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Comparing WAVE with something lie Hyperloop is like comparing apples and oranges -- the essential difference being that Hyperloop would have to provide its own (expensive and immovable) right of way; this disparity is the salient point expressed in any basic course in the economics governing transportation.
Most early "internal improvements" -- canals and the first railroads -- were financed by private subscription. A few, most notably the famous Erie Canal, which reduced the per-ton cost of shipping grain (a raw material for most human progress of the day) from the Great Lakes to the East Coast by over 90 percent, were fabulously successful. But too much enthusiasm spawned a number of less-practical projects, usually financed at least in part with public funds.
The disparity between public vs private financing also played a large part in the development of alternatives to the railroads' near monopoly on freight transportation, Superhighways, airports, and an improved version of barge canals (courtesy of the U S Army Corps of Engineers)
I don’t think Musk would be pursuing it if it wasn’t profitable to him/his many companies in some way. Perhaps on its own it breaks even but if it helps his other businesses thrive then it doesn’t need to be profitable on its own. This is all one big R&D project for Musk but I’m sure it’s all tied together with his other pursuits in a way you or I cannot see. Those underestimating Musk are likely the same ones that underestimated Jeff Bezos. Keep in mind, not every venture is profitable on its own but it all ties into a greater network that as a whole is profitable and provides them with an edge on the competition.
I don’t think Musk would be pursuing it if it wasn’t profitable to him/his many companies in some way. Perhaps on its own it breaks even but if it helps his other businesses thrive then it doesn’t need to be profitable on its own. This is all one big R&D project for Musk but I’m sure it’s all tied together with his other pursuits in a way you or I cannot see.
Jeff Bezos' origins are well-documented, and far closer to the pattern of an open society than Elon Musk. Mr. Bezos mother left his struggling father and re-married into a family of Cuban exiles. It was only after ten years in the unimaginative world of corporate finance that Bezos struck out on his own, and weathered all manner of growing pains. His company's physical plant, while well-leveraged, was self-financed, with little long-term debt; his management structure revolves around a small corps of senior executives, with relatively small salaries, but potentially huge gains via stock options. And there's no doubt he can play rough when the chips are down.
And it's only in recent years that Bezos has become more involved with the public sector, via strategies such as making use of an underutilized Postal Service network in some markets, or his personal passion for space exploration.
In contrast. little Is known about the origins of Mr. Musk's rise to prominence, save that it is much more intertwined with involvement with the public sector, and that sector's monopoly on the use of legal force to reward friends and punish opponents. In short, like his contemporary George Soros, Musk much more fits the definition of a "crony capitalist".
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 06-18-2018 at 10:06 PM..
Jeff Bezos' origins are well-documented, and far closer to the pattern of an open society than Elon Musk. Mr. Bezos mother left his struggling father and re-married into a family of Cuban exiles. It was only after ten years in the unimaginative world of corporate finance that Bezos struck out on his own, and weathered all manner of growing pains. His company's physical plant, while well-leveraged, was self-financed, with little long-term debt; his management structure revolves around a small corps of senior executives, with relatively small salaries, but potentially huge gains via stock options. And there's no doubt he can play rough when the chips are down.
And it's only in recent years that Bezos has become more involved with the public sector, via strategies such as making use of an underutilized Postal Service network in some markets, or his personal passion for space exploration.
In contrast. little Is known about the origins of Mr. Musk's rise to prominence, save that it is much more intertwined with involvement with the public sector, and that sector's monopoly on the use of legal force to reward friends and punish opponents. In short, like his contemporary George Soros, Musk much more fits the definition of a "crony capitalist".
LOL, you make it sound like the “origins” of Elon Musk are some type of unsolved mystery. His origins are actually well documented and not a mystery at all. You can start to unravel the mystery by reading this:
The proposal and system is targeted at the business community (Amazon) and the ramp up of A380 and similar aircraft for the Asia and European routes. The fees being thrown around seem high for the occasional traveller but are really a drop in the bucket for busines use.
Number of stops is an important factor as well. The 18 stops between O'Hare and downtown is painful at times, especially when the train stops in some of the busiest neighborhoods in the city.
