I so much appreciate your topics! How I wished as a trained urban planner to be able to listen and talk to a transportation planner in Utah. I appreciate your topics of the gondola and other alternatives I ride the FrontRunner about every day unless there are heavy delays. I really enjoy riding the train and see how used the train is getting as time goes by.
Christian, I would like to talk to you about a Frontrunner TH-cam/X side channel I am thinking of creating. Topic is exercising on the train using elastic band exercises but that is not a draw of viewers. Topics would be limited Any ideas as well as support what you are doing??
If I had control of the legislature and transportation funding. I would sink a ton of money investing in rail to Cedar City and Moab. And going crazy with intercity bus routes between to connect National, State, and rural towns. I think if buses/shuttles/taxis were autonomous it would definitely help with capacity. Out of all the options explored I really do like the idea that you suggest near the end regarding park transit. Surely has to be easier than the city testing Waymo and other autonomous companies are aiming for right?
@eyezak_m I do think national parks should be easier to navigate for a self-driving car. However, the training data will have to be very specific! The last time I let autopilot drive through Yellowstone, we blasted right past a giant elk on the shoulder that we definitely should have slowed for!
The only arguments I heard in this video where AVs were positive were that we have a status quo with things like parking requirements and land use(a bad one), and AVs would help minimize the impact of the status quo.
I believe in autonomous vehicles inasmuch as their promised benefits can come to fruition. That is: 1. We can establish battery recycling programs to keep things sustainable. 2. The economics actually do work out and capitalism doesn't ruin it for disadvantaged groups like it tends to do. 3. They are safer than human drivers. People would argue that we should get rid of our car dependent infrastructure. I agree, but that is a huge battle. We have to accept that we live in the built environment that we have. For now, it would make me happy enough if suburban dwellers got rid of their cars and relied on robo-taxis. Robo-taxis are a stepping stone to shrinking parking lots and shrinking roads, and getting us to that critical mass in which more people don't own cars, than those that do.
@king_br0k Feeding potential passengers to fewer, higher-quality transit lines will make transit more popular, IMO. Do a few routes well (rather than many routes poorly) and the whole perception of public transit will change!
@@CSLenhart defiantly, I live 2 mi from a metra station in chicagoland, but getting there is a pain I have to walk half a mile and take a bus that comes every 20 min
Not Just Bikes channel has an alarming video on self driving cars. We will essentially be held to ransom by giant corporations dictating to cities on providing suitable infrastructure for AVs. He paints a pretty nightmarish scenario.
@charlo90952 I listened to about half of that video, skipping through his points. He's right about some things, and blind to other things, just like me and all other humans. My opinion is that technology enables whoever makes use of it. Suburbanites will do their thing, for better or worse, and urbanites will do theirs, also for better and worse. More technology will allow the two camps to further diverge from each other. The point of this video is that, in my prediction, autonomous vehicles will break the monopoly of the privately owned automobile, and this will open up space for other modes, including passenger trains, to find a place in our travel networks again.
I don't know where you get your information from but it isn't correct. The largest cost to transportation is fuel, followed by capital acquisition and maintenance, then labor. However, Labor is the ONLY one of these expenses that ADDS value to the system, as opposed to just consuming it. Freight trains should not be fully 100% automated. The risks are simply too high. Removing the train operators is never going to be a viable option for major use, with some exceptions like small low speed closed systems, or areas like Australia where its in the middle of nowhere or in a inhospitable environment like underwater or in a desert, in which case there are still operators, but they work remotely. In a busy complex system, a train breaking down and there is no one to fix it is a real problem and it happens all the time. The delays quickly overcome any benefit from an autonomous crew. I see passenger trains that are close autonomy, but only in really controlled environments. The biggest threat is of course at grade crossings. But also we really should be thinking about hackers. The rail industry as whole is completely unprepared to deal with cyber attacks.
@@railroader921 For freight trains, you are correct about fuel costs being higher than staffing. But I'm focused mainly on public transportation, which isn't at the same efficiency level as fright trains.... yet.
Good nuanced take. Brave to post to the Internet where nuance is dead
The motorcycle exhaust setting off a car alarm in the background at 9 min is some what poetic, for the wrong reasons.
