4 ms·
I think you're right that stops will be longer, but it's my understanding they'll also be less frequent and they'll cover greater distances than a regular subwa
by econnors 9y ago
I think you're right that stops will be longer, but it's my understanding they'll also be less frequent and they'll cover greater distances than a regular subway track (in say, NY). So you'll end up getting there faster and not have the stress of driving in traffic.
- Fricken 9y agoFor a conventional subway at rush hour, there's 1000s of people getting on or off every hour at any given station, which isn't feasible if you're only loading a dozen people at a time. The alternative being to build proper underground stations, which are a big part of that 'billion dollars per mile' subway construction cost. And this reminds me of Musk's Hyperloop whitepaper, where he estimated it would cost 10 billion to run an evacuated tube from LA to SF, which was ridiculous. There's all this reality that he failed to factor in to his calculations, and once you've addressed the full costs relative to people moving capacity, all of the sudden Hyperloop doesn't look so great compared to conventional high speed rail, and his Boring concept starts looking more and more like conventional subway.
- Turing_Machine 9y agoElevator engineers sometimes handle this problem by having "express" elevators that travel between distant floors and "local" elevators that operate between nearby floors. That avoids the need for big central stations (other than the ground-floor lobby, of course, but there's no way around that for a building -- a street transport system isn't limited to a single point of entry).
- kuschku 9y agoCongratulations. You just reinvented the concept of local busses connecting subway stations within of a few blocks to the local area. Express vs. Local was actually borrowed from that concept.
- Turing_Machine 9y agoI haven't "reinvented" anything. I was pointing out how elevator engineers solve the problem.