4 ms·

I want trains.

by Zambyte 2mo ago

I want trains.

xnx 2mo ago
I think you'd want them a lot less if you had to pay the full price in fare (often $30+/ride)
- Zambyte 2mo ago
  Do you think roads are free? Maintaining them? Parking lots? Gasoline / electricity? Required emergency services due to regular catastrophic failures? Cars are way more expensive if we're talking "full prices".
- panick21_ 2mo ago
  I live in Switzerland and it actually saves money for your society. Its universally considered a fantastic investment for the country and many people are happy to pay it, both in taxes and in ticket cost. You are simply applying two different standards for road cost and rail costs. Roads are fully tax funded and all land use decisions are made to support them. And then there is insanely huge subsidy in how parking lots work, not to mention tons of other regulation that forces the creation of parking, zoning and so on. Your statement only makes sense, because what your 'normal' is actually an insanely pro car, anti train normal.
amazingamazing 2mo ago
Too much capex
- oblio 2mo ago
  Ok, self driving buses on fixed routes. Likely 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars.
  - amazingamazing 2mo ago
    Nope. Fixed routes have chaos. You would have the same problem, converging on fsd. It’s the same reason Waymo isn’t deployed everywhere now. Not to mention buses are a couple orders of magnitude more expensive than a car and would be slower for any given median occupant compared to a car.
    - unfitted2545 2mo ago
      If it was popular, it would remove cars from the road. Would that not decrease congestion for everyone?
  - jrapdx3 2mo ago
    You're probably right about comparative costs. But the problem of getting to an autonomous bus will remain a significant barrier to public transportation use. My neighborhood is close to the city center. Even so, bus service is very sparse, recently reduced to just twice a day. In addition walking to bus stops is long and difficult, or even impossible, for many elderly or disabled residents. I envision a Waymo-like car service transporting people to/from destinations or if it's more practical, a transit center. I concur car services wouldn't be the cheapest option but may well be the most effective.
  - arjie 2mo ago
    Google only spent $1.1B for the first six years of Waymo. At 1/1000 the price you’re spending about $1.1M over that period or about $200k/year. That’s cheap enough that you should just do it.
    - oblio 2mo ago
      LOL. Why would you only count the first 6 years? Be intellectually honest and count the total funding so far, about $30bn.
      - arjie 2mo ago
        I’m not “only counting the first 6 years”. I’m saying you can get to 6 years on $1.2 m if you can do it at a thousandth the cost. I’m sure if you have some success by then, the $30 m over the next decade won’t be too hard. To be honest, if you have a good path to this the $30 m won’t be hard to raise. If I had the skill to do this at 1/1000 cost I would not hesitate to start the company tomorrow. I think autonomous buses would be terrific. But for a different reason: it removes labor as a cost centre and scheduling constraint, allowing demand responsiveness. Thought so last year too so it’s not like I’m arguing here https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-02-15/Fully_Autonomous https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-02-15/Fully_Autono...
        Breza 2mo ago
        > scheduling constraint Honestly I think this is the only real advantage of a self-driving bus. Driving a bus is hard work and it doesn't pay well. Getting drivers to cover all the routes every day is an ongoing challenge. I would honestly be nervous to ride a self-driving bus much of the time. Drivers limit the level of shenanigans that can happen. The subway has emergency intercoms and staff at every single station, but a bus could take you miles away from the nearest transit cop.
  - ChadNauseam 2mo ago
    > Likely 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars. I think self driving buses would be awesome. I can imagine having smaller ones that come more regularly too. Add some amenities like a tracker that tells you exactly when to leave to catch the bus, and exactly when you'll reach your destination, and it would probably be an awesome UX. But I don't know if I agree that it'd be 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars. And the overhead of a car is huge, you need one driver for a maximum of 4 passengers and probably a mode of 1 passenger. The overhead of a bus is smaller, because one driver can carry 30 or 60 people. Arguably, you'd need less of them because busses carry more people, but for some reason the unit economics often doesn't work out like that IRL. It'd make more sense for a neighborhood to have just one xbox that everyone shares when they need it, rather than everyone having their own xbox that's idle 95% of the time, but that's not how it went. (Same for any other computing device.)