The number of stops that Blue line trains to or from O'Hare is completely unacceptable not just for business travelers, but any sort of tourist who has ever traveled to other international airports. Even cities that would qualify as "ancient" have far better links from their airports to the "city center". The links are specifically designed to make things seem 'welcoming' or at least efficient. The same cannot be said for the Blue line.
I've lived in the are pretty much my whole life and I have to admit that because the actual linkage of the Blue line to O'Hare is so crappy I mostly rely on taxi or "airport limo". Recently I've had to get to the airport to fly out to other midwestern cities after morning meetings in my downtown office so memories of how weird the stops along the Kennedy feel when heading to the airport are fresh in my head. There is really a feeling of "I must be on the wrong transit route" after about the fourth surface stop where nobody get off midday and maybe some airport worker with a "I know I'm late but I don't think they'll fire me" semi-panic gets on. Yes, the line map / graphic is there to reassure you that you will EVENTUALLY get to the airport but it just seems to take FOREVER. By the time you finally get from the bizarre O'Hare CTA station that is so clearly an afterthought as it is barely accessible to the dingy "people mover" and not directly attached to any of the actual airline concourses in the terminals you are literally shaking your head saying "worst experience ever".
It has to be even worse for those arriving in Chicago as the various escalators and such that one must take from any of the baggage claim areas to get back up over the arrival roadway and then back under the hotel and to the CTA station seems designed to make travelers regret bypassing many other forms of transportation that very likely are much quicker as they don't stop at a dozen intermediate stops. Even if only a handful of people get on at some stops the feeling that even a light-packing business traveler ends up feeling is one of one of longing to finally getting to the office or hotel that will signify the end of this encounter with oddly ancient transit in city that otherwise has done much to be on the forefront of modernization...
I'm a little skeptical that Musk can find the cash to build this whole thing given his current squeeze with Tesla and I sort of doubt he really would want to operate it profitably. That's where an interesting angle beyond the "R&D" comes into play. I suspect that one of the things that went unspoken while both Rahm and Musk stressed that "none of the financial risk is carried by Chicago" is that access to essentially an "exclusive franchise" on high speed trips to/from O'Hare is potentially VERY lucrative. The same sorts of firms that paid big money for things like the Skyway absolutely would LOVE to buy / bankroll this sort of project -- the 'revenue stream' they'd be buying is not locked-in at $25/trip but can potentially be far higher and so long as Chicago's very concentrated office market stays reasonably desirable AND the huge O'Hare expansion / modernization ends up looking at all like the plans approved this will mean decades of cashflow. Rahm is THE GUY to "hook up" Musk with the often ugly world of "public works finance" where things like parking garages, parking meters, and tollways make big profits for firms.
When it comes to "R&D" Musk is 100% correct that this is certainly not a walk in the park, but it is orders of magnitude EASIER than anything he has done with Space-X and it is even FAR easier than what he has achieved at Tesla. In terms of "software" the idea of autonomous "transit pods" be they attached to tracks or just on wheels in a closed tunnel is about a million times less challenging than dealing with actual motor vehicles dealing with regular traffic, pedestrian, bicycles etc. When it comes to the whole "tunnel" thing that the Boring Co is gonna do you literally could not ask for a better city -- the experience of workers and engineering firms in having dealt with DECADES of Deep Tunnels / TARP to get storm water off the streets and into the quarries will make it pretty much a snap to hire locally. Of course given the way that workers with expertise in such things often like to be both grounded in "what works" as well exposed to the newest high tech ways to make these projects faster and cheaper I suspect there is already a core of Boring Co. staff with roots in Deep Tunnel. From what I understand some of the people who built the machines for that also have done things like huge underground detectors for physics projects around the globe, so they likely have ties to Fermi, CERN, and similar labs... To those sorts of folks this whole thing will be kind of a "Disney ride" compared to problems they've faced. And that is not to denigrate any of the work that goes into making theme parks operate safely at all, just that this is the kind of project that when you get it successfully operating (which could happen remarkably quickly...) you are thrilled to take your family on it and post picture to all your friends who finally won't ask for the thousand time "what exactly is it you do"...
Of course if somebody feels like throwing a monkey wrench in this, from Federal regulators, to Unions who will of course threaten to line the route with inflated Scabby the Rat balloons if they get cut out of the deal, to insiders from the CTA who see the writing on the wall for their little fiefdom all bet are off. I'm guessing Rahm knows how to keep that from happening...
