Followups set to mtu-t, feel free to add whatever ng you're posting from
Jack May <***@comcast.net> wrote:
> > > The data is abundant that real rail, not your fairy tale rail is tens of
> > > times more expensive to get a person out of a car than to support
> > > additional capacity with roads.
> > >
> > That depends on a number of things including how you get the person out
> > of the car, and how built up the area is.
>
> We are seeing similar results all over California. The results are not
> very sensitive to details which is a common characteristic of large system
> theory.
>
From what I've seen on mtu-t, this could be due to mismanagement. I'm
thinking here of BART's refusal to charge for parking where there aren't
enough spaces, forcing people to drive into SF.
> >
> > > > they have several serious limitations. They can't move as many
> > > > people in as narrow a corridor as quickly, as safely, or with as
> > > > little energy, as rail. Also, car drivers (and bike riders) can't
> > > > read or work while traveling; they have to give their full attention
> > > > to the road.
> > >
> > > What do you call books on tape that a lot of people use while commuting.
> >
> > a) An exception.
> > b) A market response to the problem of people not being able to do
> > anything else while driving.
> >
> > > They also listen to talk radio, the news, and listen to music. They
> > > also do a lot of things like eat, shave, put on make-up, read, make
> > > business calls on the cell phone, even though it is certainly not
> > > recommended.
>
> > And you can't see the disadvantage of having all those people driving???
>
> No, it is meeting their needs in a free market .
Let me get this straight - you can't see the problem with, and are in
favour of, people driving while eating, drinking, shaving, putting on
makeup, reading, and making business calls on the cellphone because it
is meeting their needs in a free market???
Wouldn't you rather have cheaper car insurance?
> Trains are running mainly empty because they do not meet people's demands
>
Then they should be made to meet people's demands!
> Spoken like a true bureaucrat. If it is a success then it must be a
> failure,. If it is a failure, it must a success.
I make no such claim, but I do recognise that the relationship between
success and failure is far more complicated than "if demand is high, it
must be a success". Just look at California's electricity system!
> > >
> > > Anyone that actually commutes, and is not some dumb kid like you are
> > > apparently, knows this.
> > >
> > > > Many of the costs of roads are offloaded onto the users, or onto the
> > > > businesses reachable by roads. What is the cost of vast acreages of
> > > > parking lots?
> > >
> > > It is a very small percentage of the land
> >
> > ...Except where it isn't! Why do you post meaningless claims?
>
> I got it from the California State website.
>
Care to supply a URL? Or the actual percentage (and what exactly it's a
percentage of)?
>
> > But that rail is nowhere near its capacity. It would be much easier to
> > provide extra capacity on the trains than on the freeway.
>
> You have to get people to ride it to use that capacity. During the dot-com
> bubble in Silicon Valley, trains took less than 1 percent of the people off
> the road even though traffic was horrible. Capacity is not seats, but how
> many people actually use the service.
>
What is the train service like in Silicon Valley?
>
> > > Or of having to tear down homes and businesses to widen
> > > > a highway? Or of sundering neighborhoods, keeping people from being
> > > > able to walk to their neighbors or to the local store?
> > >
> > > Oh where are they doing that? Its very rare these days because it is
> > > also extremely expensive.
> > >
> > Indeed it is, which is why they're often choosing rail instead. Don't
> > fall into the trap of assuming costs are linear.
>
> Rail is still far more expensive than roads even in the rare cases where it
> is done.
Then you're probably doing it wrong!
> What about the space for trains which takes more space per
> passenger miles than most roads. Are those new tracks suspended by
> gossamer threads high over the city so no land needs to be taken.
>
Where land is that expensive, the railway can go in tunnel. 'Tis easier
and cheaper to put a railway underground than to put a road underground.
>
> > > By increasing that to 30%, which is not difficult, then the capacity is
> > > tripled. The cost is around 10,000 times cheaper to add the technology
> > > to an existing road than it is to build a lane of light rail.
> > >
> > I'm surprised that someone so keen to dismiss anything that looks like a
> > fairy tale should be spouting this crap! It is not the roads that would
> > require this technology, it's the cars themselves.
>
> Technology is added to both. We normally talk about cost to Governments
> because that is the usual bottle neck in funding.
But that's because the government's usually in control of the money.
Where it's the consumers who are in control, that's where the the
bottleneck will be.
> > Adding computer control to every car on the road would be horrendously
> > expensive, and whether it can reliably eliminate collisions remains to
> > be seen. If it can't, it's probably a nonstarter. Even with this
> > technology, the closer together the cars are, the bigger the pileup a
> > collision will result in.
>
> Mass produced electronics is horrendously expensive????? Absolute nonsense
> as anyone knows that buys modern electronics. .
Except that these will be electromechanical devices, not merely
electronics.
> > Also, getting off the freeway without running into any bottleneck could
> > be rather difficult, and the effect of tailbacks is a lot worse when the
> > vehicles are closer. If vehicles taking up 10% of the space slow down,
> > they move closer together. Increasing that to 30% would seriously limit
> > the scope for that, so traffic waves would be a much bigger problem.
>
> Traffic waves as everyone knows are caused by human reaction times. With
> communications between vehicles and the fast reaction time of electronics,
> the waves are not a factor.
Aren't they also caused by diffeences in braking rates?
> They started testing the technology in 1999 and I don't think there are
> any signs of waves in even a reasonably good design.
But are they testing it in real world conditions? It only takes one
human to seriously mess things up!
> >
> > > As technology advances, solutions can be envisioned that bump that
> > > figure up to about a 15 to 20 to one improvement with much smaller
> > > vehicles designed to take advantage of the technology.
> > >
> > > The car companies have a large demand for this since people want to
> > > commute without driving their car so they can do a lot more thing
> > > while having all the advantages of a car and none of the commuter
> > > hostile characteristics of
> >
> > Then why don't they take a taxi?
>
> Because you have wait typically 30 minutes to an hour for a taxi on each end
> to come instead of getting in your car and driving away. Time is money.
>
Is your city really so short of taxis that you can't phone for one when
you want it?
> Having someone driving you in a taxi is what, a couple of bucks a mile
I don't think they're usually that expensive.
> instead of the much cheaper driving your car. Money is money.
>
Which is why people will be reluctant to shell out for devices that add
thousands of dollars to the cost of their cars!
> > > trains that they in general hate so much as we see in polls.
> >
> > What polls? The majority of people seem to like trains, and most of the
> > rest like driving.
>
> Political polls in Santa Clara County show little support by voters for any
> train except for BART. When they see what a farce BART is, support will
> also go away there.as well. The poll was published in the San Jose Mercury
> news a few months ago.
So the logical course of action is to figure out what characteristics of
BART make it an exception, and apply it to Caltrain and whoever else
runs trains in your part of the world.