5 ms·

We have $2/gallon gas, from massive domestic production (and similar or lower prices for Jet-A). There are traffic congestion reasons for mass transit in citie

by rdl 8y ago

We have $2/gallon gas, from massive domestic production (and similar or lower prices for Jet-A). There are traffic congestion reasons for mass transit in cities, but we're pretty sorted for inter-city.

randomsearch 8y ago
What about climate change?
- TomMarius 8y ago
  Plant a lot of trees using the rail money?
- rdl 8y ago
  Since cars have a 10-20 year lifespan, and electric is becoming superior, that will probably solve itself over the next 10-20 years (maybe they'll be EV powered by natural gas for a while, but that's still a win, and then the grid might get greener.) Aviation fuel is the highest and best use of hydrocarbons (along with some chemical production), so we can deal with that last, after lots of power generation, demand reduction/efficiency, etc
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    Airliners have gotten far more efficient over the last 40 years, starting with the 757/767. (The 757 design got its start from more efficient engines and a new wing shape.) In fact, efficiency improvements are the primary factor driving new airliner models and sales. At the time of the 757 launch, fuel was 40% of the operating cost of air travel.
    - rdl 8y ago
      A huge improvement (for the biggest planes) is going to twins and ETOPS (not just fuel, also maintenance cost, but also fuel). Not as relevant to domestic routes, though.
  - realityczeque 8y ago
    Not sure your math checks out. EVs are < 1% of fleet and < 2% of sales in the USA. As you say, cars last 10-20 years and this number is rapidly getting longer. Vehicles older than 16 years are the most-rapidly-growing segment of the US vehicle fleet. The average age of US light passenger vehicles hit 12 years in 2016. In 2020 there will still be 80 million cars on the road that were built 1995 or earlier, none of which were electric or even hybrids. Virtually all of the cars sold this year will still be on the road in 2030, and 98% of them will be combustion powered.
    - rdl 8y ago
      What matters is miles driven, not number of vehicles. For someone with a 1-2h each way commute (sigh), replacing a 2010 truck with a 5-year-old 2025 EV in 2030 will make sense on a 2 year cash return basis. For someone who drives 1-2k miles/year, it probably isn't worth upgrading.
      - realityczeque 8y ago
        Yeah but EVs make up a far smaller proportion of miles driven than they do the fleet by units. For obvious reasons: many EVs are short-range vehicles and the people who buy them are self-selecting as people who are both environmentally conscious and able to live with the range problems. People with long commutes who can't afford a Tesla are obligated to burn gas.
        rdl 8y ago
        It is reasonable to assume that a 5 year old EV will be as cheap in 2030 (2025 model) as a 5 year old EV is today (2014 model), while becoming more capable at roughly the rate we've seen so far. A 5 year old Leaf is $6-10k now, and would be a ~250 mile range car by 2025.
the8472 8y ago
For inter-city travel high speed trains will outpace any car even under ideal traffic conditions. Paris - Stuttgart Car: >6h; TGV: ~3h
_delirium 8y ago
Traffic congestion is a pretty big issue for intercity too in some regions. Dallas-Houston is a mere 240 miles but often takes 5 hours to drive. Even in "light" traffic, 4 or so is common. You can do a lot better than that with even decently upgraded "legacy" rail, never mind a Shinkansen/TGV type system. For example, London-Manchester is 210 miles, and trains take only 2 hours.
- kiran-rao 8y ago
  Is there a solution to the last mile problem? It's every difficult to get to the final destination in sprawled suburban cities even if there's a direct center-center high speed rail line.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    Manchester has a great central tram network. London has the underground. Driving in London is mainly an exercise in stress and pointlessness.
  - avn2109 8y ago
    You hop in an Uber.
  - sampo 8y ago
    Build dense cities. For example the Tokio-Osaka Shinkansen averages 130 mph over the whole route with 15 stops in between the end stations. You could get from midtown Manhattan to downtown Boston in 1h40min. Make that 1h15min, if the train didn't have stops between NYC and Boston. So visiting Boston could be almost as fast as visiting the far end of Queens, from Manhattan.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- davnicwil 8y ago
  > London-Manchester is 210 miles, and trains take only 2 hours Yes and to further emphasise, this is not a high speed train (though it does use leaning trains making it faster than other lines, and has few stops. Also it's 2 hours 15 mins to be precise). The proposed high speed train promises London-Manchester in ~1 hour.
