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Comment on California Department of Motor Vehicles approves Waymo operation in many more cities in ~transport
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Comment on California Department of Motor Vehicles approves Waymo operation in many more cities in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral, slightly moralizing Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Seems like they are empirically safer too (96% reduction in crashes)....Comment box
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They are around 20% slower than a normal one, but they are really nice cars and feel way way safer.
Seems like they are empirically safer too (96% reduction in crashes).
If humans get "comfortable" around Waymos that travel more slowly, react better/faster than human drivers, and are safer for everyone, maybe that's just a return to a human-based society rather than a car-based one. Instead of urban/suburban people living in a subconsciously heightened fear state all the time, they can just... live? Without worrying about being instantly killed by a 2-ton death machine?
I hear the practical worry you have, but the issue would be people getting comfy around Waymo behavior and forgetting that human-driven cars are dangerous, and doing the same stuff around them. Personally I consider this line of reasoning victim blaming, just like blaming dead cyclists for not wearing bright enough colors. The problem is still humans being terrible drivers, and engineers designing dangerous environments. The direct source of traffic violence and fatality is cars having too much [mass * velocity], not vulnerable road users.
The engineering process of making streets ~100% safe is essentially solved and some cities have achieved Vision Zero already (like Helsinki and Hoboken). It is not implemented everywhere for mostly political reasons, not scientific ones.
when they finally corner the market and drive humans away the prices will get crazy high.
I doubt this very much. Waymo's competition now is human drivers. But other autonomous car companies exist and will compete for market share just like Uber and Lyft compete with each other. I don't see how this could possibly raise prices when the underlying cost of operating the service will be lower.
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Comment on The final line in Los Angeles's holy trinity of future rail: Vermont corridor in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Nandert doesn't cover intercity rail except as sidenotes (so far). The best source on...Comment box
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Nandert doesn't cover intercity rail except as sidenotes (so far). The best source on Brightline West and the High Desert Corridor is Lucid Stew. He also covers California High Speed Rail and HSR projects in other regions, like the Northeast Corridor.
Stew's latest coverage on Brightline West has not been optimistic, but the project isn't doomed. It's not going to be built before the LA Olympics though.
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Comment on The final line in Los Angeles's holy trinity of future rail: Vermont corridor in ~transport
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes, of Nandert; otherwise, not really Sarcasm/humor: none Extremely high-quality and detailed alternative analysis of an...Comment box
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Extremely high-quality and detailed alternative analysis of an important future heavy rail project in Los Angeles. He discusses alignment options, tunneling methods (cut-and-cover, tunnel boring) and depth considerations, utility impact, ridership projections, and potential cost savings.
One of the best transit content creators on the internet and I wish such a person made similar material for my city.
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The final line in Los Angeles's holy trinity of future rail: Vermont corridor
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Comment on Amtrak steadily continues upgrading Wisconsin stations for level boarding - improving access and travel time in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Amtrak often agrees with you. For example they recently agreed to start running the Pennsylvanian...Comment box
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I think it'd be a lot more useful to have a few choices on timing than a faster train
Amtrak often agrees with you. For example they recently agreed to start running the Pennsylvanian train twice daily rather than once. And they have meaningfully increased NEC service in the past couple years.
While often easier than massive realignments, increasing service is also difficult, and sometimes requires infrastructure changes anyway. Challenges include:
- Rolling stock - For long routes, every additional timeslot means a new train. The trains obviously circulate roundtrip, but it becomes quite costly at low travel speeds. The solution is either to make the train faster or to buy more trains. A single locomotive and passenger cars is probably $30 million in equipment plus testing and staff hiring, training. Not nothing, but not exorbitant. However, no long-distance routes are profitable (demand is low without higher frequency and speeds), so they have to get the money to run this service from somewhere, like a grant or state funding, or raid the profits of the Northeast Corridor.
