Texas should start an initiative to get high-speed rail (Houston: buy, school)

[bluescreen73]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

I remember my father saying the exact same thing when I was a child, and showing me the article (I think it was in Popular Science, but it could have been Parade or something similar) that proved it. It was a very exciting idea at the time. (All the buildings in the drawings looked a lot like something out of the Jetsons, too.)

That would have been right around 1954-55 or so, based on the page I was then.

To be fair though, back in the 50s computers were run on vacuum tubes, weighed thousands of pounds, and occupied multiple rooms of a building.

Nowadays a smart phone has exponentially more processing power than ENIAC did. Heck it also has more processing power than my first PC (a Pentium-100 c. 1996) did.

Most of the pieces of a driverless car already exist. Collision detection & avoidance, self-parking, and lane assistance come standard on a handful of luxury cars.

The biggest hurdle now is a broad category called "driverless car ethics." It deals with questions like "how do you prevent the collision detection system from plowing into a bus stop full of people to avoid an impending accident?"

[TexasHorseLady]

Oh, I do know about the progression of computers - after all, I was messing around with them when I was learning the cutting edge programming language COBOL and using punch cards.

I just find the confident predictions of today amusing in light of the equally confident, with equally good reasoning, predictions of yesteryear.

[Philip T]

Originally Posted by Texas Liberal

Fast trains are cool and all, but by the time you could get a high speed rail line built, robocars will have destroyed any demand for it.

What do you think is going to fuel these robocars?

btw, cars -- robo, or otherwise -- are not the competition to HSR. Airlines are.

That is why Southwest Airlines bribes the Texas Legislature millions to kill it.

[Texas Liberal]

Originally Posted by Philip T

What do you think is going to fuel these robocars?

Gasoline. What do you think is going to power trains?

Originally Posted by Philip T

btw, cars -- robo, or otherwise -- are not the competition to HSR. Airlines are.

That is why Southwest Airlines bribes the Texas Legislature millions to kill it.

HSR will have to compete with both. If Southwest is bribing the legislature to kill it, then they are wasting their money, because it will be killed anyway.

[DarkWolf]

HSR trains are comfy compared to buses and cars....as for the Acela Amtrak is currently slowing upgrading the NEC..and by 2050 the NE will have over 1,700 miles 170mph+ Tracks... As for HST they often operate with a profit due to the amount of crew they need and ticket prices aswell as Ridership being higher....so its not a money pit. The amount that it takes to break even is 6,000 passengers a day to subsidize its own daily and yearly operations to operate yearly and expand on its own you need at least 150,000 to ride daily and that only happens in Japan. As for Texas I think theres enough demand between the cities for a Triangle system.... As for the Northeast we have run out of room for Airport Expansions & so the only option is HSR....which won't be cheap....but is the only option. You could Texas can keep expanding there Airports and Highways , but theres only so many expansions you can do before you run out of space or $$... Seeing that Texas is growing at 5-6 Million a decade I think its time you guys build a HSR and Regional Rail Network and do it right to attract ridership instead like Dallas which they have built the wrong kind of network.

[munna21977]

Electricity can be used to power trains. and this autonomous cars seems to be fantasy of some flash gordon sci-fi movies of 1950s. How many people will sit in this fantasy car?? how much will it cost as compared to conventional car? If we need to move 5000 people from dallas to houston, your 5000 fantasy cars will run on I-45???? it is one of the most lunatic ideas I have heard for some time.

Originally Posted by Texas Liberal

Gasoline. What do you think is going to power trains?




HSR will have to compete with both. If Southwest is bribing the legislature to kill it, then they are wasting their money, because it will be killed anyway.

[Texas Liberal]

Originally Posted by munna21977

Electricity can be used to power trains. and this autonomous cars seems to be fantasy of some flash gordon sci-fi movies of 1950s. How many people will sit in this fantasy car?? how much will it cost as compared to conventional car? If we need to move 5000 people from dallas to houston, your 5000 fantasy cars will run on I-45???? it is one of the most lunatic ideas I have heard for some time.

First of all, electricity is not a fuel, it is simply a carrier of energy. So electric trains will actually most likely be powered by coal and natural gas.
I don't why you think autonomous cars are a fantasy. They are already operating in California and Nevada, and many new cars have some of their features.