smileysteve 8y ago
Thanks to subsidized exploration, and a federal highway tax that is 30 years behind, and no accounting for negative externalities.
craigzucchini 8y ago
If you have, have access to, are able, or want to drive a car, then at best it's reasonable option for places outside of denser areas, albeit far more expensive than the cost of gas. While cars are certainly good in some ways at getting people around to places that don't make sense to service with more significant options, they shouldn't be considered first when thinking about new development imo.
- rdl 8y ago
  A non-new, efficient car (say, a 3 year old Prius) is about $0.15/mi to operate.
  - craigzucchini 8y ago
    Perhaps, though I don't know where that number comes from. If it's purely gas mileage, then it doesn't account for cost of insurance, cost of the car, risk of an accident, cost of storing the car, cost of general maintenance, and, while sort of ancillary, cost the urban area if everyone relies on driving. If it's not pure gas mileage, I'd be curious how that formula works out, but there remain problems with that as a solution to anything.
    - rdl 8y ago
      That's all-in cost, including depreciation and fuel and insurance and maintenance. This is why UberX sort of works for some drivers. The rate for a new car is much closer to the federal reimbursement rate ($0.545/mi), mostly depreciation. Obviously driving a new lambo at 100mph will be more like $4/mi.
      - craigzucchini 8y ago
        I'm really not finding how this can work out to $0.15. Could you clarify about what the federal reimbursement rate is? Again, if that number were true—which it may be but so far it seems unlikely—the remaining issues are important. AAA, CAA, and other news sources, it takes a very generous amount of miles to get there.
chrisseaton 8y ago
When driving your car inter-city do you never think ‘if only I could be working, relaxing or sleeping with this time’ like in a train?
- donatj 8y ago
  Not really because it takes me a fraction of the time. I can do those things far more comfortably when I get there.
- rdl 8y ago
  Self driving will solve that; self driving is absolutely there already technically if we restricted it to special lanes/highways/etc, and probably could be 100% of interstates already too. There are some city center to nearby city center where rail would be nice, I agree. Most of the time when I'm going intercity it is by plane.
  - reindeerer 8y ago
    If you think you see general solution for "self driving" in next 20 years, i have a bridge to sell you
    - rdl 8y ago
      In a restricted lane (dedicated to only self driving vehicles), we have had this capability for at least 15 years.
      - lifeformed 8y ago
        I hope no one is working or sleeping in those lanes.
      - smelendez 8y ago
        That might be fair but that's a chicken-egg problem. We don't have any such lanes because only the self-driving car companies have dual mode vehicles. Nobody's going to market vehicles designed to drive in lanes that don't exist. And building out the lanes and the infrastructure to enter and exit them, probably will boost congestion in the short term.
quickthrower2 8y ago
The article talks about a train that can go 200mph. That makes having people drive between cities seem a rather slow option. Plus you can get work done on a train. On a car it is not possible as a driver (other than phone calls) and pretty hard as a passenger. I take your point about planes, but it's good to have more than one option and trains are good for middling distances, as there isn't all the need to check in, and they can start and stop closer to where you want to depart from and arrive. Not to mention global warming :-)
- shdh 8y ago
  Why just 200mph
  - kingosticks 8y ago
    Because it's here today. It's easy with simple investment, it's got huge benefits over the joke that is the current U.S train service.
    - grecy 8y ago
      There are plenty of passenger trains in service around the world that go faster than 200mp/h, today.
      - bobthepanda 8y ago
        Those are all in China. Wikipedia tells me that max achievable speed in regular service in every country except China is 320km/h. China does 350km/h, but you need to be traveling at quite a long distance for a measly 30km/h increase in speed to be worth it, and China runs much longer high speed rail services than other countries (Beijing to Hong Kong is 9 hours). Besides, the more important thing is average speed. Acela's top speed is respectable for legacy rail, but it achieves this top speed for a total of 33 miles over a 457 mile route.
        grecy 8y ago

by rdl 8y ago

randomsearch 8y ago

What about climate change?

