5 ms·

We should get Elon to do it.

InitialLastName 9y ago
Elon doesn't believe in public transit. Too many plebes packed into too little space. He'd rather move people in their cars instead, and if there's anything New York City does not need it's more cars.
- nashashmi 9y ago
  hyperloop?
  - InitialLastName 9y ago
    I can't find it at the moment, but he's been talking up hyperloop as a way to move pods with private cars in them. The Boring Company (a step towards Hyperloop, potentially), is talking about drilling holes small enough that only those pods would work.
kalleboo 9y ago
Elon won't save you here. You gotta wait for his magic gridlock-reducing self-driving cars. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-transit/ https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-t... “I think public transport is painful. It sucks. Why do you want to get on something with a lot of other people, that doesn’t leave where you want it to leave, doesn’t start where you want it to start, doesn’t end where you want it to end? And it doesn’t go all the time.” “It’s a pain in the ass,” he continued. “That’s why everyone doesn’t like it. And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer, OK, great. And so that’s why people like individualized transport, that goes where you want, when you want.” When the audience member responded that public transportation seemed to work in Japan, Musk shot back, “What, where they cram people in the subway? That doesn’t sound great.”
- gene-h 9y ago
  Well the thing to wait for is not Musk's self-driving cars, but Musk disrupting the tunnel boring machine industry. Sure, Musk might not like public transit, but his boring company could very well offer tunnel drilling services. Any improvement at all may cause other tunnel drilling companies to decrease prices. Of course, we really shouldn't be relying on Musk for things like this.
- razorunreal 9y ago
  As much as I appreciate the guy, I don't think he thought this one through. A simple back of the envelope calculation would reveal just how hard it is to compete with a subway in terms of people per hour for a given width of road/track. Even bicycles, which are pretty compact, still need a safe stopping distance which wrecks the space efficiency. If you eliminate the stopping distances you probably also want to connect the vehicles to reduce crashes, and tada, it's a train.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  Honestly I agree with his statements 100 percent. Mass transit done well is mediocre at best compared to individual transportation. Especially if someone else is driving. I would rather take an uberpool over the CTA any day of the week, it's simply faster and generally the same price
  - amorphid 9y ago
    I live in San Francisco, and the public transit is useable compared to most other parts of California. Recently I visited Copenhagen, Denmark, and I found the public transit to be much nicer than mediocre (even if I couldn't by train tickets with a sign-only-no-PIN American credit card!)

Elon doesn't believe in public transit. Too many plebes packed into too little space. He'd rather move people in their cars instead, and if there's anything New York City does not need it's more cars.

nashashmi 9y ago
hyperloop?
- InitialLastName 9y ago
  I can't find it at the moment, but he's been talking up hyperloop as a way to move pods with private cars in them. The Boring Company (a step towards Hyperloop, potentially), is talking about drilling holes small enough that only those pods would work.

kalleboo 9y ago

Elon won't save you here. You gotta wait for his magic gridlock-reducing self-driving cars. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-transit/ https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-t... “I think public transport is painful. It sucks. Why do you want to get on something with a lot of other people, that doesn’t leave where you want it to leave, doesn’t start where you want it to start, doesn’t end where you want it to end? And it doesn’t go all the time.” “It’s a pain in the ass,” he continued. “That’s why everyone doesn’t like it. And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer, OK, great. And so that’s why people like individualized transport, that goes where you want, when you want.” When the audience member responded that public transportation seemed to work in Japan, Musk shot back, “What, where they cram people in the subway? That doesn’t sound great.”

gene-h 9y ago
Well the thing to wait for is not Musk's self-driving cars, but Musk disrupting the tunnel boring machine industry. Sure, Musk might not like public transit, but his boring company could very well offer tunnel drilling services. Any improvement at all may cause other tunnel drilling companies to decrease prices. Of course, we really shouldn't be relying on Musk for things like this.
razorunreal 9y ago
As much as I appreciate the guy, I don't think he thought this one through. A simple back of the envelope calculation would reveal just how hard it is to compete with a subway in terms of people per hour for a given width of road/track. Even bicycles, which are pretty compact, still need a safe stopping distance which wrecks the space efficiency. If you eliminate the stopping distances you probably also want to connect the vehicles to reduce crashes, and tada, it's a train.
paulie_a 9y ago
Honestly I agree with his statements 100 percent. Mass transit done well is mediocre at best compared to individual transportation. Especially if someone else is driving. I would rather take an uberpool over the CTA any day of the week, it's simply faster and generally the same price
- amorphid 9y ago
  I live in San Francisco, and the public transit is useable compared to most other parts of California. Recently I visited Copenhagen, Denmark, and I found the public transit to be much nicer than mediocre (even if I couldn't by train tickets with a sign-only-no-PIN American credit card!)