- For example, if a route that's 6h each way (12h roundtrip) currently runs 1x a day, the point at which you can reuse a particular locomotive/trainset within a single day is once every 12 hours. So you can run a train from the origin station at 8am and the same train again from the origin station at 8pm. But demand might be too low for the nighttime trip to justify the operations, so maybe you can shift it to 6am (arriving 12pm) and 6pm (arriving 12am). That could work but is still not necessarily convenient to induce high demand. If you bought a duplicate trainset, then maybe you could run a [6am + 6pm] circulation departing from the origin station, and an additional [12pm + 12am] circulation. In that case the 6am is probably partially cannibalized by the 12pm and the 12am is probably not going to be extremely popular either, so the operating profit is imbalanced. So if you add a third and then run [6am + 6pm], [9am + 3pm], [12pm + 12am], that probably covers demand pretty well, but now those new trainsets are $60m and you might start running into issues with physical space on trackage...
- Physical timetabling - Running more trains means making sure they don't physically collide. Many routes are single-track, meaning Amtrak would need to double-track or build more sidings to accommodate trains passing each other in different directions. You can schedule these in a way that they overlap at specific points (with sidings), but that means they can't arbitrarily add service at more convenient times. The timetabling is constrained by the infrastructure. It has to be relatively specific or else one train gets delayed waiting at a siding far ahead of the incoming one.
- If the tracks go through a regional train system too, then you have to account for their demand peaks, which are very different than long-distance. Regional systems often reuse a trunk segment for like 6 branches, so it's a bottleneck. You can sometimes make this work on a double or triple track with sidings. But in practice this means a shared Right of Way between, say, Amtrak and LIRR has to be quad-tracked so that the long-distance trains can consistently pass the local ones.
- Freight conflicts - Most Amtrak trains run on freight Right of Way, so the timetabling is made more complicated. Many current Amtrak delays are caused by being stuck behind a freight train. That's not allowed to happen technically, but it still does. Also, freight companies are skeptical of construction impacts because they don't want their own service to be affected by building new tracks next to their existing ones. (Maybe Amtrak would want to deliver construction materials at night, and that's when the freight train usually runs, etc.) They see the long-term benefits, it just makes it complicated to do. And they might ask for additional compensation. (They're allowed to say no to upgrades that aren't perfect for them - they literally do not care about passenger service.)
- In some areas of the NEC there are six tracks to allow for Amtrak + NJ Transit + whatever else is going on there. Six tracks is just a lot. Track config gets more complicated when you consider the need for flyovers, maybe if a train starts off on the left side but needs to end up on the right, and having it cross over at-grade would interrupt/delay other services sometimes.
The Northeast Corridor could run faster and more frequent trains by better scheduling its existing service and service of local systems like LIRR better, and relatively affordable infrastructure improvements. Levy and Wilkins talk about this in the new Transit Costs Project Report for the NEC.
Often, for long-distance, new rolling stock and adding 1-2 more tracks (or long sidings) around problem areas is enough to make this work OK. But to really avoid delays the ROW has to be continuous and pretty much uninterrupted, and scheduled very well; and capable of recovering if a delay does occur, which is surprisingly difficult.
I think your intuition is right that increased frequency helps, but the case is MUCH stronger if the service also takes 6 hours and not 18 hours. As with all things, they are somewhat hand-in-hand, which is why the NEC is such a strong corridor.
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Comment on MIT researchers develop polymer film that could prevent solar panel corrosion in ~enviro
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary, information Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Perovskite solar cells are a frontier technique that dramatically reduces the cost of solar panels while...Comment box
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Perovskite solar cells are a frontier technique that dramatically reduces the cost of solar panels while improving efficiency. However, they have short lifespans because they are ironically killed by solar radiation and that kind of thing.
New protective technology enables perovskites with lifespans equivalent to other solar cell types at a fairly low cost. There are a bunch of layers and approaches that will probably have to be combined to get a truly dominant perovskite panel.
This particular discover focuses on protecting the cell from gases. This is not the only group experimenting with the tech, it's being pursued in industry as well. Would expect to hear more on it continually....
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MIT researchers develop polymer film that could prevent solar panel corrosion
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Comment on Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America — without Tesla in ~transport
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Cars are bad at the quantities we use them, but electric cars are better than gas ones,...Comment box
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Cars are bad at the quantities we use them, but electric cars are better than gas ones, environmentally speaking, including lifetime emissions. The market in South America is starting to shift toward electric.
