November 15, 2010 at 8:01 am
Adam Gardner (11/12/2010)
Michael Valentine Jones (11/12/2010)
... “We’re leaving Denver right now; we should be in Kansas City in about 3 hours.”Where are the flying cars I was promised?
Dont joke, that is what I was thinking about as a solution to extensive road costs, issues with being able to program emergency stopping and so on....
November 15, 2010 at 8:22 am
I think Jay raises good points, and those are my concerns. There are lots of stuff to worry about with cars, even when they are all automated. We have deer all the time out near where I live, even in the edges of suburban areas. Can you imagine a car that doesn't see the deer until it gets within 3 ft of the road and then slams on the brakes instead of slowing 100 ft away because you see them in the bushes?
Having all cars automated will make a difference, but that's a "long way from here". We don't have a good way to get there from here.
I can see closed areas, maybe cities, maybe HOV type lanes, that have automated cars only.
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November 15, 2010 at 8:38 am
It just occurred to me what the equivalent of this thread would have been in 1925 discussing what we now call Interstates or Autobahn, etc.
The deer or children on the side of the road would be why there would never be a road with a 75 mph (120 kph) speed limit.
Even if someone could describe a freeway with a cloverleaf interchange, who then would be able to see a way to get from here to there? (or should I say from there to here, since we now have these things)
In other words we are speculating about the future with cracked crystal balls. "Outlook unclear, try again later"
Which is not to say we should stop if we are having fun. 😀
November 15, 2010 at 8:59 am
grahamc (11/15/2010)
Adam Gardner (11/12/2010)
Michael Valentine Jones (11/12/2010)
... “We’re leaving Denver right now; we should be in Kansas City in about 3 hours.”Where are the flying cars I was promised?
Dont joke, that is what I was thinking about as a solution to extensive road costs, issues with being able to program emergency stopping and so on....
I'm sure some naysayers are thinking, "Flying cars won't help you avoid those flying deer on December 25th!" 😛
November 17, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Adam Gardner (11/15/2010)
grahamc (11/15/2010)
Adam Gardner (11/12/2010)
Michael Valentine Jones (11/12/2010)
... “We’re leaving Denver right now; we should be in Kansas City in about 3 hours.”Where are the flying cars I was promised?
Dont joke, that is what I was thinking about as a solution to extensive road costs, issues with being able to program emergency stopping and so on....
I'm sure some naysayers are thinking, "Flying cars won't help you avoid those flying deer on December 25th!" 😛
Nah. The bigger issue will be avoiding all the flying pigs the day flying cars go into general use. 🙂
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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November 22, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Great Idea - not sure it is feasible. Issues are a plenty with something like this - virus in the system, hackers, bugs, system outages (during peak commute could render the road impassible for many more hours than current systems).
Rather than cars, let's get the teleporters working.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
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November 22, 2010 at 12:47 pm
CirquedeSQLeil (11/22/2010)
Great Idea - not sure it is feasible. Issues are a plenty with something like this - virus in the system, hackers, bugs, system outages (during peak commute could render the road impassible for many more hours than current systems).Rather than cars, let's get the teleporters working.
Or giant, city-wide catapults, and base-jumping style parachutes. Wear helmets, please.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
November 22, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Rather than cars, let's get the teleporters working.
Aren't you worried about interference from "nucleonic" radiation? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transporter_(Star_Trek)
😛
November 22, 2010 at 2:25 pm
GSquared (11/22/2010)
CirquedeSQLeil (11/22/2010)
Great Idea - not sure it is feasible. Issues are a plenty with something like this - virus in the system, hackers, bugs, system outages (during peak commute could render the road impassible for many more hours than current systems).Rather than cars, let's get the teleporters working.
Or giant, city-wide catapults, and base-jumping style parachutes. Wear helmets, please.
Excellent idea - medieval meets 22nd century.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
November 22, 2010 at 2:43 pm
CirquedeSQLeil (11/22/2010)
GSquared (11/22/2010)
CirquedeSQLeil (11/22/2010)
Great Idea - not sure it is feasible. Issues are a plenty with something like this - virus in the system, hackers, bugs, system outages (during peak commute could render the road impassible for many more hours than current systems).Rather than cars, let's get the teleporters working.
Or giant, city-wide catapults, and base-jumping style parachutes. Wear helmets, please.
Excellent idea - medieval meets 22nd century.
