Everything about public transportation!
The problem it can't solve is that rich people might have to interact with mere humans. The car in a tube seats four and locks, so there's zero chance you'll have to sit next to a minority.
I wonder if rail would be more appealing to them if the coaches were designed as multiple isolated cells that seated 4-6, rather than straight-through corridors that permit mingling. (I've seen some old designs like that, in German narrow-gauge form)
The problem it can’t solve is that rich people might have to interact with mere humans.
I can relate. We, in Indonesia, have a problem where politicians, whose never even ride a train before, gets to decide the policies about public transport, and those who gets the consequenece is low-middle class who uses public transport. There was a meme from a year ago where a tone-deaf politician says the overcrowded trains in Jakarta doesn't exist even though it overcrowding is clearly a problem in regional line (KRL) due to lack of trains.
I wonder if rail would be more appealing to them if the coaches were designed as multiple isolated cells that seated 4-6, rather than straight-through corridors that permit mingling.
Assuming we're talking about short distance trains, absolutely no, lol. It's just space inefficient. I will understand if it is a long distance trains, and it is a thing.
Short-distance city trains used to have multiple compartments too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_Door_(train) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_(train)
Things like the "C-Trains" in Calgary, despite being intended for mass transit (and ridden mainly by the poors) are also multi-compartment.
I assumed the parent commenter meant this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartment_coach
But if the commenter meant cross-seat trains like this:
then yeah it exists
Yes.... it's the first one? Did you not look at the links I shared?
You think public transit would be better if there were more obstructed sight-lines? Hunh. Are you also volunteering for mop duty if that's not actually how things turn out?
i continue to weep for the death of Per Albin Hansson, the old social democrat leader who was so steadfast in riding the tram home to his apartment that he's known for his death happening immediately after stepping off the tram (heart attack) when he could have chosen to be driven home by another politician.
The Vegas loop is a 2 mile tunnel accessible only to Teslas. It's not solving any problems. They want to expand it- I don't think that will go well.
How is it making money (as mentioned in the post), do people also have to pay to use it?
Edit: found it https://lvloop.com/tickets
Turns out it is a taxi service. I thought it is a tunnel that anyone could take to save time as well. Here's a video of how it works.
Another interesting bit that I discovered is that city is not paying for these tunnels, they are covered by Boring company. Now it makes a bit more sense why this thing was ever allowed.
Those tunnels are a death trap. The person who approved it should be investigated
And they'll throw their arms up and say "who could have predicted that ???" When something terrible happens (conveniently ignoring decades of road tunnels accidents and the safeties precautions we learned from them)
Yeah, EV batteries and very narrow tunnel (so narrow you can't open the car door apparently) is a bad combination
The reasons it's so narrow is that Apartheid Manchild's "Boring Company" has drills that are too small for the projects he envisions using them for.
I mean, light rail seems to be pretty effective in Portland, the problems it does have don't really seem to be efficiency related.
https://www.opb.org/article/2024/10/23/portland-max-stabbing-crime-trimet-death-oregon-bus-lawsuit/
Thanks for the reply. TIL about the Portland's LRT. After watching a video about it [1], my impression about the LRT is that it seems like one of the best LRT in North America.
The crime part is really unfortunate though, and I doubt there is anything the LRT can do about it as it's not their fault, rather, it's probably a systematic problem, cmiiw.
Musk is not "people in the US", and most of those have no say in what "gets built", so rephrase your blame, fellow crab in the bucket.
Yeah, should have rephrased that. AFAIK Elon is a South African, not even US citizen right?
I'm not even from USA to be clear, but my limited image of USA is that it lacks efforts of building public transport, especially compared to other developed countries. Heck, compared to developing countries even.
One of the example, US seems like a perfect place to build a high-speed rail network. Yet, CAHSR seems to keep getting delayed. In comparison Morocco has a HSR. Even Indonesia has one opened last year.
No, he gained US citizenship in 2002.
