Not so friendly reminder that musk specifically came up with, and pushed, for hyperloop knowing that it would never be made, as an effort to stop the development of highspeed rail in America and shift all political discussions of it because “something better is around the corner”:
As I’ve written in my book, Musk admitted to his biographer Ashlee Vance that Hyperloop was all about trying to get legislators to cancel plans for high-speed rail in California—even though he had no plans to build it. Several years ago, Musk said that public transit was “a pain in the ass” where you were surrounded by strangers, including possible serial killers, to justify his opposition.
Also: 2024 update, the total length of China’s high-speed rail tracks has now reached well over 45,000 km, or 28,000 miles, by the end of 2023.
They are additionally five years ahead of schedule and expect to double the total number within ten years. And, before someone inevitably complains about “how expensive it is”, they are turning over a net-profit of over $600M USD a year.
Mainly it’s last mile issue. Train gets you to the state, and maybe the city you want, but where do you go from there? Busses are slow and just generally terrible here. Light rail/subways only exist in a handful of metro areas, and the cost of a train ticket here is usually more than the fuel cost to drive, and takes 3x as long.
The cost of the ticket is normally cheaper going into a metro area. You have to sit in traffic and find a parking garage. Find the place to pay the then when the event is over you have MORE traffic to leave then get home.
It’s mentally taxing.
Gonna disagree with you there. I just priced out the cost of going from my house to my brother’s apartment in the same city.
For reference, it is ~11 miles by car, and takes ~15 minutes to drive there. My car gets ~36mpg in city, so roughly 1/3 of a gallon of gas, so about $1.20 in gas right now. Parking is 1 dollar and hour, with a 25 cent service charge.
To take the bus, is almost a 2 hr trip, requires a transfer to a other bus, and it costs around 5-8 bucks (couldn’t get firm pricing for the trip).
It is way faster, cheaper, and less stressful to drive there and park for a few hours than it is to take the bus, and my city has pretty good bus transit compared to the rest of the US. Also I can do the trip anytime I want, and come back anytime I want, and round trip it saves me almost 3.5 hrs of my day.
You’re not driving into a city you’re driving into a town 🤡
Yeah, I guess I have no idea how long a drive that I do frequently takes. As for town, the metro area is a quaint 1.8 million people.