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I have a hard time believing that the infrastructure here in the Northeastern US could sustain vehicles regularly traveling at speeds in excess of 200 mph. Whic

I have a hard time believing that the infrastructure here in the Northeastern US could sustain vehicles regularly traveling at speeds in excess of 200 mph. Which means the cost would also require a great deal of overhaul to the existing infrastructure. It seems that many public works departments are having trouble keeping up with the demands of repairing roads for 40 - 60 mph. If you could do a few hyperloops* that would connect Boston - NYC - Philly - DC, suddenly the strain on the highway system plummets. That gives self-driving cars even more room to speedily take people between locations outside of the reach of public transportation. * I don't mean it would have to be hyperloops. Any HSR system would be beneficial.

jusben1369 11y ago
Right but the challenge works the other ways. It wouldn't take much to support 150 to 180 mph. So Boston to NY which is more or less 200 miles becomes a 90 minute trip on a self driving car. So a good hyperloop gets it to say 30 - 40 minutes. Add to that all the approvals of laying one down in that heavily congested land ownership corridor vs the roads that are already in place. I just don't see it.
- chucksmash 11y ago
  > It wouldn't take much to support 150 to 180 mph Do you have a source on this? I did a little napkin math based on these suggested curve radii[1]; namely, I fit a function to the data points in this SageMath worksheet[2] and extrapolated. The fit a) looks good and b) seems to imply that the vastly increased minimum radius of curvature of turns would require significantly re-engineering the interstate highway as it exists today. [1]: http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/eng/documents/RDM/sec4.shtm#Table45 http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/eng/documents/RDM/sec4... [2]: https://cloud.sagemath.com/projects/56f621e5-fd90-4a21-ba52-7d8914e0cdcc/files/stuff.sagews https://cloud.sagemath.com/projects/56f621e5-fd90-4a21-ba52-...

jusben1369 11y ago

Right but the challenge works the other ways. It wouldn't take much to support 150 to 180 mph. So Boston to NY which is more or less 200 miles becomes a 90 minute trip on a self driving car. So a good hyperloop gets it to say 30 - 40 minutes. Add to that all the approvals of laying one down in that heavily congested land ownership corridor vs the roads that are already in place. I just don't see it.

chucksmash 11y ago
> It wouldn't take much to support 150 to 180 mph Do you have a source on this? I did a little napkin math based on these suggested curve radii[1]; namely, I fit a function to the data points in this SageMath worksheet[2] and extrapolated. The fit a) looks good and b) seems to imply that the vastly increased minimum radius of curvature of turns would require significantly re-engineering the interstate highway as it exists today. [1]: http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/eng/documents/RDM/sec4.shtm#Table45 http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/eng/documents/RDM/sec4... [2]: https://cloud.sagemath.com/projects/56f621e5-fd90-4a21-ba52-7d8914e0cdcc/files/stuff.sagews https://cloud.sagemath.com/projects/56f621e5-fd90-4a21-ba52-...