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Comment by axelfontaine | Hacker News Reader

We have this technology today. It's called trains.

Trains aren't really comparable to autonomous lanes.

An autonomous car can travel on both normal roads, and in an autonomous lane. Roads are everywhere -- there's a road leading up to most people's place of residence.

Trains rely on tracks which are not as common as roads. Trains are also not owned by individuals. Most people do not have a train station outside of their house.

Perhaps we could dedicate the right most lane on every highway to becoming a train line instead of an autonomous vehicle lane?

A train can move more tonnage (see people) per unit of energy (kWhr/gallon of diesel/etc.) Than almost any other mode of transportation (gosh darn sailboats and barges being so efficient!) .

So why have 100's of electric motors and separate batteries to move people, when you can skip the batteries and have an electrified third rail and just an engine or two running a train for those hundreds of people.

The nearest thing that might be described as “highway” is 20 miles from my house. It’s the last (few dozen) mile problem passenger trains in the US have always faced for everyone who doesn’t live in the Northeast or SoCal.

Guess where the two passenger lines that come even vaguely to profitability are?

The population of the US is very coastal, which doesn’t map well to a hub and spoke system like rail. Contrast with Western Europe where A -> Paris/Berlin -> B is probably reasonably close to a straight line.

This is a great idea, but wouldn't paving more road be significantly cheaper and quicker than building rail infrastructure?

I'm all for the US pouring money into rail, but the fact is that we're _very_ bad at big infrastructure projects right now. That's not to say that we can't get better though.

The problem we have seen over the last 100 years in highway infrastructure is that demand always increases to fill capacity. The greatest example of this is LA, which has some of the largest highways in the country but still has bumper to bumper traffic.

You need to think about it on two metrics;

(1) density of transport; how many people per unit volume

(2) power to # of passengers.

On both counts trains are vastly superior to almost all other modes of transit other than boat.

> Trains are also not owned by individuals.

Planes aren't either, what's your point? That people who need to go somewhere should be priced out of using _public_ infrastructure and require a personal investment currently in the tens of thousands for the cheapest autonomous cars?

> Most people do not have a train station outside of their house.

People have feet or a wheelchair, bicycles are a thing, trams and buses exist have you ever even been outside of suburbia?

Plenty of privately owned planes, even privately owned airports. Not many privately owned railways beyond a few garden toys that are more like giant rideable models).

JR East has 12,500 bits of rolling stock and 50,000 employees. BNSF has 8,000 locomotives and 41,000 employees. They're listed on the stock exchange and clearly have more than a few garden toys.

Also, who implied that railways need to be privately owned?

My overall point is that trains will not replace cars in the United States any time soon, so they would not be a very good replacement for autonomous driving lanes.

> Planes aren't either, what's your point?

My point is that the comment I replied to implied that trains can replace cars. Trains cannot replace cars because they are a form of public transportation, which cannot easily replace cars.

> That people who need to go somewhere should be priced out

This is quite the leap. My comment did not argue the merits of either, merely that trains would not be a very good replacement for autonomous vehicle lanes.

> have you ever even been outside of suburbia?

This isn't useful to your argument. Why are you resorting to a personal attack?

Autonomous Driving Lanes world-wide: 0 kilometres.

> so they would not be a very good replacement for autonomous driving lanes.

Railways world-wide: 1,400,000 kilometres.

> Why are you resorting to a personal attack?

Are you seriously considering my putting out there that your personal experiences might influence your arguments to the point of not being credible a personal attack?

> Planes aren't either, what's your point?

If it weren't because of price, I'm sure everybody would prefer flying private.

Flying commercial is pretty much as awful as it gets.

> If it weren't because of price, I'm sure everybody would prefer flying private.

Oh, OK, the only reason we shouldn't move the 10,000 daily passengers between LAX and SFO in 10,000 planes a day is because of the price.

> Roads are everywhere -- there's a road leading up to most people's place of residence.

But parent's comment was aimed at the one lane for self driving cars comment.

So I don’t see how you comment could apply to it. Yes we have roads leading up to almost everyone’s house. But in the case of a dedicated self driving lane proposal it would be as impractical As giving everyone a railway track leading to their home.

