4 ms·

Solving problems is not ignoring them and wish they go away. One of the biggest problem with transportation infrastructures in the US is the cost of the right-o

by erispoe 11y ago

Solving problems is not ignoring them and wish they go away. One of the biggest problem with transportation infrastructures in the US is the cost of the right-of-way. This is barely touched by Hyperloop (the project doesn't account for these costs) because it focuses on the technical solution, that is actually the easiest part. The PG motto is more relevant than ever: make something people want. In that case, make something that people will want in their backyard. Selling is the hard part.

simplemath 11y ago
This is 100% the biggest problem with the concept. Good luck getting a closed tube through a municipality, let alone a major city, let alone across an entire state.
- sailfast 11y ago
  I'm guessing (hoping?) that these things are going to be a hell of a lot quieter and less pollutant than diesel trains so perhaps it would be something I wouldn't mind living next to or around.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
vidarh 11y ago
A large part of the reason for how hyperloop is structured the way it is, is exactly because of right of way: The proposal calls for pylons and for the route to largely follow the highways in order to be able to take advantage of existing right of way to minimize those issues as much as possible. It might very well be that they should have spent more effort on that aspect, but they didn't ignore it. And the PG motto is great if you want to make money as fast as possible with as little risk as possible. It's not nearly so great if your goal is to make a major change to society.
- erispoe 11y ago
  NIMBYs on the San Francisco Peninsula (Palo Alto, Menlo Park...) got their pitchforks out for a High Speed Rail project that would use the existing right-of-way and they managed to downscale the project dramatically. HSR wouldn't disturb them in any way, it would even make things better compared to the existing diesel CalTrain operation. Do you think they will be happier with a series of concrete pylons? Rail viaducts exist, and people are not exactly thrilled to have one in their backyard. Following the highway network is great (and Germany largely does it for HSR) but the highway system is designed with very different constraints. That might be possible in largely desert or rural places without a lot of topography, but highways have curves and slopes incompatible with high speed as soon as you hit a significant topography. The cost of right-of-way skyrockets in urban and dense environments that are exactly the ones you want to serve with HSR/HyperLoop. Both systems are on par in the regard. The mile-long tunnel to bring HSR in the heart of San Francisco is expected to cost several billion dollars. The cost of the technical equipment of that infrastructure for conventional rail is marginal compared to the cost of digging the tunnel itself. Sure we could solve that, with strong eminent domain powers for the state for instance. But I'm not sure anyone wants that, nor that the Supreme Court would let it happen.

by erispoe 11y ago

simplemath 11y ago

This is 100% the biggest problem with the concept. Good luck getting a closed tube through a municipality, let alone a major city, let alone across an entire state.

sailfast 11y ago
I'm guessing (hoping?) that these things are going to be a hell of a lot quieter and less pollutant than diesel trains so perhaps it would be something I wouldn't mind living next to or around.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

vidarh 11y ago

A large part of the reason for how hyperloop is structured the way it is, is exactly because of right of way: The proposal calls for pylons and for the route to largely follow the highways in order to be able to take advantage of existing right of way to minimize those issues as much as possible. It might very well be that they should have spent more effort on that aspect, but they didn't ignore it. And the PG motto is great if you want to make money as fast as possible with as little risk as possible. It's not nearly so great if your goal is to make a major change to society.

erispoe 11y ago
NIMBYs on the San Francisco Peninsula (Palo Alto, Menlo Park...) got their pitchforks out for a High Speed Rail project that would use the existing right-of-way and they managed to downscale the project dramatically. HSR wouldn't disturb them in any way, it would even make things better compared to the existing diesel CalTrain operation. Do you think they will be happier with a series of concrete pylons? Rail viaducts exist, and people are not exactly thrilled to have one in their backyard. Following the highway network is great (and Germany largely does it for HSR) but the highway system is designed with very different constraints. That might be possible in largely desert or rural places without a lot of topography, but highways have curves and slopes incompatible with high speed as soon as you hit a significant topography. The cost of right-of-way skyrockets in urban and dense environments that are exactly the ones you want to serve with HSR/HyperLoop. Both systems are on par in the regard. The mile-long tunnel to bring HSR in the heart of San Francisco is expected to cost several billion dollars. The cost of the technical equipment of that infrastructure for conventional rail is marginal compared to the cost of digging the tunnel itself. Sure we could solve that, with strong eminent domain powers for the state for instance. But I'm not sure anyone wants that, nor that the Supreme Court would let it happen.