State soliciting bids for I-Drive rail; closes at end of month; may go to Disney

PeterAlt

PeterAlt

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Mouse_Trap said:
Seems like Newton's laws of motion have fallen out of the curriculum? The third law in particular.



It averaged 11,500 riders a day in 2013, marginally up on 2012 figures.

IMO the reasons it's not more successful:
1 - it's too expensive at around $5 per journey or $12 for 24 hours. For a family, a taxi may even be cheaper and probably quicker.
2 - Many of the attractions/hotels are very close together, therefore within walking distance. You don't need transport unless you want to go a significant distance.
3 - It doesn't begin at the airport and doesn't end at Freemont.



It's never going to appeal to those who need a car e.g. visiting a number of parks and staying off-site. However if staying in one area, be that Disney or Universal then it would work out cheaper than renting a car.
Apart from the cost, which imo is far too high to encourage ridership it's a maximum of 1 step more than the current process. You could be at Disney before you could even have gotten out of the car rental garage and probably quicker than the Disney bus - especially during busy times.

Don't forget Disney could scrap the bus and instead subsidise this instead, maybe even make it free for those staying on-site.

With any sense, it would call at Universal, Convention Centre, Seaworld, Disney TTC. That way anyone staying at a Monorail resort could just switch monorails to get to their hotel......It would also give the TTC a purpose again.



France has been pretty much on it's knees the last few years. Only Germany seems to be doing well in the Eurozone, and of course the UK on the edge of the europe is leading the way.In the UK there is another large scale high speed rail line in the early stages, however there is a lot of opposition to it. The cost is very high and only provides a time saving to already well served parts of the country, although it adds additional capacity (essentially it follows an existing line for much of the route). Most people think that the money could be better spent expanding lines to parts of the country not served.
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Most big projects that require public funding usually start with massive opposition. It's interesting to note that successful projects that once had a base in opposition to it seem to have somehow lost or faded that opposition base after the fact...
 
ford91exploder

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
bhg469 said:
The track still needs to be able to support a fully loaded train bud, failure of the system would mean the train would come to rest on the track.
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The weight of the train is still applied to the track, It's simply isolated from the track by a frictionless bearing surface so there is no mechanical wear on track unless magnetic field fails.
 
Slowjack

Slowjack

Well-Known Member
PeterAlt said:
Japan has been there, done that. It is now deploying higher speed maglev.

China and EU nations are deploying high speed rail at a very aggressive pace.

Nations that have deployed high speed rail are doing better economically than those that haven't and yet better as deployed.
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The reason the last statement is necessarily true is because only a country that is doing well can afford to build a high-speed rail system. Look, I love rail transportation, but you can't assume what works in one situation works elsewhere. Japan, for example, has very dense population and near-linear geography. It's basically the best-case scenario for rail. America is low density and spread out -- nearly a worst-case scenario. That's not to say high-speed rail can't work in specific places in the U.S., but it's hard to see how it can be a general solution. All over the world, people will tend to drive over rail for quick trips, and will tend to fly over rail for long trips. So you need high-enough travel counts between points A and B or a length in that medium-length trip window to make it work.
 
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ford91exploder

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
Slowjack said:
The reason the last statement is necessarily true is because only a country that is doing well can afford to build a high-speed rail system. Look, I love rail transportation, but you can't assume what works in one situation works elsewhere. Japan, for example, has very dense population and near-linear geography. It's basically the best-case scenario for rail. America is low density and spread out -- nearly a worst-case scenario. That's not to say high-seed rail can't work in specific places in the U.S., but it's hard to see how it can be a general solution. All over the world, people will tend to drive over rail for quick trips, and will tend to fly over rail for long trips. So you need high-enough travel counts between points A and B or a length in that medium-length trip window to make it work.
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Precisely, It's why the Northeast Corridor rail works, It's faster than driving OR flying for short trips, It's why CA's system is a boondoggle because it goes NOWHERE people actually want to go, If it went from LA to Silicon Valley it would probably succeed but it does not. It's a shiny bauble for Sacramento but most of the business in CA is done in San Diego, LA, Santa Clara Cty and SFO not Sacramento where tax revenue from the aforementioned regions goes to be wasted.
 