TomMarius 8y ago
Plant a lot of trees using the rail money?
rdl 8y ago
Since cars have a 10-20 year lifespan, and electric is becoming superior, that will probably solve itself over the next 10-20 years (maybe they'll be EV powered by natural gas for a while, but that's still a win, and then the grid might get greener.) Aviation fuel is the highest and best use of hydrocarbons (along with some chemical production), so we can deal with that last, after lots of power generation, demand reduction/efficiency, etc
- WalterBright 8y ago
  Airliners have gotten far more efficient over the last 40 years, starting with the 757/767. (The 757 design got its start from more efficient engines and a new wing shape.) In fact, efficiency improvements are the primary factor driving new airliner models and sales. At the time of the 757 launch, fuel was 40% of the operating cost of air travel.
  - rdl 8y ago
    A huge improvement (for the biggest planes) is going to twins and ETOPS (not just fuel, also maintenance cost, but also fuel). Not as relevant to domestic routes, though.
- realityczeque 8y ago
  Not sure your math checks out. EVs are < 1% of fleet and < 2% of sales in the USA. As you say, cars last 10-20 years and this number is rapidly getting longer. Vehicles older than 16 years are the most-rapidly-growing segment of the US vehicle fleet. The average age of US light passenger vehicles hit 12 years in 2016. In 2020 there will still be 80 million cars on the road that were built 1995 or earlier, none of which were electric or even hybrids. Virtually all of the cars sold this year will still be on the road in 2030, and 98% of them will be combustion powered.
  - rdl 8y ago
    What matters is miles driven, not number of vehicles. For someone with a 1-2h each way commute (sigh), replacing a 2010 truck with a 5-year-old 2025 EV in 2030 will make sense on a 2 year cash return basis. For someone who drives 1-2k miles/year, it probably isn't worth upgrading.
    - realityczeque 8y ago
      Yeah but EVs make up a far smaller proportion of miles driven than they do the fleet by units. For obvious reasons: many EVs are short-range vehicles and the people who buy them are self-selecting as people who are both environmentally conscious and able to live with the range problems. People with long commutes who can't afford a Tesla are obligated to burn gas.
      - rdl 8y ago
        It is reasonable to assume that a 5 year old EV will be as cheap in 2030 (2025 model) as a 5 year old EV is today (2014 model), while becoming more capable at roughly the rate we've seen so far. A 5 year old Leaf is $6-10k now, and would be a ~250 mile range car by 2025.

the8472 8y ago

For inter-city travel high speed trains will outpace any car even under ideal traffic conditions. Paris - Stuttgart Car: >6h; TGV: ~3h

_delirium 8y ago

Traffic congestion is a pretty big issue for intercity too in some regions. Dallas-Houston is a mere 240 miles but often takes 5 hours to drive. Even in "light" traffic, 4 or so is common. You can do a lot better than that with even decently upgraded "legacy" rail, never mind a Shinkansen/TGV type system. For example, London-Manchester is 210 miles, and trains take only 2 hours.

kiran-rao 8y ago
Is there a solution to the last mile problem? It's every difficult to get to the final destination in sprawled suburban cities even if there's a direct center-center high speed rail line.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Manchester has a great central tram network. London has the underground. Driving in London is mainly an exercise in stress and pointlessness.
- avn2109 8y ago
  You hop in an Uber.
- sampo 8y ago
  Build dense cities. For example the Tokio-Osaka Shinkansen averages 130 mph over the whole route with 15 stops in between the end stations. You could get from midtown Manhattan to downtown Boston in 1h40min. Make that 1h15min, if the train didn't have stops between NYC and Boston. So visiting Boston could be almost as fast as visiting the far end of Queens, from Manhattan.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
davnicwil 8y ago
> London-Manchester is 210 miles, and trains take only 2 hours Yes and to further emphasise, this is not a high speed train (though it does use leaning trains making it faster than other lines, and has few stops. Also it's 2 hours 15 mins to be precise). The proposed high speed train promises London-Manchester in ~1 hour.

