Now let's go over this point-by-point.
Da Car:
I have one additional consideration. If parking lots be used, why not use existing parking lots? Two possibilities come up: closed malls, and -- well -- existing airports. Given the more progressed exurbanisation in the USA, this might even make some sense there.
In Europe, following an idea of cross-modality I'm not sure I'd subscribe to personally (also see nanne's diary), theree are a number of high-speed rail stations at airports. I list them for you for future use, you may Google them:
The key sentence in what you wrote is:
It is important to ensure that access to the station is pedestrian friendly ... in part for the direct use of the station by local residents, and in part to maintain the connection between the station and the small commercial precinct surrounding it.
The pedestrian 'market' of a high-speed station is negligible. However, I guess it is a psychological effect, people have less inclination to travel to/from 'dead places'. A station where you always see other people walking through, or shopping or drinking coffee, a station that is connected to its surroundings, both feels more comfortable and safer. I believe some of those out-of-town high-speed railway stations built for political reasons (Haute Picardie on the TGV Nord, or station Montabaur on the Cologne-Frankfurt ICE line) also suffer from such a lack of integration.
The Bike
Since on bikes, people can at least sit and don't get tired from just carrying their own weight, I think the bike drawing radius should be calculated based on travel time. With a generous 10-mph speed and 15 minutes maximum travel time for the core radius, I'd calculate with a 2.5 mile radius, double yours.
Neighborhood Electric Vehicles
I'm not against them per se, but note that these vehicles would be best for shopping and such, if one wants to travel without carrying much anyway, I'd prefer good mass transit.
Local Bus
Thanks for the interesting observation about the behaviour of travellers in Perth!
Here the core point is integration, as you emphasize in the next point. I'd say ideally, local busses have the same range as bikes, but carry lazy people and carry people in all weather. So buses are sufficient in cities up to 50,00-100,000 -- which is well below what one aims for with high-speed rail. So buses are best as feeders for higher-capacity mass transit, e.g. local rail. As such, they enhance each others' passenger numbers. What I write also involves that in large cities, instead of long bus lines across the entire town with distant stops, there should be shorter ones with frequent stops.
One last important note: we have considered downdown local buses, but buses with longer routes (but, capitalising on gaps in thesettled areas, also longer stopping distances and higher top speed) are just as good as feeders in exurbia. In Europe, the revitalisation of some branchlines near major cities involved re-arranging countryside bus lines, with dramatic positive results.
Local Rail
Here I would have liked if dKos readers had been given an idea of the differences between the various local rail systems, though that may warrant a whole new diary. Light rail, subways and elevateds, suburban rail, and various combinations/enhancements of the previous like light rail changing over to heavy rail when leaving town, light metros, RER-type connections. Which is best for a city depends on its size.
Pluggable Hybrid Electric Vehicles
Park-and-plug-and-ride, that's an idea!
Aerobus
I am sceptical of this. In particular, I am sceptical about low infrastructure costs. The capacity, especially if single-track, is limited. If running above highways, stations can't be integrated with the city. If running in a city, unlike when above an already noisy highway, noise emissions can be a problem (you can't build shielding walls). And from what I know about railway catenaries, I really wonder how they manage vertical swings and traverses of attachment points at pylons.
Rail/Bus
This idea has been tried several times in various forms over the last half century, and was always abandoned, not only for technical but economic reasons. I remain sceptical. The problem as I see it is that a rail/bus, instead of just uniting the advantages of the two modes, also carries over negatives. Such as: it is too lightly built for rail use but heavy (->more fuel use) for road use, the railing device introduces extra possibilities for breakdown and higher maintenance needs. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
A regular-routed version of the service could conveninetly connect the big station with hubs of local transportation, parking lots and other "recruiting" points.
But the airport shuttles ... which are often private commercial operations ... do underline the fact that Americans get out of their cars to get on a plane, making it one transport task that allows us to sidestep the hegemony of the car. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
If parking lots be used, why not use existing parking lots?
While I would very much want to see an HSR station situated beneath the main terminal of every main hub airport ... O'Hare, Midway, Pittsburgh from where I live in Northeast Ohio ... that is to allow people to avoid the nightmare of the airport parking lot ... so, for instance, if Pittsburg Airport has a station, that would in in addition to the two outer suburban and the urban station.
The pedestrian 'market' of a high-speed station is negligible.
It is around the high speed station alone ... though bear in mind that UScentrism note, this is directed generally at both actual HSR and "Express Rail", defined loosely as everything between the US legislative high speed definition and real HSR ... its the pedestrian market around each dedicated-corridor transport system that integrates directly to the HSR station that allows it to gain noticable traction.
Here I would have liked if dKos readers had been given an idea of the differences between the various local rail systems, though that may warrant a whole new diary.
Aerobus I am sceptical of this. In particular, I am sceptical about low infrastructure costs. The capacity, especially if single-track, is limited. If running above highways, stations can't be integrated with the city. If running in a city, unlike when above an already noisy highway, noise emissions can be a problem (you can't build shielding walls). And from what I know about railway catenaries, I really wonder how they manage vertical swings and traverses of attachment points at pylons.
