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Latin America is seeing a cable-car boom
- billiob 9y agoHowWeGetToNext had a great (and lengthy) article on that topic: https://howwegettonext.com/cable-cars-are-changing-the-world-61f2b803c129#.a6j77j6er https://howwegettonext.com/cable-cars-are-changing-the-world...
- Johnny555 9y agoMexicable charges seven pesos (37 cents), less than half of its break-even price ... The jury is out on whether cable cars are worth the cost. I'd be surprised if they can run a bus line or any other transit for less than 74 cents/trip.
- thriftwy 9y agoDollar vans totally can. In countries with low cost of living private vans can be profitable at 20 cents per ride. I've rode plenty of those.
- buyx 9y agoDollar vans/share taxis also lead to situations like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_wars_in_South_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_wars_in_South_Africa unless they are well regulated.
- ch4s3 9y agoThey probably can't, but you can maintain roads for what most non EU nations charge in gas taxes either so I guess it's a matter of priorities.
- sliverstorm 9y agoThat's the joke to me, people complain about how we are subsidizing buses and train service- "The buses STILL don't make a profit!"- but when have roads for cars ever turned a profit?
- walshemj 9y agoIn the UK Road Tax Fuel duty and VED exceed that spent on roads by 20+ Billion Pounds 15/16 FY
- sliverstorm 9y agoI guess I don't usually consider taxes to be profits, considering buses etc that do not generate enough in fares are also paid for with taxes.
- walshemj 9y agowe where talking about roads and most of the road traffic is cars, vans and lorries
- ch4s3 9y agook, non EU, non UK countries.
- 7952 9y agoFor many years fuel duty was set at a high level to discourage car use. Since then it has become a large amount of money that the government doesn't want to lose. But it is a bit ironic how it is treated as a source of revenue for road building in the public consciousness. It just doesn't seem to work very well at discouraging driving. People include fuel tax in a basket of other costs and factors they have to contend with.
- DrScump 9y agoIn contrast, Santa Clara County's VTA gets a farebox return of about 12% of operating costs... and that includes nothing toward capital equipment or debt service.
- curtis 9y agoThis reminded me of the tramways [1] in Chiatura, Georgia (the country, not the state). [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/08/stalins-rope-roads/100577/ https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/08/stalins-rope-roads...
- melling 9y agoIn China they’re going to move 160,000/day by maglev trains at 60 mph within Beijing. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-10/16/c_136684196.htm http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-10/16/c_136684196.htm I believe most NYC subways go between 15-30mph: http://gothamist.com/2017/05/17/subway_rollercoaster.php http://gothamist.com/2017/05/17/subway_rollercoaster.php Many people will stop commuting by cars once it’s actually faster by mass transit.
- ceejayoz 9y agoI would suspect cars in NYC average a lot lower than 15-30 mph. edit: http://www.wnyc.org/story/traffic-speeds-slow-nyc-wants-curb-car-service-growth/ http://www.wnyc.org/story/traffic-speeds-slow-nyc-wants-curb... says average speed was 8.5mph in 2014, and worsening. So the subway is still 2-4x as fast.
- melling 9y agoSorry, I only provided subway speed as a comparison of speed. Getting people out of their cars and onto mass transit isn’t as much of problem in Manhattan.
- danmaz74 9y ago> with a maximum designed train speed of 100 km per hour I would be curious to read about the costs of maglev vs traditional rail for this speed range. Does it really make sense to use that tech for low speed?
- seszett 9y agoThe problem with subway speed is not top speed, it's maximum acceleration. There is a maximum acceleration (and deceleration) above which the metro is uncomfortable or even dangerous to its users, some of which are going to be standing. Since the speed at stations has to be zero, this automatically limits your top speed unless you make the stop farther apart, which then comes with other downsides. A 60 mph metro doesn't really make sense so you can't compare that to the speed of NYC subways, however in Paris there are already two separate systems (completely integrated though): the metro with short stops and the RER with longer sections. The RER already goes to 100 km/h within Paris, it moves about 3 million passengers per day, on regular rails (the RER A line is the rail line with the most traffic in Europe).
- pjc50 9y agoSurely the throughput of these is a bit low? I encountered Latin American cable cars in La Paz, where they were necessary as the only viable mass transit option - the main suburb El Alto is up a very steep hill, ruling out trains or subways, and the single road is already a traffic jam of small buses. Conversely the "Emirates air line" in London is a boondoggle, not linking useful places and surrounded by tube and bus lines.
- notauser 9y agoIt's about ten or twenty years too early to establish the success of the Emirates Air Line. In London it's necessary to build infrastructure well before the demand appears because otherwise it's too late to thread it through high density development. At the south end, there's an enormous new housing development being built next to the cable car stop. The southern station is also next to the terminus for the increasingly-popular river boat service. The boat service has taken at least 20 years (and several operator bankruptcies) to get (re)established and what was once a tourist-only route is now picking up more commuters as the frequency improves. At the northern end, the stop is close to the Excel and Custom House station, where there will be a link to Crossrail. As you mention there are existing tube and rail stations in the area but they are heavily overloaded. The DLR is packed when there's a show at the Excel, and the Jubilee line is so full at rush hour you often have to wait for several trains. The cable car also adds a little bit more resilience to the network, allowing options when one of few eastern rail river crossings is running badly. I've taken the cable car plus the boat to get back to Westminster from the Excel when the DLR was closed by an accident. Once the sponsorship runs out (more than half the cost was paid for by Emirates) and it becomes fully in TfL's control - we might see if it becomes a useful, practical, transport link rather than just an occasionally useful tourist attraction.
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- nathancahill 9y agoHere's some schematics of Bogotá's mentioned cable car.[0] Bogotá desperately needs solutions to the cities car crowding. They've tried a lot of innovative things: closing major roads on Sunday only allow bikes and pedestrians, limiting cars in the city by license plate number. The traffic is still terrible. Also of note, taxi associations in Bogotá have been facing off against Uber, sometimes violently. [0] http://gondolaproject.com/2014/10/01/bogotas-cable-cars-learning-but-not-duplicating/ http://gondolaproject.com/2014/10/01/bogotas-cable-cars-lear...
- personlurking 9y agoThose innovations sound like you could be talking about São Paulo as well (they've done all those things). One of the proposals I once heard from a São Paulo city planner was for more people to telecommute. If more companies allow for remote work, the streets don't need to be (as) congested. But I'm skeptical about the long-term success of such a move. What would work a lot better, with the current set-up, is a massive carpooling scheme, since SP transit stats show most automobile trips are single-occupant (IIRC). What would work even better than that is another city-planning 'trick' - making as many neighborhoods as self-sufficient as possible (work/shop/commune near where you already live).
- chiph 9y agoA cable car transit system has been proposed in Austin to help with our traffic woes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wXRMq6laF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wXRMq6laF8