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Written by Administrator
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Wednesday, 18 April 2012 |
From San Francisco's Commonwealth Club:
On Monday, April 30th join The Commonwealth Club for a conversation aimed at reviving California’s high speed rail debate. With a revamped budget proposal the former “train to nowhere” may in fact finally reach its destination. Given the political, financial and social climate surrounding the high speed rail project, our panelists will discuss the broader debate over high speed rail and explore the best approaches going forward.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 18 April 2012 )
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Written by Administrator
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Sunday, 26 February 2012 |
A commenter at an infamous auto apologist blog "solves" the "Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) Problem" (http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=6258#comments (Comment #7).
On February 26th, 2012, Andy said:
You know what would be the ultimate PRT? If each person had a transit mechanism whereby they could pilot the vehicle themselves, and steer it toward any destination they wanted. It would be very cool if they could play whatever music they wanted to listen to, and maybe have some room to carry other passengers or cargo. That would be SOOOO great!
These "autonomous (sic) self-driven pods" certainly are much cheaper to build, own and operate than anything proposed for automated PRT on expensive guideways where likely demand cannot justify their construction. Of course, the direct negative financial, social and environmental impacts not covered by the "autonomous (sic) self-driven pods" is something like $10.00-$15.00 per gallon, compared to the (current) $3.65 per gallon of "go juice" paid by owners of existing "autonomous (sic) self-driven pods." But this is still a lot cheaper than the direct financial costs of the automated PRT pods by themselves...
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 26 February 2012 )
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Written by Administrator
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Wednesday, 25 January 2012 |
By Michael D. Setty
At the "How We Drive" blog (http://www.howwedrive.com/2012/01/24/systemempathy-in-transit/#comments) leading robocar cheerleader Brad Templeton (http://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/) dismisses the need to improve transit:
Tom, now that you’ve seen the speed at which robocars are developing, you may want to consider one of the possibilities I have been investigating, which is the decline of public transit. While there’s no assurance that the world will switch to them, robocars that can self-deliver makes it much more marketable to have people ride in lightweight, 1 and 2 person short range electric city vehicles. Today you can’t sell them but they are perfect as cell-phone-summoned robotic taxis...
...It’s my view that almost all the rules of transit will be erased and rewritten in the next few decades, but transit and urban planners don’t even have it on their radar.
I understand completely when anti-transit activists such as Randal O'Toole or Wendell Cox dismiss transit for conservative/libertarian "philosophical" (sic) or "cultural panic" reasons (for an excellent discussion of the latter phenomenon, see http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/21/harrod.high.speed.rail.trains/index.html), but Templeton's argument that technology will solve what are essentially human social and economic problems is the weakest I've seen yet.
My response to Templeton's comments at the How We Drive blog are "below the fold."
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 January 2012 )
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