Today, it’s not so hard to take the plunge on an EV in Peru. Tesla still lacks a showroom but there’s been an influx of Chinese models from the likes of BYD, Geely (0175.HK), and GWM, which sell electric vehicles here at around 60% of the price of a Tesla, as well as legacy manufacturers such as Toyota (7203.T), Kia (000270.KS), and Hyundai (011760.KS).
EVs are still a small slice of the 135,394 new cars sold in Peru in the nine months to September, according to the country's automotive association, but they are on the rise. Sales of hybrid and electric vehicles hit a record 7,256 units in that period, up 44% year on year.
That's 5% of total sales, but a 5% YOY increase is looking good. Unlike the USA these countries have little reason to protect their own car industries (they don't really exist). Chinese cars are the best and cheapest, so that's what's taking hold.
Structurally, these imported cars will continue to have an advantage:
China has been ramping up sales since the opening last year of the Port of Chancay, north of Lima. The Chinese-built megaport has halved trans-Pacific shipping times just as Chinese manufacturers face rising barriers to entry in the United States and greater trade restrictions in Europe.
BYD (002594.SZ), which makes EVs, plug-in hybrids and combustion engine cars, plans to open a fourth dealership in Lima by the end of this year, while Chery (9973.HK) and Geely (0175.HK) have more than a dozen in total in Peru.
Chinese brands reached 29.6% of all new passenger car sales in Chile in the first quarter of this year.
Latest figures show EV market share hit 10.6% of new cars registered in Chile in September, 9.4% in Brazil in August, and 28% in Uruguay in the third quarter of the year — all record highs, according to local car associations and consultancy firms. In Europe and China, half of new cars registered by mid-2025 were EVs (56% and 51% respectively). In Japan and the U.S. rates were lower, closer to 2% and 10% respectively.
It's probably a good thing for the world that the big US auto market companies are losing global market share, because (....as a generalization....) its cars are extremely overpriced, energy-inefficient, dangerous, and environmentally damaging. And the industry has so far had almost no interest in changing anything because it's doing fine financially. So this could be a wake-up call to stop overbuilding vehicles and focus on producing more affordable, more streamlined cars that use less energy and are more electric.
In the 80s and 90s and 00s Toyota and other Japanese companies came in and revolutionized the industry and American business as a whole. I mean we have all heard that documentary about that GM plant in California. The USA has a lot of great businesses, but leaders are very ignorant of global best practices and new technologies, so actual competition could be good for them too in the long run.
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Electric vehicle sales are booming in South America — without Tesla
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Comment on Amtrak steadily continues upgrading Wisconsin stations for level boarding - improving access and travel time in ~transport
scroll_lock (edited )Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Long-distance routes are a challenge. I took a ~24h coach from Pennsylvania to somewhere in...Comment box
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Long-distance routes are a challenge. I took a ~24h coach from Pennsylvania to somewhere in Wisconsin once or twice. In my opinion any trip above ~16h, where I would reasonably have to sleep, is unfavorable on a train. Anything less than that, I happily do in coach; any more, eh. But I'm a foamer, so the same amount is untenable for normal people. And even so, the 24h coach was a bit much for my back.....I like to recline. I can't blame you for not wanting to do a 32h coach trip with a family!
My problem is, I don't know how trains can better balance these three considerations: time to destination, money, and convenience.
It's not completely unrealistic to imagine an Amtrak in which all reasonably high-traffic routes run at an average speed of 125 mph or higher, Chicago to DC one of them. This would be slower than the average speed of the TGV from Paris to Lyon (part of an extensive network). In other words, it's been done in another part of the world, so it could be done in the USA. There are no physical laws preventing it.
The current Northeast Corridor (NEC) tops out at 160 mph with the new Avelia Liberty tech (curves prevent 220 mph), but averages ~60-70 mph due to various slow points and resulting accel/decel losses. It would cost a few hundred billion dollars to realign tracks and all the other stuff. Over 25 years, that's reasonable enough. It's just not Congress' priority. Transit Costs Project (Levy/Wilkins) has a good report out about cost-effective NEC realignment which could halve travel time for remarkably little money ($12.5b). Many of the same principles could be applied elsewhere. In this world, a rail timetable from Chicago to DC could take ~6 hours. I think the same could be done between the Twin Cities and Chicago, but it wouldn't be Amtrak's first priority (not as strong a pair). But a <10 hour trip from MN to VA is conceivable with HSR.