The proposal and system is targeted at the business community (Amazon) and the ramp up of A380 and similar aircraft for the Asia and European routes. The fees being thrown around seem high for the occasional traveller but are really a drop in the bucket for busines use.
If it's really $25-30 bucks it's cheaper than a cab and of course faster.
The number of stops that Blue line trains to or from O'Hare is completely unacceptable not just for business travelers, but any sort of tourist who has ever traveled to other international airports. Even cities that would qualify as "ancient" have far better links from their airports to the "city center". The links are specifically designed to make things seem 'welcoming' or at least efficient. The same cannot be said for the Blue line.
I've lived in the are pretty much my whole life and I have to admit that because the actual linkage of the Blue line to O'Hare is so crappy I mostly rely on taxi or "airport limo". Recently I've had to get to the airport to fly out to other midwestern cities after morning meetings in my downtown office so memories of how weird the stops along the Kennedy feel when heading to the airport are fresh in my head. There is really a feeling of "I must be on the wrong transit route" after about the fourth surface stop where nobody get off midday and maybe some airport worker with a "I know I'm late but I don't think they'll fire me" semi-panic gets on. Yes, the line map / graphic is there to reassure you that you will EVENTUALLY get to the airport but it just seems to take FOREVER. By the time you finally get from the bizarre O'Hare CTA station that is so clearly an afterthought as it is barely accessible to the dingy "people mover" and not directly attached to any of the actual airline concourses in the terminals you are literally shaking your head saying "worst experience ever".
It has to be even worse for those arriving in Chicago as the various escalators and such that one must take from any of the baggage claim areas to get back up over the arrival roadway and then back under the hotel and to the CTA station seems designed to make travelers regret bypassing many other forms of transportation that very likely are much quicker as they don't stop at a dozen intermediate stops. Even if only a handful of people get on at some stops the feeling that even a light-packing business traveler ends up feeling is one of one of longing to finally getting to the office or hotel that will signify the end of this encounter with oddly ancient transit in city that otherwise has done much to be on the forefront of modernization...
I'm a little skeptical that Musk can find the cash to build this whole thing given his current squeeze with Tesla and I sort of doubt he really would want to operate it profitably. That's where an interesting angle beyond the "R&D" comes into play. I suspect that one of the things that went unspoken while both Rahm and Musk stressed that "none of the financial risk is carried by Chicago" is that access to essentially an "exclusive franchise" on high speed trips to/from O'Hare is potentially VERY lucrative. The same sorts of firms that paid big money for things like the Skyway absolutely would LOVE to buy / bankroll this sort of project -- the 'revenue stream' they'd be buying is not locked-in at $25/trip but can potentially be far higher and so long as Chicago's very concentrated office market stays reasonably desirable AND the huge O'Hare expansion / modernization ends up looking at all like the plans approved this will mean decades of cashflow. Rahm is THE GUY to "hook up" Musk with the often ugly world of "public works finance" where things like parking garages, parking meters, and tollways make big profits for firms.
When it comes to "R&D" Musk is 100% correct that this is certainly not a walk in the park, but it is orders of magnitude EASIER than anything he has done with Space-X and it is even FAR easier than what he has achieved at Tesla. In terms of "software" the idea of autonomous "transit pods" be they attached to tracks or just on wheels in a closed tunnel is about a million times less challenging than dealing with actual motor vehicles dealing with regular traffic, pedestrian, bicycles etc. When it comes to the whole "tunnel" thing that the Boring Co is gonna do you literally could not ask for a better city -- the experience of workers and engineering firms in having dealt with DECADES of Deep Tunnels / TARP to get storm water off the streets and into the quarries will make it pretty much a snap to hire locally. Of course given the way that workers with expertise in such things often like to be both grounded in "what works" as well exposed to the newest high tech ways to make these projects faster and cheaper I suspect there is already a core of Boring Co. staff with roots in Deep Tunnel. From what I understand some of the people who built the machines for that also have done things like huge underground detectors for physics projects around the globe, so they likely have ties to Fermi, CERN, and similar labs... To those sorts of folks this whole thing will be kind of a "Disney ride" compared to problems they've faced. And that is not to denigrate any of the work that goes into making theme parks operate safely at all, just that this is the kind of project that when you get it successfully operating (which could happen remarkably quickly...) you are thrilled to take your family on it and post picture to all your friends who finally won't ask for the thousand time "what exactly is it you do"...