All Aerobus is double tracked, with the headways determined basically by the section length, with one vehicle operating per section per direction. They have the same capacity as a light rail or monorail system ... roughly a quarter the capacity of a heavy rail system, which is a very good fit for a trunk system in most of outer-suburban US. Its also a good complement to a conventional 120kph heavy rail line.
I don't understand the question of noise emissions ... what noise emissions? Electric motors driving steel wheel on aluminium track in an enclosed nacelle does not generate a lot of external noise. The first generation of the system, which ran directly on suspension cable, would have been noiser, but that was
At the pylons the track is fixed to the pylon rather than resting on the suspension cable.
This is not a recent technology, its a technology that ran into the lack of funding for public transport infrastructure in the US, and has been recently revived to serve the new demand in China. It was brought from its early trial versions in Switzerland, Germany and Canada and brought to full scale development to win a place as one of the three finalists in the US DoT 1992 $30m award for development of suspended transport systems ... but the award was never actually funded.
To my mind, the highest priority in running over highways is getting across the damned thing, but note that in the US, most newly established large office parks and employment centers are located in a ring around the city, accessed via the Interstate Highway (so-called) "bypass", or "outer loop". So an ability to easily cut back and forth across the highway can be very handy. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
This depends on the speed of the system, but aerodynamic noise can be significant. The cable itself may radiate noise, too.
At higher speeds (say 30 mph) That will lead to 'bumps' when the train is changing from cable to fixed way, exposing the cables to sharp changes in stress, and the train will continually go up and down.
Overall, I don't want to be too much of a sceptic, let's see if this technology stands the test of actual use, in China or elsewhere. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
It seems that some of this is a FAQ, since on their site they say:
C) Pylons The Pylons support the Suspension Cables as the Suspension Cable is laid into the top saddle with some freedom of movement on rollers. Conversely, the lower saddles on the pylons are fundamentally a short segment of a fixed rail to hold down the cables which support the rails between pylons. The rail supporting cables are pre-loaded by the vertical hanger cables, which in the absence of a vehicle, keep the cable supported rail in an arch above the horizontal. The rail supporting cables remain uninterrupted at the saddles as they are placed underneath the fixed rail segment similarly to the manner described at the stations. The vehicles make a smooth transition through the tapered ends of these short segments of fixed rail on each side. The short fixed rail segments are pivoted at the center to adjust to asymmetrical loading, as when there is a vehicle on one side of the pylon and none on the other.
The Pylons support the Suspension Cables as the Suspension Cable is laid into the top saddle with some freedom of movement on rollers.
Conversely, the lower saddles on the pylons are fundamentally a short segment of a fixed rail to hold down the cables which support the rails between pylons. The rail supporting cables are pre-loaded by the vertical hanger cables, which in the absence of a vehicle, keep the cable supported rail in an arch above the horizontal. The rail supporting cables remain uninterrupted at the saddles as they are placed underneath the fixed rail segment similarly to the manner described at the stations. The vehicles make a smooth transition through the tapered ends of these short segments of fixed rail on each side. The short fixed rail segments are pivoted at the center to adjust to asymmetrical loading, as when there is a vehicle on one side of the pylon and none on the other.
I presume that all means something to someone who knows something about using suspension cable.
As you can see from the picture, there is a main suspension cable from which is suspended the two pairs of tracks resting on their supporting cables. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
... yes, it would. Indeed, one might even say it does. I'd recomend it if you write it, double promise, double swear.
Hey, we could even team up! What about: I write an outline and my part, you add your knowledge of what is in Oz and North America and possibly redraft my text for impact/terminology/concept, and you post it to draw your established dKos readership?
(On the low side: I'd work slow, whenever I have the time, probably can't do it in one go.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I try to get a HSR diary up toward the end of the week or Saturday (barring one fast paced week when Uni was on Spring Break), if you need a week or two to get going that's fine. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Rail/Bus This idea has been tried several times in various forms over the last half century, and was always abandoned, not only for technical but economic reasons. I remain sceptical. The problem as I see it is that a rail/bus, instead of just uniting the advantages of the two modes, also carries over negatives. Such as: it is too lightly built for rail use but heavy (->more fuel use) for road use, the railing device introduces extra possibilities for breakdown and higher maintenance needs.
If it was anybody but the Japanese, I'd suspect much the same thing. And, indeed, the previous versions of rail/road vehicles I saw were far more complex beasties, with two separate drive trains and with the rail trucks raised and lower on hydraulics.
This seems to be a much more direct beast, with the road wheel and rail wheel as an integrated unit and the Roll-On-Roll-Off designed into a specialized siding. Call the signal center to get clearence, get a green light to go onto the siding, and away you go.
If you read the article, the main economic appeal to JR Hokkaido is that it costs 1/4 as much as their conventional passenger rail set ... and while it obviously does not have anywhere near that capacity, a large number of JR Hokkaido's routes are carrying fewer than 500 passengers per day, so it allows them to maintain frequency at a lower capital cost per vehicle. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
Just as, in the US, the main advantage would be when there is a lightly used rail line that can be used for an express run, free of traffic congestion and traffic lights. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