I don't know about ticket price. The most cost-effective public transport method involves cramming as many people as possible into as small a space as possible, and roomettes, like business class seating in airplanes, challenges that. Operators make up the difference to some extent by charging higher prices. The advantage of a train is that you can just add more carriages and it still works. That increase in supply could reduce prices. To do this, Amtrak could invest in physically longer trains (more traincars). Freight trains can be miles long, so hauling capacity isn't really the problem. However, extra weight means slower speeds, so a better engine is needed, and it just gets expensive. This is perhaps more realistic with electrified trains, which has its own infrastructure costs, and there are upper limits on length if speed is a priority. Longer trains also require longer platforms, and sometimes wider curves, so some track realignment might be necessary, especially in tunnels (which is pricey). I'm not knowledgeable enough on the economics of roomettes to comment more.
But I feel your pain! I would love for this to be more common. There is not an easy fix, and it's route-dependent.
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Comment on Amtrak steadily continues upgrading Wisconsin stations for level boarding - improving access and travel time in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none There are indeed lots of difficult edge cases. However, the goal of any railroad-based...Comment box
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While it would be great to do away with cars for a lot of intercity transportation there are just too many access issues in America for it to work for most people.
There are indeed lots of difficult edge cases.
However, the goal of any railroad-based exercise isn't 100% mode shift, just "more mode shift." And specifically "more mode shift between metropolitan centers." For the purpose of intercity route analysis, it is not important how people get to the train station on either end; a park-and-ride or taxi are both fine solutions to this last-mile problem. 25 miles driven -> 250 miles train -> 5 miles driven is a 90% reduction of Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) over 280 miles driven, and therefore good for society. (The "last mile" is up to local agencies, and that's a whole different thing....)
For airplanes, the benefit over rail is almost exclusively time and not land use or "access." People don't take their car on a plane. Not all air trips are reasonably replaceable with rail (except for foamer trips) barring widespread, cross-country cutting-edge maglev implementation (375 mph, LA -> NYC ~6.5h + stop times; comparable to flight time + airport time). There is a great graph online demonstrating the time-competitiveness by mode that CityNerd and others talk about occasionally (he uses his own version). In general, "high-speed" intercity rail at achievable speeds of ~200 mph is reasonably time-competitive at distances of ~50-350 miles and absolutely dominant over any other mode at ~100-200 miles.
More broadly, mode shift can be achieved for "a lot of intercity transportation" if we think bigger than make train fast. This country's timid Metropolitan Planning Organizations can start by getting their act together and stop recursively producing prophetic auto-centric land use and transportation modeling recommendations, which they do for the spurious reasons of institutional inertia and traffic pseudoscience indoctrination, among other things. It will eventually trickle down to DOTs. There's work to be done in state/local zoning legislation too, which has the capacity to fundamentally reorient population distribution in ways that aligns with non-car modes (Transit/Trail-Oriented Development) at minimal cost. That just takes a while. A good VMT reduction plan is multifaceted.
I really like the idea behind their Auto Train system as a middle ground and I'd love to see that in more places and running as routine as car ferry boats are in my state.
Certainly a nice middle ground or stopgap. In reality we do need multiple concurrent solutions to make this stuff work.
There are some reasons unique to this particular route to Florida that make Auto Train especially compelling, but in principle I agree with you that anything that reduces VMT, like Auto Train, is for the best.
Among the challenges with Auto Train generally is that cars just take up a lot of space. Moving them on a railroad is more efficient than self-propelling them on asphalt, but it doesn't scale very well. This space-inefficiency keeps Auto Train a bit expensive, which deters more riders. Ideally you would rent a car at destination or take some other form of transportation. Florida, and places like Florida, obviously need to do some work making that feasible.