I so much appreciate your topics! How I wished as a trained urban planner to be able to listen and talk to a transportation planner in Utah. I appreciate your topics of the gondola and other alternatives
I ride the FrontRunner about every day unless there are heavy delays. I really enjoy riding the train and see how used the train is getting as time goes by.
Christian, I would like to talk to you about a Frontrunner TH-cam/X side channel I am thinking of creating. Topic is exercising on the train using elastic band exercises but that is not a draw of viewers. Topics would be limited Any ideas as well as support what you are doing??
If I had control of the legislature and transportation funding. I would sink a ton of money investing in rail to Cedar City and Moab. And going crazy with intercity bus routes between to connect National, State, and rural towns. I think if buses/shuttles/taxis were autonomous it would definitely help with capacity. Out of all the options explored I really do like the idea that you suggest near the end regarding park transit. Surely has to be easier than the city testing Waymo and other autonomous companies are aiming for right?
@eyezak_m I do think national parks should be easier to navigate for a self-driving car. However, the training data will have to be very specific! The last time I let autopilot drive through Yellowstone, we blasted right past a giant elk on the shoulder that we definitely should have slowed for!
Edward Abbey suggested banning cars from National Parks. Run shuttles, encourage bikes, pedestrians, even horses.
The only arguments I heard in this video where AVs were positive were that we have a status quo with things like parking requirements and land use(a bad one), and AVs would help minimize the impact of the status quo.
I believe in autonomous vehicles inasmuch as their promised benefits can come to fruition. That is: 1. We can establish battery recycling programs to keep things sustainable. 2. The economics actually do work out and capitalism doesn't ruin it for disadvantaged groups like it tends to do. 3. They are safer than human drivers.
People would argue that we should get rid of our car dependent infrastructure. I agree, but that is a huge battle. We have to accept that we live in the built environment that we have. For now, it would make me happy enough if suburban dwellers got rid of their cars and relied on robo-taxis. Robo-taxis are a stepping stone to shrinking parking lots and shrinking roads, and getting us to that critical mass in which more people don't own cars, than those that do.
@@averagejoejesse I completely agree!
Autonomous cars replacing feeder busses could be good
less waiting
@king_br0k Feeding potential passengers to fewer, higher-quality transit lines will make transit more popular, IMO. Do a few routes well (rather than many routes poorly) and the whole perception of public transit will change!
@@CSLenhart defiantly, I live 2 mi from a metra station in chicagoland, but getting there is a pain
I have to walk half a mile and take a bus that comes every 20 min
Autonomous Trains ✅
Autonomous Cars ❌
Listening to this as my Tesla is driving itself. 😎
Not Just Bikes channel has an alarming video on self driving cars. We will essentially be held to ransom by giant corporations dictating to cities on providing suitable infrastructure for AVs. He paints a pretty nightmarish scenario.
@charlo90952 I listened to about half of that video, skipping through his points. He's right about some things, and blind to other things, just like me and all other humans.
My opinion is that technology enables whoever makes use of it. Suburbanites will do their thing, for better or worse, and urbanites will do theirs, also for better and worse. More technology will allow the two camps to further diverge from each other.
The point of this video is that, in my prediction, autonomous vehicles will break the monopoly of the privately owned automobile, and this will open up space for other modes, including passenger trains, to find a place in our travel networks again.
@CSLenhart yes. Sure. Let's hope things change for the better.
I don't know where you get your information from but it isn't correct. The largest cost to transportation is fuel, followed by capital acquisition and maintenance, then labor. However, Labor is the ONLY one of these expenses that ADDS value to the system, as opposed to just consuming it.
Freight trains should not be fully 100% automated. The risks are simply too high. Removing the train operators is never going to be a viable option for major use, with some exceptions like small low speed closed systems, or areas like Australia where its in the middle of nowhere or in a inhospitable environment like underwater or in a desert, in which case there are still operators, but they work remotely. In a busy complex system, a train breaking down and there is no one to fix it is a real problem and it happens all the time. The delays quickly overcome any benefit from an autonomous crew.
I see passenger trains that are close autonomy, but only in really controlled environments. The biggest threat is of course at grade crossings. But also we really should be thinking about hackers. The rail industry as whole is completely unprepared to deal with cyber attacks.
@@railroader921 For freight trains, you are correct about fuel costs being higher than staffing. But I'm focused mainly on public transportation, which isn't at the same efficiency level as fright trains.... yet.