LA News today

On Sunday, June 13, 2021 at 5:42:27 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/13/2021 7:31 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Sunday, June 13, 2021 at 5:03:50 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 6/13/2021 6:26 PM, sms wrote:
On 6/10/2021 7:30 AM, AMuzi wrote:
https://ktla.com/morning-news/techno...ve-richontech/


I think that the future of non-car transportation (other
than for dense cities) is a combination of personal mobility
devices with a safety net of on-demand shuttles that
supplements a very few bus or light-rail lines.

When I was a local elected I had to deal with my county's
highly dysfunctional public transit system which has the
poorest fare recovery of any transit system in the U.S. (and
possibly the world)--we're #1
http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=289. My City ended up
starting up our own shuttle system because it was clear that
we would never be able to get adequate service from the
County system which is basically controlled by San Jose.

Electric personal mobility devices are the only hope of
getting more people out of their cars since they are faster
and more convenient than most public transit. I'd rather
spend $40 million to provide 40,000 electric bicycles than
to use it build one mile of a light rail system. If we can
subsidize electric cars with tax credits we can be doing the
same with electric bicycles.
Amazingly we see the problem similarly.

'Light rail' is only light on logic. Heavy on the taxpayer's
neck with small to nil benefit and a host of new problems
while the intended problems resist solution.

For 'fare recovery' nothing, and I state that categorically,
nothing beats the Milwaukee Trolley. That much reviled
boondoggle was imposed on the taxpayers like a weighted yoke
with a big fat zero for revenue.

That's not hyperbole. Revenues are zero.

They never planned, designed or installed any method to
collect fares.

https://empowerwisconsin.org/streetc...ed-boondoggle/

It's like an 'Idiocracy' parody of The Future.

The expenses of a publicly operated rail are absolutely unbelievable. Amtrak is 50 years old now and it has never once gotten anywhere close to turning a profit. In 2019 they lost only $817,000 I believe and they use other people's rails. Light rail trains in order to run fast have to be on their own rails and those rails have a VERY high maintenance cost.

Jay was telling us that high speed trains could run on normal rail gauges because that is what the Japanese do. But American engineers have said another thing altogether. They think that the real gauge for high speed trains should be two feet wider than the standard gauge. But I'm certain that Jay knows a great deal better.

They want wider a gauge because they want wider cars that sit more on the tracks and are less likely to tip over in a derailment at high speeds. BART has a 5'6" gauge if memory serves whereas a standard rail gauge is 4'8 1/2" So American engineers want more like 6 1/2' But you know those public rail transportation engineers they don't know a thing.

As for skidding on the tracks like BART does - all they need for high speed light rail is a differential. If the world's heaviest tank and trucks can use a differential why wouldn't high speed rail?

But why would ANYONE take a high speed light rail when they could fly in a third the time and a 10th the cost?

With some number of iterations on the Shinkansen all over
Japan for several years I can assure you that US standard
rail gauge is quite functional in a nicely engineered and
maintained system.

While Japanese high speed rail systems are relatively safe per passenger mile, I can assure you that they have quite a few crashes.