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Comment on New York City Council pushes to legalize bodega cats, giving them ‘purr-fect’ legal status in ~life.pets
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Good idea. They eat rats. I wish my city did this too. Trash containerization + rat predators sounds like the...Comment box
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Good idea. They eat rats. I wish my city did this too. Trash containerization + rat predators sounds like the most realistic and effective mitigation strategy.
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Comment on Amtrak steadily continues upgrading Wisconsin stations for level boarding - improving access and travel time in ~transport
scroll_lock (edited )Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none It’s a nice experience and fun for the kids! There are early plans to expand Amtrak rail...Comment box
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It’s a nice experience and fun for the kids!
There are early plans to expand Amtrak rail service from Milwaukee to Green Bay, presumably going through Appleton. It will be a while until that materializes though, maybe early 2030s.
Amtrak is much more expensive around holidays. In general if you buy tickets in advance, they’re cheaper.
You can also get a 10% discount on most Amtrak fares by joining the Rail Passengers Association and using your RPA number at checkout (the same way you’d get a veteran discount or whatever). RPA is a national pro-rail lobbying org. Membership is like $60, so if you plan to regularly take Amtrak with the family, it could save you money. If not, it’s a donation to the cause.
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Comment on Amtrak steadily continues upgrading Wisconsin stations for level boarding - improving access and travel time in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Well there was a proposal for that in the 2010s, and support from the Obama admin, but the...- Exemplary
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Well there was a proposal for that in the 2010s, and support from the Obama admin, but the Wisconsin governor vetoed it. (I think Walker.)
Today there are very early conceptual plans for rail to Madison. Chicago/Milwaukee/Madison 4x daily is part of the Amtrak Connects Us 2035 plan from ~2021. That was a pure vision with no commitment except that Joe Biden liked trains.
Milwaukee to Minneapolis via Madison was part of Amtrak’s Corridor ID grant in 2022 ($500k for planning studies). That means it had been “identified” along with a couple dozen others as provisionally useful/feasible. This is the beginning of the pipeline to make a promising corridor a reality.
The Joe Biden infrastructure law of 2021 invested hundreds of billions of dollars into rail and transportation generally, which I believe was the source of that Corridor ID grant. The current president is trying to rescind some IIJA grants to spite Biden, but the DOT will probably just reissue them a couple years late to states that voted for him. Wisconsin voted for him so it’s not a target. Minnesota didn’t, but he’s so focused on killing the Gateway in New York that he probably can’t tell them apart. Both flyovers as far as he’s concerned.
Even with a supportive admin, this stuff takes a long time. The latest update is this study from the city: On Track for the Future: Madison Passenger Rail Station Study (November 2025). This identifies their preferred station location and implicitly the alignment into the city. They will probably do something near that funny Monona terrace by the lake. Station concepts are an important step to making a project “shovel-ready.”
Amtrak and Wisconsin DOT have to do a feasibility study to identify if this station and any reasonable alignment is realistic in terms of ridership and infrastructure cost. Madison is a big city and employment center with a major state university, so the answer is probably yes from a pure ridership perspective. The difficulty is deciding which freight ROW to lease or whether a new ROW is needed, and the cost of the “last mile” into the station downtown. IMO for this route it’s not “if” it’s feasible but “when” this feasible route will get funding.
Wisconsin Association of Railroad Passengers website says:
WisDOT is developing a restoration of intercity service between Chicago and St Paul via Milwaukee, Madison, and Eau Claire. HNTB has been contracted to do the Corridor ID planning. Target for completion of Step 1 is late 2025. Pending FRA approval, WisDOT would like to begin Step 2 in early 2026. Capital improvement needs, operating subsidy, and service planning will be determined during Step 2.
So it’s inching along.
The next step after feasibility studies and basic service planning would be preliminary engineering plans and environmental reviews. The latter has fortunately been nixed in scope by the admin (one of the few good things they’ve done) so the process will be a bit faster and there might be less NIMBY litigation.
Concurrent with that, Amtrak and the state would start looking for funding. They’d need to do some work on the ROW and procure trainsets. Then they can test, and then they can start service.
Amtrak ridership is steadily increasing, so it’s reasonable to assume this will happen as long as the state DOT wants it to.