Of course if somebody feels like throwing a monkey wrench in this, from Federal regulators, to Unions who will of course threaten to line the route with inflated Scabby the Rat balloons if they get cut out of the deal, to insiders from the CTA who see the writing on the wall for their little fiefdom all bet are off. I'm guessing Rahm knows how to keep that from happening...
Since things can easily go over my head.... I think you are being more positive and bullish it is a good idea to get built and more seeing it likely to get built .... over bogged down going nowhere? It's Chicago.... every string possible will be pulled.
I still see plenty travelers using the blue-line and I don't find it boring, with much of its length outside of the subway last downtown portion.... with plenty to view if a visitor. In that it is a POSITIVE view on a American level urban-city, that shows little in the way of blight and clean stations where first and last impressions are important.
The only time I'd use a taxi is very early or late flights to either airport. I do believe it will be a defining moment if new system is built and works as designed. Clearly, most travelers would give it a try at the $25.
I give Mayor Rahm credit and past Mayor Daley too .... with SUCESS in getting so many new projects built that BOLSTERS Chicago's esteem in business and tourism. So many called extravagant, waste and would merely fill the pockets of the Unions and Politicians. All still paid-off IMO and there SUCESS tells the story today... in projects and improvements just in the core last decades.
Can't imagine Chicago with no New East Side today, Navy Pier and even the new revamped Pier today.... awesome without the colorful carnival aspects. Millennium Park..... and if no Bean. Maggie Daley Park too and the RiverWalk. Improvements to LSD and Lakefront. You see the crowds and they want to come back and go home and boost the city.
Just the Loop when it got all them new Classic old street-lamps on every street. Some called tacky or more waste ..... But for me I love them and it sets Chicago scenes apart from being confused with Manhattan. It adds class and grandeur IMO. Just under the L they look great and the grander ones Michigan Ave. Also, Adding flowered hanging baskets off many looks awesome too.
Sidewalk greens and flowers and clean streets and sidewalks, promoting outdoor eateries to do sidewalk seating with more flowers .... clearly give visitors high impressions to leave with, as C-D posters all note in listing Chicago high today despite other issues we know never go away.
Even clearing out the worst blight that looked like a bomb hit was the right call in the 90s .... despite the cost I'm sure IMO. Removing the high-rise failed projects also, seeming like nothing would improve them. Despite it might have increased neighborhood gang violence as gang members dispersed in other areas?
If Chicago's powers that be .... just said we can't afford any of this? Do we think the city would have maintained its desirability and esteem it receives today? I think it would be less.
Politics aside .... Chicago shows MUCH BETTER today then 30-40 years ago . When the expressways were all pot-holed expressways and the drive on the Dan Ryan through the steel mills of Indiana too. Was NOT even close to aesthetically pleasant. Getting off the Kennedy downtown up Ohio St shows a booming city in construction. Even Chicago's expressways look more pleasing (but for traffic of course) then some other northern cities.... including drives from the Airports some cites have then show more of its blight.
I think sunken in expressway portions and elevated portions not too high .... were good calls too. Green-frontage adds to visitor appeal in neighborhoods too and power-lines run down alleys and not fronts. A solid housing stock that held up well too.
Chicago seems to have as many 9-lives+ as it takes .... to prevent ever being a Detroit's fate (though never say never).
*** It will not fail without the best fight borrowing can build, rebuild and renew .....
Quote:
Originally Posted by BOBNCHI
O'Hara? Geesh.....
Merely shows one may be a transplant to Chicago and maybe a bit older..... premièring the Classic old Actress Maureen O'Hara. I as a transplant long ago ...,also used O'Hara at first. Like Torontonians hate when Americans call their CN Tower the CNN Tower ...
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THIS! OMG so very important...
Maggie Daley Park too and the RiverWalk. Improvements to LSD and Lakefront. You see the crowds and they want to come back and go home and boost the city. 
