Public/Mass Transport Thread

The US will be the last place (likely next to Canada) where public transport like trains can't reach the levels of Japan/South Korea.

To be fair, those are pretty much the gold standard of public rail systems.

True. I'd say the same standard goes for HK and Singapore.

https://www.thaipbsworld.com/entire-pink-line-train-service-suspended-until-tomorrow/

The Pink Link MRT in Bangkok, Thailand suffered an accident when the conductor rail got loose and fell down on December 24. No one was fortunately hurt since it was on a test run.

It's likely due to the construction as to why the rails fell. IIRC, most of the contracts Thailand's getting is done by Chinese companies.

Edited by Ominae on Jan 1st 2024 at 5:25:53 AM

https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-boring-company-tunnel-sludge

Maybe the hyperloop was a bad idea, actually. It turns out that the accelerants used to cure the walls of the test one in Vegas are, uh, turning into toxic sludge that burns human skin, which is a really weird problem to have because we have a long history of making tunnels that don’t ooze with toxic sludge that burn people.

How about instead, we just hugely fund public transport?

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 28th 2024 at 11:02:47 AM

They should change the name to Burning Company.

How the fuck did they manage that one? I'm honestly baffled.

Well, you see they were trying to make a dietary supplement that would allow food to pass through a body too quickly for nutrients to be absorbed but for various reasons it was shelved so they tried using the pudding on the walls of their hyperloop...

Basically, an accelerant is needed in cases like this because the stuff keeping the tunnels stable takes too long to dry and solidify. That part's normal. The problem is that it looks like they used one that's intended for like, construction in buildings where the concrete/grout is never going to be accessible under normal circumstances. There's a different type used for tunnels that involve close human contact. That, or they tried to develop it themselves and in attempting to reinvent the wheel, discovered why the existing wheel is still good enough.

But yeah, it looks for all the world like the Boring Company didn't actually do proper preliminary testing on the materials used and just charged ahead. They're claiming that OSHA hasn't proven any of the events has occurred but like...in these situations, the Boring Company has to prove this isn't the case and the idea that this many employees would band together to lie about the company paying them is very strange.

Also, to note: I shared the Futurist article, because it mostly sources from a Bloomberg article that is paywalled. I did get to look at the Bloomberg article, and it's pretty dry and not trying to sensationalize at all beyond the base "there's toxic sludge tunnels under Vegas now" stuff.

...I feel like Toxic Sludge Under Vegas would make a pretty good band name.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 28th 2024 at 11:55:51 AM

Well, public transportation needs infrastructure like railway lines or roads, it's not something you can just pull out of thin air. I think a more valuable invention would be the mass production of tunnels, so that we can equip every city with a metro and/or shift car roads underground and/or build underground infrastructure ... y'know let's just say that it would be immensely useful.

There's a very, very good reason that underground highways are generally not a thing. If, say, Los Angeles managed to shift the highway infrastructure underground, what do you do if a pile-up happens halfway between exits? You can't get at the accident site while if it's an above ground highway, you can at least get adjacent to it in some way. Tunnel car accidents are a nightmare in general and it's a lot of why most road design tries to minimize the number of tunnels.

The other thing is that hugely funding public transit includes like...building new infrastructure? I legit don't get what you're responding to there. What we do know is that the Boring Company approach apparently leads to tunnels full of toxic sludge, so we probably shouldn't use it. A lot of the problem in North America is just that public transit is extremely underfunded and not given the resources it needs. And that's before how car companies conspired to shred the Los Angeles public transit system, for example. It used to have one of the best streetcar networks in the world.

...yes, that weird conspiracy plot from Who Framed Roger Rabbit about killing public transit was a real thing.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 28th 2024 at 12:02:09 PM

There is some evidence that accident rates in tunnels are smaller than on open roads, but let's stay on the point: Public transportation needs infrastructure like unclogged roads or railways. These cost money, too, you can't just wave your hands and a good PT system zaps into existence.

I am genuinely confused about what your point is.

I said "hey, let's put a lot of money into public transit", implying that the people saying the Boring Company is the future of underground roads instead of public transit are focusing on the wrong thing.

And you go "no, you're wrong, we need to put a lot of money into public transit."

Like, what's your point? Telling me that I'm wrong and then agreeing with me confuses your point. You're acting like I'm not saying that public transit needs a lot of money.