More Looney Tunes than medieval. That way, if you hit a building, instead of your organs being crushed and you dying instantly and making a HUGE mess for the janitorial staff, you just punch a hole through the building that's shaped like your outline, and you get spirals and/or stars around your head. That's the option I'd go for, anyway.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
November 23, 2010 at 7:21 am
GSquared (11/22/2010)
CirquedeSQLeil (11/22/2010)
GSquared (11/22/2010)
CirquedeSQLeil (11/22/2010)
Great Idea - not sure it is feasible. Issues are a plenty with something like this - virus in the system, hackers, bugs, system outages (during peak commute could render the road impassible for many more hours than current systems).Rather than cars, let's get the teleporters working.
Or giant, city-wide catapults, and base-jumping style parachutes. Wear helmets, please.
Excellent idea - medieval meets 22nd century.
More Looney Tunes than medieval. That way, if you hit a building, instead of your organs being crushed and you dying instantly and making a HUGE mess for the janitorial staff, you just punch a hole through the building that's shaped like your outline, and you get spirals and/or stars around your head. That's the option I'd go for, anyway.
Better yet, we would all carry dots with us that transform into holes. It would be excellent for approaching buildings - just don't use the dots with trains in them.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
December 16, 2010 at 10:57 am
jay holovacs (11/10/2010)
steven.malone (11/10/2010)
The routes are fixed, and need to be virtually linear. Compare that with buses, which can go virtually anywhere and can alter routes to suite changing ridership, rather than trying to force ridership into the existing route
It is because the rail line is fixed that it becomes part of the long term solution.
Picture three smallish towns, similar in size, where A builds light rail, B buys some busses and C does nothing.
Twenty years later B has altered the routes several times to accomodate changes of various kinds, but looking at a map of the city it still looks pretty much the same (and a lot like C)
.
ahhh viewed from the bureaucratic perspective...
But people don't cooperate that well with top down, decided scenarios. Many light rails have had disastrous drops in ridership because the population decided not to cooperate with the planners. Detroit has extensive rail transportation to largely abandoned areas. Peoples' living, working, housing patterns involve much more than simply the location of rail. Locking one's development into such a plan could easily be a disaster in the making.
Which is why buses do, much more cheaply what rail cannot.
An interesting look at the Phoenix light rail project.
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2010/12/phoenix-valley-metro-light-rail-report-card-f.html
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
December 16, 2010 at 11:10 am
jay holovacs (12/16/2010)
An interesting look at the Phoenix light rail project.
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2010/12/phoenix-valley-metro-light-rail-report-card-f.html
That is interesting. Looks like the CO one is doing well, and I think they integrated it much better than many other projects with the city. I'm not sure how efficiently these systems are. It seems that buses do a better job, and are more deployable to new places if traffic pattern changes.
I know I prefer to ride the buses to the Bronco's game instead of the light rail.
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December 16, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (12/16/2010)
That is interesting. Looks like the CO one is doing well, and I think they integrated it much better than many other projects with the city. I'm not sure how efficiently these systems are. It seems that buses do a better job, and are more deployable to new places if traffic pattern changes.I know I prefer to ride the buses to the Bronco's game instead of the light rail.
Steve - Don't bet on Denver's light rail doing better than Phoenix'. Already RTD light rail uses double the BTU/pm as a Prius, 3501 vs. 1700. (see http://ti.org/NTD09sum.xls) ...and that is in a year where RTD reported only a 5.2% drop in ridership over their all-time high in 2008! (see http://www.inside-lane.com/2010/02/02/recession-gas-price-drop-contribute-to-rtd-ridership-decline-for-2009/) The only way we are going to see Prius-like efficiency in FasTracks is if RTD does not get enough money to finish it, and they are forced to concentrate their limited construction dollars on the densest part of the urban core. Even then it will have just been cheaper to buy every daily rider a Prius instead of building FasTracks in the first place, and pay for their gas instead of operating FasTracks...
I totally agree with you about the buses. There's a concept called BRT where instead of building rail lines and rail stops they add HOT lanes and bus stations to existing highways and run the buses on a tight train-like schedule. The advantage is you can sell the excess capacity on the HOT lanes to toll-payers and have the project help repay construction and operation costs, thus reducing the subsidy required for the transit system. It's too bad that politics got in the way of a much more cost-efficient solution like that. The only BRT line in FasTracks is Highway 36.
December 17, 2010 at 8:28 am
Perhaps. I do see the light rail in Denver packed quite often with commuters, and I'm not sold that the analysis v a Prius is correct. But it is a good point about the efficiencies of fixed rail v mobile vehicles.
I certainly don't want to see the light rail expanded in Denver up I-225. Not sure that there is enough density in that direction to make it a good idea.
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