They could be done with most of the design and reviews by 2030 and maybe start passenger service 2035. Just guessing. Timelines are glacial here. Optimistically 2032.
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Comment on Amtrak steadily continues upgrading Wisconsin stations for level boarding - improving access and travel time in ~transport
scroll_lock (edited )LinkComment box Scope: summary, information, opinion Tone: neutral, robotic Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: there is roughly 1 humorous exaggeration and 1 joke Inducing a mode shift from car/plane to...Comment box
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Inducing a mode shift from car/plane to train is necessary because it is more efficient than all other methods of transporting large numbers of people and is therefore less resource-intensive. It is axiomatic that the laws of physics regarding energy efficiency will persist, that resources are finite, and that sustainable transportation is beneficial to society. It is also axiomatic that individuals choose travel modes based primarily on end-to-end travel time, except for foamers.
Therefore it is necessary to maximize the time-competitiveness of train travel against other modes with the ultimate purpose of inducing greater ridership of trains.
Modern Amtrak Acela (Avelia Liberty) trainsets are physically capable of reaching 220 mph. The Siemens Charger (one of four Borealis rolling stock choices) can physically reach 125 mph and probably higher. That is rarely the bottleneck causing long travel times. Most of such routes have extremely low speed limits, ~50 mph in Wisconsin, which is slower than typical automobile speeds on highways.
On corridors like the Empire Builder and Borealis we see a few realistic areas for improvement:
- Realign track to eliminate sharp curves or intense grade changes
- State-of-good-repair maintenance on any deteriorating track
- Upgrade signaling systems (Positive Train Control, for >79 mph)
- Upgrade grade crossings for 4-way barriers (up to ~110 mph or sometimes 125 mph)
- Eliminate grade crossings (above 125 mph, also safer)
- Improve rolling stock max acceleration and deceleration
- Reduce dwell time at stations; efficiency of passenger boarding
These Amtrak lines are FRA Class 3 or Class 4, which means they have speed limits of 60-80 mph even though the rolling stock can mechanically go 2x as fast. Currently curves are not the limitation on these routes (or else ORM data would show different max speeds at curves). Sometimes high-traffic grade crossings incentivize local politicians to demand lower speed limits (safety) even if it's not federally necessary, which is why you sometimes see 79 mph limits where it looks like it ought to be 110 mph. On these Amtrak routes route, it seems to me that PTC systems and maybe a few grade improvements would legally/safely allow Amtrak to operate at higher speeds to make time-competitiveness against automobiles much stronger. Grade separation elimination would legally allow high-speed rail, and track realignment would physically enable it.
You have to do all of the above for a good service. Obviously some things are more affordable than others.
Anyway, this article addresses #7 by installing level boarding platforms at more stations. Station improvements are immediately feasible on these routes, because the tracks are owned by freight railroads. These platforms allow passengers to enter the train at the level of the passenger carriage, rather than climbing up and down steps. This has two benefits:
- Dramatically reduces boarding and deboarding times, improving time-competitiveness
- Makes all trains accessible to wheelchairs, bikes, and strollers, improving ridership
Think of the difference between 50 people painstakingly going down steps with luggage, one-by-one, vs. a subway where people just step off and go. That could be the difference between, say, a 4-minute dwell time and a 1-minute dwell time (deboard + board). For Borealis, with 7h32m one-way time from Chicago to St Paul (13 stops), that's 13 stops x 3 minutes saved = 39 minutes saved, for a 6h53m one-way time, without making ANY changes to rolling stock, track, signaling, etc. (Real time saved would be lower on average for small stops, but DRAMATICALLY higher for that one passenger with an oversized suitcase that for some reason takes 5 minutes to get off the train.) Then multiple by # of passengers for the overall person-time saved. And there's some way to model how this induces rail demand.
Time-competitiveness and accessibility both independently improve ridership. In this case, they are simultaneous. In an example of the "curb cut effect," improving conditions for the most disadvantaged people in our society (giving people in wheelchairs easy access to the best form of ground transportation) also improve conditions for everyone else (reducing travel times for all train users).
