6 ms·

Huh? Transportation technology massively benefits the poor more than it does the rich. The biggest expense that the working class pay is rent. If you can cut

by stale2002 9y ago

Huh? Transportation technology massively benefits the poor more than it does the rich. The biggest expense that the working class pay is rent. If you can cut long distance commute times in half, then that means that someone who works in the city is able to save 50% or more on rent by living outside the extremely expensive city. Transportation and housing (2 sides of the same coin) is arguably the single most important issue facing the working class.

_delirium 9y ago
Isn't the hyperloop focused on fast city-center-to-city-center transportation between major commercial districts? I don't see how making it fast to go nonstop between Manhattan and D.C. (the current proposal) helps the working class with affordable housing.
- methodin 9y ago
  Well I suppose it would open up job opportunities assuming the price to go city-to-city is comparable to say, driving multiple hours each way in order to get to work. Of course that assumes you live near one city in order to get to another. Wouldn't help rural folks I'm afraid but there really isn't a transportation solution that can function on sparsely populated areas. Even the trains in London, for example, go through suburban areas that are still relatively densely populated.
- isostatic 9y ago
  Where in manhattan? Travel from battery park to DC involves can take 50 minutes to get from the office to the platform at Penn station. Now if hyperloop has stations at various NY locations (JFK, downtown, midtown, uptown) and a couple of Washington locations, that will save a fair amount of time. I'll believe it when I see it, and when it can cope with 3000 people an hour in each direction
ethn 9y ago
If it really is beneficial, then Elon Musk and the share holders, should use their same influence they have on the government, on the financial institutions that exist to acquire low interest loans. There is of no reason, that the tax payers should be forced to support the risk or even a project that few people under the upper-middle class will benefit from. There is no reason that Elon Musk should be subsidized to create a private monopoly of transportation––quite contrary, he should be paying the government for the externality caused by being privileged to the exclusive right of the vast common land underneath the states; a common land that other tax payers are now deprived from. Most citizens of the USA don't even live in the city, especially the ones who you claim would benefit from it. They already live in cheap housing in New Jersey 30 minutes away.
- stale2002 9y ago
  What in the world are you talking about? Their shareholders are spending their own money to finance this. They are not being subsidized. Lobbying the government to pay for this instead, would be doing the thing that you are arguing against. Why should the taxpayers pay for this when other people are perfectly willing to spend their money instead? Not only that, but it would take decades for the government to do it, AND if they were to do it then it would be 10 times more expensive.
Tloewald 9y ago
Explain how the Concorde (an example in the article) benefited the poor more than the rich.
- isostatic 9y ago
  Concorde failed financially, partly due to USian "not invented here" policy, but mainly because not enough rich people were willing to pay for the speed. However Ryanair was very successful by targettk f "poor" people
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

_delirium 9y ago

Isn't the hyperloop focused on fast city-center-to-city-center transportation between major commercial districts? I don't see how making it fast to go nonstop between Manhattan and D.C. (the current proposal) helps the working class with affordable housing.

methodin 9y ago
Well I suppose it would open up job opportunities assuming the price to go city-to-city is comparable to say, driving multiple hours each way in order to get to work. Of course that assumes you live near one city in order to get to another. Wouldn't help rural folks I'm afraid but there really isn't a transportation solution that can function on sparsely populated areas. Even the trains in London, for example, go through suburban areas that are still relatively densely populated.
isostatic 9y ago
Where in manhattan? Travel from battery park to DC involves can take 50 minutes to get from the office to the platform at Penn station. Now if hyperloop has stations at various NY locations (JFK, downtown, midtown, uptown) and a couple of Washington locations, that will save a fair amount of time. I'll believe it when I see it, and when it can cope with 3000 people an hour in each direction

ethn 9y ago

If it really is beneficial, then Elon Musk and the share holders, should use their same influence they have on the government, on the financial institutions that exist to acquire low interest loans. There is of no reason, that the tax payers should be forced to support the risk or even a project that few people under the upper-middle class will benefit from. There is no reason that Elon Musk should be subsidized to create a private monopoly of transportation––quite contrary, he should be paying the government for the externality caused by being privileged to the exclusive right of the vast common land underneath the states; a common land that other tax payers are now deprived from. Most citizens of the USA don't even live in the city, especially the ones who you claim would benefit from it. They already live in cheap housing in New Jersey 30 minutes away.

stale2002 9y ago
What in the world are you talking about? Their shareholders are spending their own money to finance this. They are not being subsidized. Lobbying the government to pay for this instead, would be doing the thing that you are arguing against. Why should the taxpayers pay for this when other people are perfectly willing to spend their money instead? Not only that, but it would take decades for the government to do it, AND if they were to do it then it would be 10 times more expensive.

Tloewald 9y ago

Explain how the Concorde (an example in the article) benefited the poor more than the rich.

isostatic 9y ago
Concorde failed financially, partly due to USian "not invented here" policy, but mainly because not enough rich people were willing to pay for the speed. However Ryanair was very successful by targettk f "poor" people
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]