  - Breza 2mo ago
    Bus drivers don't make much money, at least not here in the United States. I was shocked when I learned how low the average salary is, considering you might be tasked with navigating a massive vehicle carrying dozens of people through narrow streets during rush hour. And I'm not even considering the customer service aspects and public safety aspects of what they do. All that to say, we are far from the point where a self-driving bus is cheaper than buying a regular bus and paying a driver.
- jrflo 2mo ago
  Realistically it's "too much 'environmental' review", aka NIMBYs killing any project that will actually implement good public transit because it will ruin the view from their kitchen
- trymas 2mo ago
  Capex for car infrastructure seemingly is uncapped (and I don’t talk only about USA either). But when it’s non-car transit suddenly it’s too much money, not profitable, nimby, etc. When cars enjoy fuel subsidies , (mostly) free roads and endless expansion. Update: some car brains over the world decided that even bike lanes are an issue. When bike lanes have bigger throughput, costs don’t even make a dent compared to roads, maintenance is negligible, etc.
  - HDThoreaun 2mo ago
    Because 99% of Americans use cars. There’s no point spending money on something that only 15% of the population will even consider using, you’ll still have to spend just as much on roads.
    - trymas 2mo ago
      > Because 99% of Americans use cars. I wouldn't want to be a kid, elderly, sick, blind, disabled in USA. > There’s no point spending money on something that only 15% of the population will even consider using Induced demand. Though seriously you had everything: trains, trams/streetcars, great towns - now say it's impossible (after 80-100 years of lobbying and crazy subsidies). I bet if "right" startup popped up that by accident would be public transport adjacent - atitude would shift on a dime. I saw a bunch of articles about pedestrian accessibility improvements, due to delivery bots[0]. Apparently it may be easier to improve things for businesses instead of people. [0] first article I've found: https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/could-delivery-robots-help-pay-for-better-sidewalks https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/could-delivery-robots-hel...
- panick21_ 2mo ago
  Capex for countries isn't really that big of a problem. You can raise lots of capital for long term, a proper investment should increase land values (or property values). Generally societies that invest a lot of capex in high capacity transit do quite well. Also roads have high capex along with operation cost, along with high private cost. Not even mention the additional cost for health and other hidden costs. If you go by total lift-time cost by capacity then its a fantastic deal.
weird-eye-issue 2mo ago
Will you use a Waymo to get to the closest train station and then from the train station to your final destination?
- Zambyte 2mo ago
  I do that with my bike or scooter right now. Actually, throw a ferry in there as well and I'm doing an inter-state trip next weekend doing exactly that. So no, quite unlikely.
  - tim333 2mo ago
    I'm about to do an ebike train ebike journey (UK) and have to say it works rather well as a form of transport. You can work on the train and the ebike is fun, easy and has no parking problems.
- bluGill 2mo ago
  Why would I do that when I already have a car which I need to use for every other trip. Once I'm there maybe, last time I did this I rented a car - which given the prices I've heard is likely the only affordable option. (my final destination was several hundred miles from the nearest train station)
paulcole 2mo ago
What are you willing to give up to get them?
- Zambyte 2mo ago
  A lot. Can you be more specific?
  - paulcole 2mo ago
    Move to Tokyo or somewhere that has trains of the number and quality you want.
    - Zambyte 2mo ago
      Or we could improve the United States for people who can't move across the world.
      - paulcole 2mo ago
        Not willing to give up as much as you thought?
    - Breza 2mo ago
      Done. I grew up in suburban Michigan. I moved to Washington DC for college 20 years ago and I'm still here. When looking to buy a house, we only looked at options with public transit access. I know it's not for everyone, but if you really do value being able to go out without driving, it's a great lifestyle.
      - paulcole 2mo ago
        Yes, I agree. Did the same thing moving Florida to Portland, OR after college. Most people say they want the benefit without giving anything up. Tends to not work that well lol
forgot-my-pw 2mo ago
Why not both! We need to eliminate human drivers in the future. So the best solution should be both self driving cars and public transportation.
- Zambyte 2mo ago
  Because cars are horribly space and energy inefficient, and being self driving doesn't change that.

