Passenger Trains > New York City Subway replacement article

This is more a Transit than Passenger item, but the sheer madness of this proposal warrants comments from the Group.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/06/the-new-york-city-subway-is-beyond-repair/562472/

That makes about as much sense as flying automobiles or "fleeting" autonomous 18-wheelers on highways...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

So many things wrong about this proposal, one doesn't know where to start.

another nut who tries to make a living writing stuff thats somewhere between Controversial and stupid. Another dreamer whose probably never done anything concrete in his life. Thinks the laws of physics was invented by star trek.

JGFuller Wrote:
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> This is more a Transit than Passenger item, but
> the sheer madness of this proposal warrants
> comments from the Group.
>
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/201
> 8/06/the-new-york-city-subway-is-beyond-repair/562
> 472/

I'm willing to wait several years for all that's claimed in the article to happen. In fact, his article looks like a business proposal for a start up, so I wish him luck.

He can hire me as a consultant, but I won't provide a penny for "seed money." I'm eager to see the public reaction when he actually does dismantle the NYC Subway system!

Peter Wayner - Jules Verne for the New Millennium.
...Lorenzo

"The Atlantic' will publish any sort of nonsense.

567Chant Wrote:
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> Peter Wayner - Jules Verne for the New
> Millennium.
> ...Lorenzo

Sorry, you can not compare him to Jules Verne. Verne wrote way more books and imagined it all in his mind. They are still discussing Jules Verne’s books that have been just discovered, like Paris in The 20th Century.

PETER WAYNER is the author of books on technology, theater and the cars of the future, using existing technologies to create his ideas.

Posted from iPhone

Basic premise, that you can carry the same load through a small tunnel using individually dispatched vehicles that carry a few people, that you carry by cramming them into a 10car, subway train every few minutes, standing room only?

Ain’t gonna work.

march_hare Wrote:
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> Basic premise, that you can carry the same load
> through a small tunnel using individually
> dispatched vehicles that carry a few people, that
> you carry by cramming them into a 10car, subway
> train every few minutes, standing room only?
>
> Ain’t gonna work.

or another credibility check - can you load and unload tens of thousands of passengers per hour at Times Square using autonomous vehicles?

So you take just one subway car with, say, 100 people in it, and split them up into cars with 2 people each. The odds are strong that 15 or more will want to exit at the next stop, plus those who want to board. So this group of 2 person passengers just sort of bumps along, maybe 50 feet maximum at a time, then stops to let the car ahead discharge 2 people and board 2 people. Then the following car, etc., etc. And those off ramps and on ramps? What happens at street level?

march_hare Wrote:
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> Basic premise, that you can carry the same load
> through a small tunnel using individually
> dispatched vehicles that carry a few people, that
> you carry by cramming them into a 10car, subway
> train every few minutes, standing room only?
>
> Ain’t gonna work.

Yet fools buy into tech industry propaganda printed (or displayed electronically) on a daily basis! I see it happening here on TO quite often, too.

If there's a possibility of moneymaking, regardless of laws of physics (and reality), people buy into this stuff. Really, dismantle the subway network right now.

Author: cchan006

"I'm willing to wait several years for all that's claimed in the article to happen. In fact, his article looks like a business proposal for a start up, so I wish him luck."

Bid Hitter has been reincarnated???

SANSR Wrote:
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> Bid Hitter has been reincarnated???

I don't think so. He was hyping X Train (Los Angeles to Las Vegas, conventional speed). X Train exploited the blind train enthusiasm from behind-the-scenes political deals that resulted in the 2008 Presidential Election. So not only was there CA HSR, there was talk of HSR in Nevada and other parts of the country. Plenty of suckers to be had in an environment like that.

This guy is regurgitating Elon Musk's vision about underground tunnels that can transport cars at higher speeds than on freeways. Of course, Hyperloop hasn't gone anywhere, so this seems far more attractive. Most of the thoughts expressed in this thread, I already thought about it last year when Musk was hyping his Boring Company. I'm confident transit professionals around the world were chuckling at his ideas.

Our "innovation" is trapped in a box called the automobile, so "entrepreneurs" are busy trying to improve the car, whether it's artificial intelligence or tunnel transport. A society that doesn't have such a tight box (trains AND cars) can work on improving whatever is appropriate (power semiconductors, which led to practical use of AC traction motors for higher speed train travel, for example). Remember, the Google founders were working on flying cars (congestion so bad? LOL)

We can't think outside the (automotive) box here. So article like this provides me with lots of laughs.

Cooler heads chime in.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3kekj/replace-new-york-city-subway-with-self-driving-cars-terrible-idea

Didn't Robert Moses want to turn the subway tunnels into freeways?

Just a lot of stupidity.