5000 cars on I-45! OMG that's impossible. LOL, Are you serious? 5000 vehicles is practically nothing for a highway like I-45. Some parts of 45 already carry over 300,000 vehicles a day!

Edit: Check this video out.

http://ideas.4brad.com/google-video-...car-operations

[Texas Liberal]

Originally Posted by Nexis4Jersey

HSR trains are comfy compared to buses and cars....as for the Acela Amtrak is currently slowing upgrading the NEC..and by 2050 the NE will have over 1,700 miles 170mph+ Tracks... As for HST they often operate with a profit due to the amount of crew they need and ticket prices aswell as Ridership being higher....so its not a money pit. The amount that it takes to break even is 6,000 passengers a day to subsidize its own daily and yearly operations to operate yearly and expand on its own you need at least 150,000 to ride daily and that only happens in Japan. As for Texas I think theres enough demand between the cities for a Triangle system.... As for the Northeast we have run out of room for Airport Expansions & so the only option is HSR....which won't be cheap....but is the only option. You could Texas can keep expanding there Airports and Highways , but theres only so many expansions you can do before you run out of space or $$... Seeing that Texas is growing at 5-6 Million a decade I think its time you guys build a HSR and Regional Rail Network and do it right to attract ridership instead like Dallas which they have built the wrong kind of network.

The lack of room for expansion is where autonomous cars can more than just about anything else. Most of the space on our roads and highways is empty, even on the most congested ones. All of this empty space is required because of human limitations when it comes to driving. Autonomous cars help by reducing the amount empty space needed. So without adding even so as an inch of new roadway we could dramatically increase the capacity of our current infrastructure.

[Philip T]

Originally Posted by Texas Liberal

Gasoline. What do you think is going to power trains?

Wow. You are really out of touch on these topics.

I do not mean anything harsh in that, but if you are interested . . .

Generally High Speed Rail designs are Electric.

Here is some backgrounder of where the whole Highway thing more likely may be heading.

PREA

Ever heard of Peak Oil and/or understand what that means?

At any rate, as already noted, Electricity -- from all sources -- Coal, NG, Hydro (yes, we do have some Hydro in Texas), Nukes, Wind and Solar, are all good contenders to shift much of the Texas Transportation Energy Load to, as Oil (Gasoline and Diesel) becomes too expensive to use this way.

Long term trends on Electric Production in Texas is that Coal is down, Natural Gas is up, Nukes and Hydro are in neutral and Solar and Wind are Way Up. Presently Electricity in Texas and much of the US is very surplus.

HSR will have to compete with both. If Southwest is bribing the legislature to kill it, then they are wasting their money, because it will be killed anyway.

You do not actually know any of the rest of the background, either, right?

[Texas Liberal]

Originally Posted by Philip T

Wow. You are really out of touch on these topics.

I do not mean anything harsh in that, but if you are interested . . .

Generally High Speed Rail designs are Electric.

Here is some backgrounder of where the whole Highway thing more likely may be heading.

PREA

Ever heard of Peak Oil and/or understand what that means?

At any rate, as already noted, Electricity -- from all sources -- Coal, NG, Hydro (yes, we do have some Hydro in Texas), Nukes, Wind and Solar, are all good contenders to shift much of the Texas Transportation Energy Load to, as Oil (Gasoline and Diesel) becomes too expensive to use this way.

Long term trends on Electric Production in Texas is that Coal is down, Natural Gas is up, Nukes and Hydro are in neutral and Solar and Wind are Way Up. Presently Electricity in Texas and much of the US is very surplus.



You do not actually know any of the rest of the background, either, right?

Yeah I know all about peak oil, and not to harsh or anything, but it is old news. The U.S. is blessed with huge reserves of oil, coal and natural gas, there is no reason to believe that we won't continue to use them as fuel sources into the foreseeable future.

That said, I am all for wind and solar. Texas is blessed with those resources in addition to petroleum. I would like to see more development along these lines, and I think we will.

Look, I know that the official meme is that HSR was killed in Texas because Southwest Airlines was afraid of competition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The truth is that HSR would never be able to compete with any airline in Texas and was killed because it was a bad idea. It was a bad idea then, and it will be an even worse idea in the future.