COLUMBUS and TOMAH, Wisc. – Amtrak passengers have a more accessible experience at two Wisconsin stations following about $11 million in upgrades celebrated Wednesday. The Amtrak Empire Builder and Borealis trains each stop twice daily at the Columbus and Tomah stations.
Nineteen stations were brought into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act in the 12 months ending Sept. 30 and another 50 stations are targeted for completion in the next year at a forecasted investment of $310 million.
Columbus now has two new 350-foot-long concrete platforms, accessible paths of travel to and from the station building, and designated parking area .... sloped accessible walkways, railings, energy efficient LED light fixtures, detectable warning systems, and new signage.
Tomah now has a 330-foot-long heated concrete boarding platform, accessible paths of travel to and from the station building, and designated parking area. Sloped walkways, railings, energy efficient LED light fixtures, detectable warning systems, and new signage have been installed, along with upgrades to the waiting room air conditioning and public utility connections.
Amtrak has invested more than $1 billion since 2011 in accessibility upgrades and improvement projects at 147 stations across the national network to ensure a safe, efficient, and comfortable travel experience. This program is advancing 142 station designs and 70 station construction projects as part of the ongoing Amtrak commitment to providing accessibility at 100% of stations by 2029.
B.T.W. your local metro system should do the same thing because it's even more important to inducing a mode shift to rail for commuting patterns. This reduces car dependency and therefore reduces vehicle miles traveled (VMT). This allows streets to be repurposed for more productive uses, such as the generally more efficient transport methods of bike lanes (short-medium distance) and BRT or light rail (medium-long distance) as well as non-transport uses such as cafe seating and green space. This improves qualitative livability, reduces greenhouse emissions, reduces noise pollution, improves local economies, allows for the possibility of better rainwater retention strategies (reducing the cost of maintaining your city's sewer system), etc. This reduces your tax burden and allows resources to be spent on more interesting things.
Expressed as a mathematical formula:
Passenger railroad infrastructure improvements -> ...... -> world peace. QEDThat is why you should write to your legislators asking for full ADA boarding compliance on your city's railroad network by 2035. They will give you the run-around, but it's possible if they want to prioritize it, and it will improve your city in the long run.
And remember to thank Amtrak for doing "little things" that actually make a big difference.
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Amtrak steadily continues upgrading Wisconsin stations for level boarding - improving access and travel time
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Comment on Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, San Francisco, and Phoenix in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none I think in almost all circumstances, this is a better option than the typical human decision-making...- Exemplary
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On a freeway, stopping if it gets confused and waiting for operator assistance isn't an option.
I think in almost all circumstances, this is a better option than the typical human decision-making tree. When confused, humans either stop in terrible physical locations, or erratically maneuver in such a way as to escape/resolve the situation without stopping, risking a crash. I think a robotaxi could make the choice to do either of those things more judiciously and with greater elegance (+safety).
My example envisioned a situation where the robotaxi was in a slow-ish speed zone with weird configurations of cones and half-built road. That is the most complicated situation I can imagine on a highway, other than a multi-car pileup or literal collapse of a bridge. I cannot think of anything else that a robotaxi would uniquely struggle with that calls for such hesitation. Maybe some weather conditions? But... not more than humans.
Given their track record, if Waymo thinks they're ready for freeways then I'm inclined to believe them.
Yes, I think I would argue that they are necessarily ready for highways if they've managed arterials, which are much more complicated. The average suburban stroad has about as many lanes, more complicated traffic patterns, the added issues of incoming traffic (rather than highways where it's usually separated), insane left turns, driveways to businesses and homes, and pedestrian/bike interactions. In contrast, a highway is just... a road with cars moving 1 direction and occasionally merging. I have been on some weird highway exits in my life (Boston), but they were still simpler than almost any urban intersection.
For humans, highways are risky because we have a slow reaction time relative to the speed we travel. For a robot, which can process 100x as fast, I don't see that issue. The big concern to me is streetscape complexity, which isn't a solved problem, but is solved enough for practical purposes.
Also, I believe Waymo is aiming for substantially better safety than human drivers.
