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0 pointsdoctorwho423y ago0 comments

Perhaps we could dedicate the right most lane on every highway to becoming a train line instead of an autonomous vehicle lane?

A train can move more tonnage (see people) per unit of energy (kWhr/gallon of diesel/etc.) Than almost any other mode of transportation (gosh darn sailboats and barges being so efficient!) .

So why have 100's of electric motors and separate batteries to move people, when you can skip the batteries and have an electrified third rail and just an engine or two running a train for those hundreds of people.

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TylerE3y ago

The nearest thing that might be described as “highway” is 20 miles from my house. It’s the last (few dozen) mile problem passenger trains in the US have always faced for everyone who doesn’t live in the Northeast or SoCal.

Guess where the two passenger lines that come even vaguely to profitability are?

The population of the US is very coastal, which doesn’t map well to a hub and spoke system like rail. Contrast with Western Europe where A -> Paris/Berlin -> B is probably reasonably close to a straight line.

shepherdjerred3y ago

This is a great idea, but wouldn't paving more road be significantly cheaper and quicker than building rail infrastructure?

I'm all for the US pouring money into rail, but the fact is that we're _very_ bad at big infrastructure projects right now. That's not to say that we can't get better though.

doctorwho42OP3y ago

The problem we have seen over the last 100 years in highway infrastructure is that demand always increases to fill capacity. The greatest example of this is LA, which has some of the largest highways in the country but still has bumper to bumper traffic.

You need to think about it on two metrics;

(1) density of transport; how many people per unit volume

(2) power to # of passengers.

On both counts trains are vastly superior to almost all other modes of transit other than boat.

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