> Trains are not owned by individuals.

Exactly. So instead of building infrastructure to improve moving a few people at a time, improving infrastructure that helps move a few hundred at a time seems like a better investment.

It doesn't as trains don't have the convenience of your own car where the stops are.

If you had a train you could drive your car onto it would be more equivalent.

Also train lines have far less coverage than highways.

Not to mention, with a car you get to decide your own schedule. If I want to take the train where I am, I have to be there at 4:30am or... well, that's it. That's the only time.

Poor argument for underfunded and purposefully stymied train development in the early to mid 20th century.

Just look to Europe for what a large swath of the US could have if it invested in train infrastructure.

Train good, car bad.

> Poor argument for underfunded and purposefully stymied train development in the early to mid 20th century.

If I had a working time machine, plus a magic want to make people do what I want, that might be a good argument. I don't have either, though. The world (or at least country) we live in didn't do that, and the mid-20th century was quite a while ago. Now what? Even if funding for rail magically cranked up today, we won't have ride-able lines for a decade, at best. Meanwhile, I've got places to go tomorrow, and rail isn't a realistic option.

> Just look to Europe for what a large swath of the US could have if it invested in train infrastructure.

Out in my part of the country, we don't have anything like Europe's population density. Your "could have had" would be very uneconomical out here.

> Train good, car bad.

Spare us the thought-terminating cliches, especially when they're wrong. Your post isn't convincing, but this parting shot doesn't make it any better. It just makes you sound like you're a propagandist.

Europe has cars and highways.

Sure, we do, but taking the train into copenhagen for work is a far better option for most here. Thing is, when you invest in rails instead of parking, you change the math more than "europe has cars and highways" could describe.

I live in Europe and commute by train. I need to order tickets 10 days ahead to get the cheapest price, and they're non-refundable as well as non-changeable.

That means I have fixed times, there is no flexibility if I wish to leave earlier or need to stay longer. If I do, I lose the initial charge plus a new 3 times more expensive ticket.

Ticket prices also varies depending on time, which means I have to leave really early and come back 13.5 hours later. And I'm exhausted.

1 out of 8 trains are cancelled or have severe delays, passengers are often rude or are being annoying in someway that makes it difficult to relax.

Trains are not the blessing you think they are.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I am lucky to live 10min away from the station. If I would live where I would like, it would mean 30-40min.

You have options that would give you more flexibility on travel times you simply value the lower cost over the convenience. That’s not a train problem that’s a choice you have made.

Sounds annoying, which country?

Where I live the national railway carrier lets you refund or exchange your tickets and seat reservations freely up until 15 minutes before the departure time, most ticket types are valid for a day (so you don’t have to buy one for a specific connection) and the prices are, I believe, more or less fixed. The delays are inevitable I guess in most larger networks.

I don’t take the train that often, but my experience is generally pretty good, especially as I’m starting to hate driving.

Trains in Europe are not magical and the best they could ever be.

They could be a lot better in a lot of ways. In Europe there is still a huge investment in car infrastructure. And while land use wasnt as bad as in the US its still far from optimal.

I do dislike the selling of these specific tickets. I much prefer a system where you can just take the train.

When I used the ICE in Germany I would never get a reservation, just a general ticket. So if I missed one it didnt matter.

> with a car you get to decide your own schedule

Not in heavy traffic.

Can a train pick me up directly at my home, and drop me off at pretty much any destination, with more luggage than I can carry at once, at any time of the day, at the exact moment I want to leave? No? Then trains are an alternative to self-driving cars, not a replacement.

Public transport is great, but you aren't going to convince others to support it by pretending it doesn't have any drawbacks compared to private transport.

Reminds me of how I used to build railways everywhere instead of roads in Sim City. But surely that wouldn't work out in real life?

In Tokyo at least in the proper city it's easy to feel you're fine with just JR + subways.

It is possible to move around Tokyo without cars to some extent, but there are still far more roads than there are railways. It’s nowhere near being a car-free zone, and many people who don’t drive would still need buses or taxis to get to the train station.

