23 ms·

I once sailed upwind from LA to SF over 5 days. I flew home in an hour. The flight gave me a long(!?) time to ponder the nature of time and transport. In tha

by jjindev 13y ago

I once sailed upwind from LA to SF over 5 days. I flew home in an hour. The flight gave me a long(!?) time to ponder the nature of time and transport. In that context, I don't really see a transformational improvement going from one 1 hour to 0.5 hours.

nakedrobot2 13y ago
Sorry, let me clarify your statement: You spent 4 hours in the airport (or getting there, parking, getting sodomized by security) and 1 hour flying. Then another 30-60 minutes disembarking. So you spent around 6 hours in transit from SF to LA. 6 hours compared to 30 minutes (or more likely, 1.5 hours including the necessary boarding / unboarding) is a VAST difference.
- jjindev 13y ago
  Why do you presume less "lobby time"? I'd think a train twice as fast as a plane would inspire at least as much security theater.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    You should try a cruise ship sometime. It's amazing how easy it is to get in and out of different countries. Even getting on the ship is pretty easy. I don't think there'll be much security theatre until a train gets blown up - most of the theatre so far seems to be reactive. "An idiot has explosives in his shoes. He is so incompetent that he tries to light it with a match" and now everyone has to take their shoes off.
  - duaneb 13y ago
    A train doesn't typically have explosive fuel, which renders it a pretty poor weapon.
    - ajuc 13y ago
      Don't underestimate kinetic energy of a train going 340 meters per second.
      - dedward 13y ago
        Sure.. but you can't hijack it, redirect it to another location, then crash it into a populated area. You could perhaps... stop it? And if you really want to cause havoc messing with trains, you go for cargo trains filled with hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic chemicals.
        ajuc 13y ago
        Yeah, I just meant energy is not the reason trains aren't used as weapons.
        T-hawk 13y ago
        This sort of rational sensibility isn't going to stop the TSA from power-grabbing and mission-creeping their way into any new transportation system. They'll get their tendrils in the pie, sure as the sunrise. So will a million other government bureaucracies.
      - Florin_Andrei 13y ago
        > Don't underestimate kinetic energy of a train going 340 meters per second and then plowing into a strawberry field near Coalinga. Yeah, that's "a lot" of damage.
        UnFleshedOne 13y ago
        Depending on the train, you could level a downtown of a small city: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/two-more-bodies-recovered-from-quebec-train-derailment-site-1.1368133 http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/two-more-bodies-recovered-from-...
      - revelation 13y ago
        Isn't the point that these things do not have much kinetic energy at all? The whole scheme wouldn't make sense if you still had to invest the same amount of power as for a conventional train.
  - jjindev 13y ago
    It sounds like many of us here would streamline aircraft boarding. We might even have tech ideas for that. ... so we'll do it with trains because no one will stop us? (faulty social analysis)
  - alexhawdon 13y ago
    That's a fair point - I think most of us are just currently hoping that it won't. I'd like to think that if Elon were running it (doesn't look like he wants to though), it wouldn't be a problem. He's a brilliant engineer who designs systems to overcome difficult problems. The 'security theatre' is just a consequence of an extremely poorly-designed system. I'm pretty sure someone like Elon could exploit modern sensing equipment and AI/ML techniques to build a system that is demonstrably better than, say, the TSA, and doesn't require anyone's personal space to be invaded. Who knows - maybe we'll get lucky and 'secure, 90 second check-in' be an integral feature of his design?!
  - georgemcbay 13y ago
    Even if it did, the amount of "lobby time" would still be drastically lessened just based on frequency of departures and decoupling of passengers and elimination (presumably) of the checked baggage situation. TSA security checkpoints suck, but IME they "only" represent about 15 or so minutes of the extra time required for airport lobby time (on average; sometimes more sometimes less. Which is at least 14 minutes too many, but hardly the whole 1-4 hour overhead often cited). Most of the overhead of plane travel in terms of airport and tarmac waiting time is due to deadlocking problems that occur in coordinating all the passengers into a single vehicle that is as full as possible (to maximize the airline's profit per trip), so you get a very uneven/lumpy demand curve based on when flights are scheduled, all sorts of complexity due to the system of having to check bags into a separate physical compartment, etc. A continually operating system where you could just show up whenever, your bags stay with you for the ride, etc could easily smooth that out. Solve the deadlocking issue (and most of the hyperloop guesses I've seen do) and even if the security checkpoint stuff stays mostly the same you'll still have a far more efficient embark/disembark system.
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      True. In Europe we don't have TSA and yet one still would be wise to arrive at least an hour before departure (if one has checked baggage; half an hour otherwise) to an airport which is usually located 30+ minutes from the center of the city. Times always add up like this - 0.5h to get to the airport, 1.5h on the airport, X h of flight and then up to 0.5h to leave the airport and another 0.5h to get to the city.
jeffasinger 13y ago
Airport to Airport is a lot different than city center to city center.
- jjindev 13y ago
  Let's review the situation. We have a quite high speed transportation system in modern aircraft. We choose not to disrupt cities by building them downtown. (And "we" choose all those security/time trade-offs.) You suggest that we will tear up the hearts of LA and SF to build direct train-tubes, and then we'll let people breeze on board?
  - ithkuil 13y ago
    Are those tubes bulkier than current train/metropolitans ? Even cities like Rome dig underground to build urban transport, even if in those cities hearts you can find more than just soil.
    - jjindev 13y ago
      If it really is a "tube" it's a "big dig."
  - jeffasinger 13y ago
    You can put a train station mostly underground, with only a relatively small area aboveground. An airport is going to be 4 square miles, completely above ground, an entirely different story. Currently with the only "fast" train in the US, you don't need to get on early, or go through special security. Why would this be different?
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    I thought the reason we don't build airports in the middle of our cities is that jet engines are quite noisy and could cause lot of property damage (not to mention discomfort) if operated next to other buildings.