You're gonna love the history rabbit hole re: the automotive industry lobbying and all but singlehandedly squashing rail expansion (see: highways), NGL. 👨🏽🍳
I think we should stop saying "lobbying" and start saying "corruption" or "bribing" isntead
I see what you're getting at, but by saying either and meaning "lobbying", we're fighting their side for them, allowing it to expand by being obtuse. We deserve better. "Lobbying" has become lobbying, and calling it what it is names it.
Why would it? most people have never experienced good transit, just transit for those who after a few dwi's can't get their friends to drive them anymore. Transit money feels like throwing good money after bad. most republicans honestly embrace this
meanwhile the democrats see transit as getting other people (poor, or at least someone else) off the road so they don't care if a proposal that wouldn't work for them becauseemost can't imangine using it anyway. They alse see getting these someone else's off the road as green which they hope is enough to solve global warming without having to make changes themself
Democrats also see transit money as a way to bring on jobs or art - either way the more they spend on small segments the better. it never occurs to them that cheap projecs can do more and since transit is about the network that would inthe long run result in transit they would use.
the above is a generalization. there are excaptions on both sides (though more democrats) who care about transit. this probably includes everyone reading this. How do we change the majority is the question. you will probahly cry when you admit the truth of the above.
The thing that never ceases to astound me in the US is that the barrier for entry to public transport is so hilariously low, they have effectively nothing in most places so it's absolutely trivial to quintuple the amount of public transport users in a few years if they just tried, and yet most places do NOTHING
There is such an unmet demand for public transport that a bus startup should be eminently viable, but nope, no one even seems to be trying.
Meanwhile in europe we already generally have at worst decent public transport and yet companies like flixbus exist, which i don't even understand how they have ridership when they run routes parallel to railways that take like twice as long while obviously being less comfortable..
flixbus exist, which i don’t even understand how they have ridership when they run routes parallel to railways that take like twice as long while obviously being less comfortable…
Would you mind explaining more? How's Flixbus?
so the way public transport generally works —in sweden at least— is that the bulk of it is managed by the regional government and uses a zone system (like the oyster cards in london i think). Then ontop of that there's SJ, the national train operator, which has its own generally separate ticket system that is more traditional where you book a specific departure between two stations.
Then outside of this you also have fully private public transport companies, of which the major ones are VR trains between stockholm-gothenburg, snälltåget which runs night trains from the north to south (sometimes down to hamburg/berlin), and flixbus which runs a bunch of routes throughout sweden.
so the strange thing about flixbus is that it runs a bunch of routes that take you between the same places as the trains can, in a less comfortable vehicle, and absolutely fucking hilariously slower.
For example gothenburg-stockholm is 3-4 hours by train and flixbus takes 6-7 hours.
There are some reasons i can see to opt for flixbus, most obvious being that it does serve places where getting to the trains is otherwise inconvenient and it can be like half the price, but it still astonishes me that a completely for-profit company finds that a sensible thing to operate here.
But hadn‘t the city paid for those tunnels? How on earth does Elon own them?
capitalist magic, turning taxpayer money into billionaire profits somehow
Wait, how a tunnel can make a profit? Do you have to pay to have a privilege to drive through it?
Its kinda like a taxi! The tunnel has drivers and teslas that will take from one end to the other, tho there is a video on YouTube that walking the distance is faster than the tunnel…
I thought it's a tunnel that you can drive through yourself to save some time, but turns out it really is just a taxi service that can travel only through these tunnels.
Here's a video of the whole experience. I would personally just have a walk instead.
Actually not that uncommon.
I suppose. Forgot that toll roads exist which is the same idea.
I feel like we could just sell privately owned, battery powered cars that can ride the rail, which comes with unlimited access to rental cars, trucks, bikes, and scooters from the train station. Obviously there are private garages nearest to the stations such that richer people can exit their private cars, and switch to their private vehicles without dealing with the poors. For a price, of course.
