going to direction we are with them but getting any local/state/federal government to pay to add shit to roads is probably a long shot.
I’d MUCH rather my tax dollars go to public transport for the masses, as opposed to embedding magnets in roads to help wealthy self-driving car owners
Balaji provides a great example of how not to think about developing systems that use AI. If you can build a system that is human-like in perception and cognition, then you don’t need anything more than what a human uses to navigate driving. His statement is like saying “I solved this problem because I didn’t actually attempt it”.
The problem stated is self driving cars, not use AI to self drive on roads unchanged from those used by human drivers.
How is it self driving if it’s on fucking tracks my guy?
Edit to say I get that “tracks” may not literally be required, but that’s besides the point
Edit2 note that self driving as a term has been agreed to convey autonomous driving. If you’re thinking of trams or trains as self driving than you need to use the fucking correct terminology of self propelled. You cannot redefine a term because you failed the problem or don’t want to attempt it
Oh no I’m shook
But honestly, a system with RFID beacons in road signals…?
Did you just throw terminology together to try and sound smart? 🤣
If a picture says more than enough words, doesn’t it say too much, rendering verbal description more efficient?
One image for one thousand words is efficiency. I’m not sure what you mean.
Always cut extra?
only if you scan images pixel by pixel for meaning
Try doing tight curves on a railroad. Try steep grades on a railroad. Try running a line to every neighborhood, with using eniment domain.
Somethings are just not practical
Try running a line to every neighborhood, with using eniment domain.
Aren’t you just describing how roads were built to every home in every community?
Nobody wants a train infront of every home. Thats what busses are for.
Rail is fundamentally superior to roads + cars at an engineering level.
All at the same time:
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Rail has a smaller footprint
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Rail moves multiple times more people or cargo per hour
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Rail has multiple times more fuel efficiency
The fact that USA’s policy has been designed to favor cars only makes them more ‘practical’ than rail if you consider political constraints more binding than physics constraints.
I’ll grant that trucks have tighter turning radii and maximum operating grade. If we truly only used them when those characteristics are needed THAT would be ‘practical’
… Rail is quite adaptive.
Here are two methods for steep inclines.
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Id do trams
You dont need to have a line to every street and a stop in front of every house. Works pretty decently when paired with the willingness to walk a couple of minutes or cycle to a stop.
Yes, I am European. And glad I moved from the countryside to a city with loads of public transport options. I use the car way less now.
Have you heard of the tramway?
Or try putting your hands on the fuckin wheel.
What about buses for those scenarios? I can’t imagine a situation outside some huge outlier or the middle of nowhere where rail and bus were both not practical to get to a destination but cars are.
But muh edge cases!
The people who want these rail lines everywhere aren’t being reasonable. There are other reasons besides schedule and routes that people don’t use trains anymore.
Roads are going to need modifications to be made truly safe for self driving. I don’t think it’ll be particularly expensive, either. Some things that would likely help would be reflectors that only reflect a certain spectrum of light, ferrous materials, passive radio equipment, etc. These are all things a machine can slap onto/into asphalt and shoulders without much trouble. It can be done rapidly. It only has to be decided upon and done. On top of these, it’s not like roads are all that dynamic. Sure, there’s always construction, but for the most part, they don’t change rapidly. Any self driving car should have a very up to date model loaded of the roads in the contiguous land it can traverse.
If society really wanted self driving cars to be a safe reality, it would just require a little more focus. Trying to do it with computer vision without road augmentation is clearly problematic. My car has a travel assist feature similar to Tesla’s Autopilot. It is great on well marked roadways without tight curves, but can be dangerous if the driver isn’t paying attention as it will lose the road lines at times and go off on its own.
Who upvotes this shit?