I want trains.

by Zambyte 2mo ago

I want trains.

xnx 2mo ago

I think you'd want them a lot less if you had to pay the full price in fare (often $30+/ride)

Zambyte 2mo ago
Do you think roads are free? Maintaining them? Parking lots? Gasoline / electricity? Required emergency services due to regular catastrophic failures? Cars are way more expensive if we're talking "full prices".
panick21_ 2mo ago
I live in Switzerland and it actually saves money for your society. Its universally considered a fantastic investment for the country and many people are happy to pay it, both in taxes and in ticket cost. You are simply applying two different standards for road cost and rail costs. Roads are fully tax funded and all land use decisions are made to support them. And then there is insanely huge subsidy in how parking lots work, not to mention tons of other regulation that forces the creation of parking, zoning and so on. Your statement only makes sense, because what your 'normal' is actually an insanely pro car, anti train normal.

amazingamazing 2mo ago

Too much capex

oblio 2mo ago
Ok, self driving buses on fixed routes. Likely 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars.
- amazingamazing 2mo ago
  Nope. Fixed routes have chaos. You would have the same problem, converging on fsd. It’s the same reason Waymo isn’t deployed everywhere now. Not to mention buses are a couple orders of magnitude more expensive than a car and would be slower for any given median occupant compared to a car.
  - unfitted2545 2mo ago
    If it was popular, it would remove cars from the road. Would that not decrease congestion for everyone?
- jrapdx3 2mo ago
  You're probably right about comparative costs. But the problem of getting to an autonomous bus will remain a significant barrier to public transportation use. My neighborhood is close to the city center. Even so, bus service is very sparse, recently reduced to just twice a day. In addition walking to bus stops is long and difficult, or even impossible, for many elderly or disabled residents. I envision a Waymo-like car service transporting people to/from destinations or if it's more practical, a transit center. I concur car services wouldn't be the cheapest option but may well be the most effective.
- arjie 2mo ago
  Google only spent $1.1B for the first six years of Waymo. At 1/1000 the price you’re spending about $1.1M over that period or about $200k/year. That’s cheap enough that you should just do it.
  - oblio 2mo ago
    LOL. Why would you only count the first 6 years? Be intellectually honest and count the total funding so far, about $30bn.
    - arjie 2mo ago
      I’m not “only counting the first 6 years”. I’m saying you can get to 6 years on $1.2 m if you can do it at a thousandth the cost. I’m sure if you have some success by then, the $30 m over the next decade won’t be too hard. To be honest, if you have a good path to this the $30 m won’t be hard to raise. If I had the skill to do this at 1/1000 cost I would not hesitate to start the company tomorrow. I think autonomous buses would be terrific. But for a different reason: it removes labor as a cost centre and scheduling constraint, allowing demand responsiveness. Thought so last year too so it’s not like I’m arguing here https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-02-15/Fully_Autonomous https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-02-15/Fully_Autono...
      - Breza 2mo ago
        > scheduling constraint Honestly I think this is the only real advantage of a self-driving bus. Driving a bus is hard work and it doesn't pay well. Getting drivers to cover all the routes every day is an ongoing challenge. I would honestly be nervous to ride a self-driving bus much of the time. Drivers limit the level of shenanigans that can happen. The subway has emergency intercoms and staff at every single station, but a bus could take you miles away from the nearest transit cop.
- ChadNauseam 2mo ago
  > Likely 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars. I think self driving buses would be awesome. I can imagine having smaller ones that come more regularly too. Add some amenities like a tracker that tells you exactly when to leave to catch the bus, and exactly when you'll reach your destination, and it would probably be an awesome UX. But I don't know if I agree that it'd be 10-1000x cheaper to implement than fully autonomous cars. And the overhead of a car is huge, you need one driver for a maximum of 4 passengers and probably a mode of 1 passenger. The overhead of a bus is smaller, because one driver can carry 30 or 60 people. Arguably, you'd need less of them because busses carry more people, but for some reason the unit economics often doesn't work out like that IRL. It'd make more sense for a neighborhood to have just one xbox that everyone shares when they need it, rather than everyone having their own xbox that's idle 95% of the time, but that's not how it went. (Same for any other computing device.)
- Breza 2mo ago
  Bus drivers don't make much money, at least not here in the United States. I was shocked when I learned how low the average salary is, considering you might be tasked with navigating a massive vehicle carrying dozens of people through narrow streets during rush hour. And I'm not even considering the customer service aspects and public safety aspects of what they do. All that to say, we are far from the point where a self-driving bus is cheaper than buying a regular bus and paying a driver.
jrflo 2mo ago
Realistically it's "too much 'environmental' review", aka NIMBYs killing any project that will actually implement good public transit because it will ruin the view from their kitchen
trymas 2mo ago
Capex for car infrastructure seemingly is uncapped (and I don’t talk only about USA either). But when it’s non-car transit suddenly it’s too much money, not profitable, nimby, etc. When cars enjoy fuel subsidies , (mostly) free roads and endless expansion. Update: some car brains over the world decided that even bike lanes are an issue. When bike lanes have bigger throughput, costs don’t even make a dent compared to roads, maintenance is negligible, etc.
- HDThoreaun 2mo ago
  Because 99% of Americans use cars. There’s no point spending money on something that only 15% of the population will even consider using, you’ll still have to spend just as much on roads.
  - trymas 2mo ago
    > Because 99% of Americans use cars. I wouldn't want to be a kid, elderly, sick, blind, disabled in USA. > There’s no point spending money on something that only 15% of the population will even consider using Induced demand. Though seriously you had everything: trains, trams/streetcars, great towns - now say it's impossible (after 80-100 years of lobbying and crazy subsidies). I bet if "right" startup popped up that by accident would be public transport adjacent - atitude would shift on a dime. I saw a bunch of articles about pedestrian accessibility improvements, due to delivery bots[0]. Apparently it may be easier to improve things for businesses instead of people. [0] first article I've found: https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/could-delivery-robots-help-pay-for-better-sidewalks https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/could-delivery-robots-hel...
panick21_ 2mo ago
Capex for countries isn't really that big of a problem. You can raise lots of capital for long term, a proper investment should increase land values (or property values). Generally societies that invest a lot of capex in high capacity transit do quite well. Also roads have high capex along with operation cost, along with high private cost. Not even mention the additional cost for health and other hidden costs. If you go by total lift-time cost by capacity then its a fantastic deal.