by jjindev 13y ago

nakedrobot2 13y ago

Sorry, let me clarify your statement: You spent 4 hours in the airport (or getting there, parking, getting sodomized by security) and 1 hour flying. Then another 30-60 minutes disembarking. So you spent around 6 hours in transit from SF to LA. 6 hours compared to 30 minutes (or more likely, 1.5 hours including the necessary boarding / unboarding) is a VAST difference.

jjindev 13y ago
Why do you presume less "lobby time"? I'd think a train twice as fast as a plane would inspire at least as much security theater.
- DanBC 13y ago
  You should try a cruise ship sometime. It's amazing how easy it is to get in and out of different countries. Even getting on the ship is pretty easy. I don't think there'll be much security theatre until a train gets blown up - most of the theatre so far seems to be reactive. "An idiot has explosives in his shoes. He is so incompetent that he tries to light it with a match" and now everyone has to take their shoes off.
- duaneb 13y ago
  A train doesn't typically have explosive fuel, which renders it a pretty poor weapon.
  - ajuc 13y ago
    Don't underestimate kinetic energy of a train going 340 meters per second.
    - dedward 13y ago
      Sure.. but you can't hijack it, redirect it to another location, then crash it into a populated area. You could perhaps... stop it? And if you really want to cause havoc messing with trains, you go for cargo trains filled with hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic chemicals.
      - ajuc 13y ago
        Yeah, I just meant energy is not the reason trains aren't used as weapons.
      - T-hawk 13y ago
        This sort of rational sensibility isn't going to stop the TSA from power-grabbing and mission-creeping their way into any new transportation system. They'll get their tendrils in the pie, sure as the sunrise. So will a million other government bureaucracies.
    - Florin_Andrei 13y ago
      > Don't underestimate kinetic energy of a train going 340 meters per second and then plowing into a strawberry field near Coalinga. Yeah, that's "a lot" of damage.
      - UnFleshedOne 13y ago
        Depending on the train, you could level a downtown of a small city: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/two-more-bodies-recovered-from-quebec-train-derailment-site-1.1368133 http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/two-more-bodies-recovered-from-...
    - revelation 13y ago
      Isn't the point that these things do not have much kinetic energy at all? The whole scheme wouldn't make sense if you still had to invest the same amount of power as for a conventional train.
- jjindev 13y ago
  It sounds like many of us here would streamline aircraft boarding. We might even have tech ideas for that. ... so we'll do it with trains because no one will stop us? (faulty social analysis)
- alexhawdon 13y ago
  That's a fair point - I think most of us are just currently hoping that it won't. I'd like to think that if Elon were running it (doesn't look like he wants to though), it wouldn't be a problem. He's a brilliant engineer who designs systems to overcome difficult problems. The 'security theatre' is just a consequence of an extremely poorly-designed system. I'm pretty sure someone like Elon could exploit modern sensing equipment and AI/ML techniques to build a system that is demonstrably better than, say, the TSA, and doesn't require anyone's personal space to be invaded. Who knows - maybe we'll get lucky and 'secure, 90 second check-in' be an integral feature of his design?!
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  Even if it did, the amount of "lobby time" would still be drastically lessened just based on frequency of departures and decoupling of passengers and elimination (presumably) of the checked baggage situation. TSA security checkpoints suck, but IME they "only" represent about 15 or so minutes of the extra time required for airport lobby time (on average; sometimes more sometimes less. Which is at least 14 minutes too many, but hardly the whole 1-4 hour overhead often cited). Most of the overhead of plane travel in terms of airport and tarmac waiting time is due to deadlocking problems that occur in coordinating all the passengers into a single vehicle that is as full as possible (to maximize the airline's profit per trip), so you get a very uneven/lumpy demand curve based on when flights are scheduled, all sorts of complexity due to the system of having to check bags into a separate physical compartment, etc. A continually operating system where you could just show up whenever, your bags stay with you for the ride, etc could easily smooth that out. Solve the deadlocking issue (and most of the hyperloop guesses I've seen do) and even if the security checkpoint stuff stays mostly the same you'll still have a far more efficient embark/disembark system.
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    True. In Europe we don't have TSA and yet one still would be wise to arrive at least an hour before departure (if one has checked baggage; half an hour otherwise) to an airport which is usually located 30+ minutes from the center of the city. Times always add up like this - 0.5h to get to the airport, 1.5h on the airport, X h of flight and then up to 0.5h to leave the airport and another 0.5h to get to the city.

jeffasinger 13y ago

Airport to Airport is a lot different than city center to city center.

jjindev 13y ago
Let's review the situation. We have a quite high speed transportation system in modern aircraft. We choose not to disrupt cities by building them downtown. (And "we" choose all those security/time trade-offs.) You suggest that we will tear up the hearts of LA and SF to build direct train-tubes, and then we'll let people breeze on board?
- ithkuil 13y ago
  Are those tubes bulkier than current train/metropolitans ? Even cities like Rome dig underground to build urban transport, even if in those cities hearts you can find more than just soil.
  - jjindev 13y ago
    If it really is a "tube" it's a "big dig."
- jeffasinger 13y ago
  You can put a train station mostly underground, with only a relatively small area aboveground. An airport is going to be 4 square miles, completely above ground, an entirely different story. Currently with the only "fast" train in the US, you don't need to get on early, or go through special security. Why would this be different?
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  I thought the reason we don't build airports in the middle of our cities is that jet engines are quite noisy and could cause lot of property damage (not to mention discomfort) if operated next to other buildings.