Possible? Millions of people daily do this in Tokyo I'd say it's more then a possibility. Have always been able to get to Tokyo station or Shinagawa/Shinjukku via a JR rail or local subway, so definitely not needed either. Shaving 10 minutes via taxi yes that is a bonus.

Not everyone in Tokyo lives so close to train stations. There are places inside the 23 wards where the nearest train station is more than 3 kilometers away. You could walk, but it would take around 50 minutes.

I should also add that if you want to move around the west region of Tokyo, you're better off using a bus because there are no trains there that lets you move north or south. The Tobu Tojo Line, Seibu Ikebukuro Line, and the JR Chuo Line all move in the east/west direction.

It works in most of the world’s cities.

Statistically speaking, the vast majority of the world’s cities have absolutely zero local rail transportation.

yes, but we already have a network of asphalt, not rails.

Here is a map of the rail network in North America (just to confirm that it does not exist /s)

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=96ec...

clearly rails exist. I highly doubt you, or anyone, believes that rails reach the number of destinations that roads do. Yes you could argue to move more by rail for most destinations, and last mile it by truck. But with that change I still think we're running into contention for that left lane ...

I agree that the rail network is really not sufficient in North America, but it's worth investing more in extending this network.

Maintenance cost of rail is significantly cheaper. Don't sink more into bad design.

It costs Amtrak over $300k a year to maintain a single mile of track on the Northeast corridor. For comparison, it costs around $30k to maintain a single mile of US interstate, i.e. only 10% of the cost to maintain rail track. In what sense rail is cheaper to maintain, exactly?

Citation needed. I can believe that we spend $30k a year filling potholes on a mile of interstate but every 10 years we have to resurface it and every 30-50 years we have to completely rebuild it.

Just Google it, it’s not hard. Are you really surprised that rail also costs money to maintain?

Good point! Let's dedicate a fraction of it, say the left most lane, to becoming railway lines!!!

It’s obvious at this point that the US gov doesn’t want to invest there, and it’s too hard for the private sector to go and build train routes through land.

All of Elon Musk's grand ideas for revolutionizing terrestrial transportation (that aren't laughably unworkable like miles long vacuum enclosures) are just 'trains but much smaller and with tires so that we lose all efficiencies and gain all of the drawbacks'. So this fits perfectly.

The difference to trains in Musk (and Silicon Valley's overall view) is that with automated cars, you don't have to share your personal space with other people (the poors!). It's easy to make fun of the overall project but there's elitism behind it - have your private space at the cost of the public.

Well it's fun to make fun of Mr. Musk (and his fake physics credentials) for more or less copying a 100 year old idea and design, and making it flashy again.

Yes the hyperloop is just a rebranded vacuum train/atmospheric railway... Patented in 1799 in London... Yup... Let that sink in.

It's really quite amazing how similar things are today, to 200 years ago. I've been reading some philosophical literature from 19th century and if just change a few key words you'd imagine it was written today.

Ha!

Thanks for cutting through the meandering, pseudo-intellectual cruft with an answer than makes too much sense.

Trains are great for moving lots of people efficiently and quickly from one place where they don't want to be to another place where they don't want to be.

Said no one in Europe, ever.

In the US, 200 years is a long time, and the train doesn't go where you're going. In Europe, 200 km is a long distance, and it might.

In Singapore, 50 years is a long time and the train goes where you're going.

I'm not saying the US could pull off a Singapore, but there's no excuse for San Francisco, or LA, or any other large city to have done so.

We have highways everywhere... We could definitely dedicate the left most lane and convert every left most lane into people moving train tracks. Just because we haven't doesn't mean it isn't economical or feasible.

With a good planning and a little time (unfortunately slightly in the decades) you can build infrastructure to be around the train network. Make sure you have a good connection from home location to a hub and infrastructure development around the hub for shops and offices as well as train lines to factories for factory workers as in Tokyo, combined with an integrated schedule as inspired by Switzerland and you get quite an attractive urban experience. But yes, that is a major shift from America's car focussed infrastructure.

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