smileysteve 8y ago

Thanks to subsidized exploration, and a federal highway tax that is 30 years behind, and no accounting for negative externalities.

craigzucchini 8y ago

If you have, have access to, are able, or want to drive a car, then at best it's reasonable option for places outside of denser areas, albeit far more expensive than the cost of gas. While cars are certainly good in some ways at getting people around to places that don't make sense to service with more significant options, they shouldn't be considered first when thinking about new development imo.

rdl 8y ago
A non-new, efficient car (say, a 3 year old Prius) is about $0.15/mi to operate.
- craigzucchini 8y ago
  Perhaps, though I don't know where that number comes from. If it's purely gas mileage, then it doesn't account for cost of insurance, cost of the car, risk of an accident, cost of storing the car, cost of general maintenance, and, while sort of ancillary, cost the urban area if everyone relies on driving. If it's not pure gas mileage, I'd be curious how that formula works out, but there remain problems with that as a solution to anything.
  - rdl 8y ago
    That's all-in cost, including depreciation and fuel and insurance and maintenance. This is why UberX sort of works for some drivers. The rate for a new car is much closer to the federal reimbursement rate ($0.545/mi), mostly depreciation. Obviously driving a new lambo at 100mph will be more like $4/mi.
    - craigzucchini 8y ago
      I'm really not finding how this can work out to $0.15. Could you clarify about what the federal reimbursement rate is? Again, if that number were true—which it may be but so far it seems unlikely—the remaining issues are important. AAA, CAA, and other news sources, it takes a very generous amount of miles to get there.

chrisseaton 8y ago

When driving your car inter-city do you never think ‘if only I could be working, relaxing or sleeping with this time’ like in a train?

donatj 8y ago
Not really because it takes me a fraction of the time. I can do those things far more comfortably when I get there.
rdl 8y ago
Self driving will solve that; self driving is absolutely there already technically if we restricted it to special lanes/highways/etc, and probably could be 100% of interstates already too. There are some city center to nearby city center where rail would be nice, I agree. Most of the time when I'm going intercity it is by plane.
- reindeerer 8y ago
  If you think you see general solution for "self driving" in next 20 years, i have a bridge to sell you
  - rdl 8y ago
    In a restricted lane (dedicated to only self driving vehicles), we have had this capability for at least 15 years.
    - lifeformed 8y ago
      I hope no one is working or sleeping in those lanes.
    - smelendez 8y ago
      That might be fair but that's a chicken-egg problem. We don't have any such lanes because only the self-driving car companies have dual mode vehicles. Nobody's going to market vehicles designed to drive in lanes that don't exist. And building out the lanes and the infrastructure to enter and exit them, probably will boost congestion in the short term.

quickthrower2 8y ago

The article talks about a train that can go 200mph. That makes having people drive between cities seem a rather slow option. Plus you can get work done on a train. On a car it is not possible as a driver (other than phone calls) and pretty hard as a passenger. I take your point about planes, but it's good to have more than one option and trains are good for middling distances, as there isn't all the need to check in, and they can start and stop closer to where you want to depart from and arrive. Not to mention global warming :-)

shdh 8y ago
Why just 200mph
- kingosticks 8y ago
  Because it's here today. It's easy with simple investment, it's got huge benefits over the joke that is the current U.S train service.
  - grecy 8y ago
    There are plenty of passenger trains in service around the world that go faster than 200mp/h, today.
    - bobthepanda 8y ago
      Those are all in China. Wikipedia tells me that max achievable speed in regular service in every country except China is 320km/h. China does 350km/h, but you need to be traveling at quite a long distance for a measly 30km/h increase in speed to be worth it, and China runs much longer high speed rail services than other countries (Beijing to Hong Kong is 9 hours). Besides, the more important thing is average speed. Acela's top speed is respectable for legacy rail, but it achieves this top speed for a total of 33 miles over a 457 mile route.
      - grecy 8y ago