weird-eye-issue 2mo ago

Will you use a Waymo to get to the closest train station and then from the train station to your final destination?

Zambyte 2mo ago
I do that with my bike or scooter right now. Actually, throw a ferry in there as well and I'm doing an inter-state trip next weekend doing exactly that. So no, quite unlikely.
- tim333 2mo ago
  I'm about to do an ebike train ebike journey (UK) and have to say it works rather well as a form of transport. You can work on the train and the ebike is fun, easy and has no parking problems.
bluGill 2mo ago
Why would I do that when I already have a car which I need to use for every other trip. Once I'm there maybe, last time I did this I rented a car - which given the prices I've heard is likely the only affordable option. (my final destination was several hundred miles from the nearest train station)

paulcole 2mo ago

What are you willing to give up to get them?

Zambyte 2mo ago
A lot. Can you be more specific?
- paulcole 2mo ago
  Move to Tokyo or somewhere that has trains of the number and quality you want.
  - Zambyte 2mo ago
    Or we could improve the United States for people who can't move across the world.
    - paulcole 2mo ago
      Not willing to give up as much as you thought?
  - Breza 2mo ago
    Done. I grew up in suburban Michigan. I moved to Washington DC for college 20 years ago and I'm still here. When looking to buy a house, we only looked at options with public transit access. I know it's not for everyone, but if you really do value being able to go out without driving, it's a great lifestyle.
    - paulcole 2mo ago
      Yes, I agree. Did the same thing moving Florida to Portland, OR after college. Most people say they want the benefit without giving anything up. Tends to not work that well lol

forgot-my-pw 2mo ago

Why not both! We need to eliminate human drivers in the future. So the best solution should be both self driving cars and public transportation.

Zambyte 2mo ago
Because cars are horribly space and energy inefficient, and being self driving doesn't change that.