Personally, I think that existing technology can be used pretty well, and we can do things like streetcar networks that use existing roads with overhead infrastructure that means they're full electric and not dependent on batteries that use toxic materials and extremely exploitative mining methods.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 28th 2024 at 12:14:02 PM

Isn't the issue less with building tunnels and more that building tunnels that are just normal roads but even more limited access. Badly.

Yeah. It's a known and proven thing that adding new roads and lanes just increases the amount of traffic to fit. The best way to fight congestion is to make driving as unnecessary as possible. Thus, public transit.

And better urban planning etc. Reducing the need for any form of distant travel is even better, yes.

How about instead, we just hugely fund public transport? is a statement that using the money used for hyperloop for public transportation would be worthwhile. I see no guarantee that this money would be sufficient. And the thing about tunnel technology is that with it you can do public transportation and more. More bang for the same buck, as they say.

The advantage of underground roads isn't the additional roads. It's that underground roads don't make as much noise above the surface, don't take up land, you can try to clean the air pollution etc. And underground roads is only one potential use case for better tunnel technology. Another being, as mentioned, metros.

Urban planning is a solution for newly built cities. It's tricky to solve any problem with it on already existing cities.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Feb 28th 2024 at 6:21:17 PM

Well, the problem we have here is making bad tunnels with a company committed to doing daft stuff with them if it can at all manage it.

But not impossible. Making roads less car focused is basically the easiest

Edited by RainehDaze on Feb 28th 2024 at 5:23:33 PM

Like, streetcars, like I said. They use existing roads (after some modification) and cars can drive on streetcar tracks without issue and they can just be directly linked into the electric grid without requiring batteries. Streetcars also have the advantage of being implementable everywhere. Like, you cannot build any underground infrastructure around New Orleans or Baton Rouge in Louisiana. It's literally not happening. But you can (and New Orleans has) built streetcars. But a lot of places are resistant to streetcars because it feels weird and old fashioned and because none of the techbros pay attention to them and there's not really any way to really innovate on the technology since it's nearly perfect as is.

And I can guarantee you that if Vegas had spent this money (which was earmarked for "city improvements way back when") on anything else, it would have been a better return in investment. Now they just have a bunch of toxic sludge tunnels.

The other thing is, even at the time, the hyperloop was a bad investment for Vegas. The pitch is terrible. It's a bunch of one way tiny tunnels that don't have nearly enough safety features and exit points in a city that's not particularly that large. It's the tunnel equivalent of those hedge roads in rural England. It didn't even work properly as a proof of concept. So yes, I can say that Vegas wasted money on it.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 28th 2024 at 12:44:44 PM

I hate to defend Musk here but it’s worth noting that the toxic sludge referenced in that article was there during the construction phase, not currently.

@ Septimus Heap

If we want to stay practical, the best bet for now would be to create public transportation systems like buses before moving to metros.

Not because there isn't money but because building underground trains in cities involve, one way or another, expropiating land or houses, which leads to legal headaches of all sorts.

And I'll have to disagree with the idea that urban planning is a solution for newly built cities. Right now it's a necessity for pretty much every city in the planet thanks to climate change, that's it's going to be a thorny issue by default doesn't mean it can't be used for old cities.

Oh okay.

I still think it's safe to say that it's an incredibly serious flaw with the design (among many) and that proper testing should have been done on the accelerant ahead of time.

Shotcrete accelerators are almost universally some pretty nasty stuff. Alkaline burns are no joke. Alkali-free accelerators do exist, but aren’t suitable for every kind of cement and can introduce structural weaknesses. Cement itself can also cause extremely serious burns on exposed skin, especially when mixed with water.

Not to say every safety protocol was being followed here, but that kind of thing is a fairly common hazard on construction sites. The reporting on this story seems a bit sensationalized.

To the guy that said US will be the last country to have modern railways... is that you never saw Mexico.

Railway system? Only city wide and touristic routes, such as Barranca del Cobre that open in winter in Chihuahua to enjoy watching the snow and the infamous Tren Maya that the President is pushing into several efforts to put an old fashioned railway to make a pleasant trip in Yucatan Peninsula...

And when I said old fashioned I mean that is no electric, will be using gasoline and is destroying several jungles...

And to add more salt to the injury the company that is developing this white elephant is the Army...

And thinking that, some years ago, Elon Musk wanted to use the super speed tube system in Mexico... but it was another president... another story...

Speculation that Amtrack's ready to try again to bring hi-speed trains to the triangle in Texas.

There's opposition with airlines and Texan farmers.