“Notes: * CRX and DRX will be restructured and replaced, in part, by Commuter and Light Rail services.”
A few questions that I’ll be interested to see what the answers are…
How much it will cost to take commuter rail from Raleigh to Durham - somehow I’d feel like it would cost more than the $3 it costs to ride the DRX right now…
With the elimination of light rail - does that mean the CRX will be more permanent? Also, if the DRX is going to be replaced by commuter rail, how will people get connected between the Durham station and Duke (which the DRX currently has stops at)
A west Durham commuter rail station has always been planned, with a location somewhere between 9th and Anderson if I recall. Nearly all of Duke’s facilities are within a long (3/4 mile) walk of there, and of course Duke has it’s own internal bus network as well.
Hyperloop as a real transportation system is still squarely in the vaporware category.
Surely you can see the hazard in saying “Let’s forget about Real Thing X so we can save ourselves for Vaporware Thing Y, which may not be ready for another 25 years and may never actually be ready at all.”
The line haul portion of Hyperloop is admittedly a solvable technological problem, but it took JR Central 3+ decades to solve the technological issues of SCMaglev, with massive government support, and the construction costs are astronomical, so why do you think this will be any better?
The rest of the system is a big question mark and there are so many different ideas how to do it, and many of them handwave away lots of enormous issues.
The rights of way will have to be extremely straight, which means enormous lengths of tunnels or massive eminent domain fights on the surface. For as much as Elon Musk claims he can make tunneling cheaper, that is still a wholly unsubstantiated claim, and relies on undeveloped, untested technology operating flawlessly on an unprecedented scale with full automation. How well did his plans to automate final assembly of the Model 3 turn out? Oh yeah, they gave it up after sinking a huge pile of cash on it. How close are they to full autopilot driving? After moving the goalposts multiple times already, still not nearly as close as they claim, I would hazard.
Nobody has thought through how the infrastructure for doing things other than moving very quickly in a straight line will work. Stations, obviously, but also switches, signals, operations, etc as well. Let’s also not forget about safety systems: how do you get passengers out of a deep-bore tunnel from which all air has been removed in the event of a failure? Will there have to be emergency exits every half mile? $$$!
Capacity is extremely low. Even handwaving away their extremely optimistic headway assumptions, the pods are very small, which limits it to a small fraction of the capacity of a conventional HSR line. And that assumes they can even come up with a solution for stations that can handle the theoretical maximum throughput of a line. Their solution? Just dig another tube, because supposedly by then they will have essentially made the process of boring tunnels “too cheap to meter.”
If VCs want to spend their money to answer all the questions then I’m game, but I have a huge problem with spending public money on development or changing or rescheduling, or postponing any plans for real stuff.
I like the concept of hyper loop. But agree practically it’s very far off. And in this region where we have to fight tooth and nail just to bet one BRT line in 5 years, a failed light rail attempt, and a commuter rail that’s always at least 10 years off… good luck getting a hyperloop.
Wait until Dook finds out you want to bore a tunnel underneath them.
One of the greatest episodes in the history of television. I feel like a substantial portion of my posts here are just me being Marge vs. The Monorail.
On Wednesday, 29 May, the N&O will be hosting a public forum at the History Museum to discuss traffic problems in the Triangle, and alternative solutions:
Mission accomplished for them since DOLRT is dead. That language was put in there to specifically kill that project. Don’t be surprised to see something similar get shoved back in once these other plans get rolling.
This comment makes me curious, anyone know how much funding from the state Charlotte’s light rail got compared to what the funding would have been for the failed DOLRT?
This is an interesting alternative to light rail. Eliminating digging tunnels seems like it does a lot to keep costs down. I hope no one posted anything about this project, but I really didn’t remember it, and don’t want to go back through 600+ posts.
Interesting alternative. Would use a lot less land. How would stops work? I guess the gondolas would decouple form the main line and get diverted to a stop, then rejoin the main cable.
Also I would be concerned about how it does in severe weather.
I feel like that’s the Achilles’ heel of using an aerial gondola.
Otherwise, I like the idea, too. 2.5mi in 13min (11mph) -the speed of the Staten Island gondola project in @JoeZ’s post- is a bit slower than the average BRT (17-30mph on average) and carries much less people than light rail, though, so I’m having a hard time thinking it’s a viable alternative for light rail (which is better in denser, high-capacity corridors).
It sounds like a better competitor to buses where there’s more congestion along a centralized-ish route, but less real estate. Like North Hills-Crabtree-NC Museum of Art-PNC Arena/State Fairgrounds, for example?