This is a great goal but.....already achieved? In 2023 Waymo had 85% fewer crashes than the human benchmark. As of 2025, Waymo apparently had a 96% reduction.
By all means keep going, hit that 100%. I'm all about Vision Zero. I'm just surprised that any educated person would be scared of these things. There's an opportunity cost to not deploying these even if they're not perfect, because they're so universally better than people.
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Comment on Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, San Francisco, and Phoenix in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Most car crashes happen on arterial or collector roads, which have high enough speeds to...Comment box
- Scope: comment response, information, opinion
- Tone: neutral
- Opinion: yes
- Sarcasm/humor: none
Most car crashes happen on arterial or collector roads, which have high enough speeds to kill or seriously injure vehicle occupants. This is a polite feature, but the cars are already on the most dangerous roads.
Also, humans are TERRIBLE at driving. I am personally a bad driver.....and I am better than most for having the self-awareness to admit that. The "average" driver - even an "above-average" driver - routinely speeds, performs dangerous and sudden maneuvers, is distracted by everything inside and outside their car, gets drowsy, has "just one drink, I'm good", and more. A big portion of those people also road rage.
There is no way human drivers with, at most, a couple million miles of experience are collectively safer operators than machine learning algorithms with tens of billions of miles of data. Perhaps some individuals are better - all 3 of them. It's easy to point to an edge case where a robotaxi made a mistake, but somehow people shrug off the hundreds of thousands of equivalent or worse mistakes made daily by human drivers in the USA.
To me, the most serious error I would anticipate in a highway Waymo outside of freak incidents are the taxis getting stuck in a work zone that was improperly signed. My understanding of these vehicles is that if the car gets really stuck, a human operator can remotely get it unstuck.
BTW, emphasizing the road rage - no Waymo is going to intentionally try to run a bicyclist off the road (attempted murder). But humans do it every day. Anyone who's spent a lot of time urban bike commuting in the US has horror stories.
a critical expansion for the company that it says will reduce ride times by up to 50%
My one hope for these machines is that they find a more efficient way to store themselves than endlessly circling city blocks waiting for passengers. I hope they are either ferrying passengers, or off the road, 95%+ of the time.
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Comment on Britain gives go-ahead to smaller nuclear reactor in Wales in ~enviro
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary, information Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Archive link : https://archive.is/Tbw2L There are ~29 million households in the UK, so 2 nuclear reactors...Comment box
- Scope: summary, information
- Tone: neutral
- Opinion: yes
- Sarcasm/humor: none
Archive link : https://archive.is/Tbw2L
The Wales plant will consist of three units, known as small modular reactors, or SMRs, whose power output will add up to a little less than half that of one of the current generation of giant power stations.
These “mini-nuclear reactors are smaller and quicker to build” than some larger ones, the government said in a news release. The plan is to lower costs through assembling modules from components in factories and then setting them up on site.
The government is betting that these smaller reactors will give Britain a technology with low carbon emissions and “global export opportunities.” It has pledged 2.5 billion pounds ($3.3 billion) for preliminary work on the site and other preparation. The additional cost of completing the plant may be financed through charges on electric bills, a strategy the government is using to draw investors to another plant, Sizewell C, being built in eastern England.
The government said the plant would support 3,000 local jobs and power three million homes. By comparison, Sizewell C is projected to create 8,000 jobs at peak construction and light six million homes.
There are ~29 million households in the UK, so 2 nuclear reactors powering a combined 9 million of those with green energy is a big deal.
I don't know if these small modular reactors will take off - the article is skeptical - but it's a good project all the same.
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You are right, I misinterpreted the comment. The study I linked states that Waymos have a 96% crash risk reduction against a typical driver. You are right that no studies exist evaluating UberX vs Uber Comfort for crash risk (that I am aware of).
My guess is that the difference is small relative to the difference between any human rideshare and Waymo. Anecdotally, Uber Comfort or other premium tiers DO have safer drivers, however the Waymo can still react to things 100x faster and never gets distracted. And unlike humans, the robo-taxi software keeps getting better.
I have really changed my mind on these Robot cars. I was skeptical of them 1-2 years ago but now I think they are a plus, at least for safety, we'll see about more holistic questions later.