Vegas Disney Fan

Vegas Disney Fan

Well-Known Member
ford91exploder said:
Precisely, It's why the Northeast Corridor rail works, It's faster than driving OR flying for short trips, It's why CA's system is a boondoggle because it goes NOWHERE people actually want to go, If it went from LA to Silicon Valley it would probably succeed but it does not. It's a shiny bauble for Sacramento but most of the business in CA is done in San Diego, LA, Santa Clara Cty and SFO not Sacramento where tax revenue from the aforementioned regions goes to be wasted.
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I laugh everytime you mention the train to nowhere because we have our own train to nowhere debacle, Harry Reid has been pushing very hard for a multi-billion dollar bullet train from Las Vegas to Victorville as the solution to the I15's traffic problems between LV and LA for years. He seems to be the only person in the state that believes people from LA will drive an hour or more to Victorville, pay to park their car, pay to take a train, and then pay to take cabs everywhere once here to save an hour of driving, problem is he's a very powerful person so the idea comes back every year and just won't die. It seems every few months they are offering a new multi-million dollar contract for another environmental report, cost analysis, easement study, or new traffic study on a project 99% of the people of Nevada seem firmly against. With all the time and money they've spent trying to determine if a bullet train will or won't work they probably could have already added an additional lane or 2 in each direction on I15 all the way to Rancho Cucamonga.
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
Vegas Disney Fan said:
I laugh everytime you mention the train to nowhere because we have our own train to nowhere debacle, Harry Reid has been pushing very hard for a multi-billion dollar bullet train from Las Vegas to Victorville as the solution to the I15's traffic problems between LV and LA for years. He seems to be the only person in the state that believes people from LA will drive an hour or more to Victorville, pay to park their car, pay to take a train, and then pay to take cabs everywhere once here to save an hour of driving, problem is he's a very powerful person so the idea comes back every year and just won't die. It seems every few months they are offering a new multi-million dollar contract for another environmental report, cost analysis, easement study, or new traffic study on a project 99% of the people of Nevada seem firmly against. With all the time and money they've spent trying to determine if a bullet train will or won't work they probably could have already added an additional lane or 2 in each direction on I15 all the way to Rancho Cucamonga.
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The case against additional lanes was demonstrated long ago.
 
FerretAfros

FerretAfros

Well-Known Member
ford91exploder said:
Precisely, It's why the Northeast Corridor rail works, It's faster than driving OR flying for short trips, It's why CA's system is a boondoggle because it goes NOWHERE people actually want to go, If it went from LA to Silicon Valley it would probably succeed but it does not. It's a shiny bauble for Sacramento but most of the business in CA is done in San Diego, LA, Santa Clara Cty and SFO not Sacramento where tax revenue from the aforementioned regions goes to be wasted.
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If the entire California high-speed rail project gets built (even just Phase 1), it will connect all of the places you've mentioned. Phase 1 is Anaheim's ARTIC terminal to San Francisco Transbay terminal via LA Union Station and the Central Valley. Phase 2 will tack on branches to San Diego (via the Inland Empire) and Sacramento. The "train to nowhere" is just an interim step that the state had to take to use the Federal stimulus money before it expired

Granted, they're now talking about "early investments" in the Caltrain and Metrolink systems, effectively eliminating the high-speed capabilities in the suburban SF and LA areas. Last I heard, they'll still operate the high-speed trains through there (for a one-seat ride), but at slower speeds; there's still discussion about whether or not that will meet the Prop 1A criteria that was approved by the voters (it really shouldn't, but that legislation wasn't exactly realistic).
Vegas Disney Fan said:
I laugh everytime you mention the train to nowhere because we have our own train to nowhere debacle, Harry Reid has been pushing very hard for a multi-billion dollar bullet train from Las Vegas to Victorville as the solution to the I15's traffic problems between LV and LA for years. He seems to be the only person in the state that believes people from LA will drive an hour or more to Victorville, pay to park their car, pay to take a train, and then pay to take cabs everywhere once here to save an hour of driving, problem is he's a very powerful person so the idea comes back every year and just won't die. It seems every few months they are offering a new multi-million dollar contract for another environmental report, cost analysis, easement study, or new traffic study on a project 99% of the people of Nevada seem firmly against. With all the time and money they've spent trying to determine if a bullet train will or won't work they probably could have already added an additional lane or 2 in each direction on I15 all the way to Rancho Cucamonga.
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Unless I'm mistaken (or thinking of another project), I thought this project was being funded in large part by the Vegas casinos, which is why development on it kept moving forward, despite HSR setbacks across the country. Without using public money, they have the flexibility to do whatever they want
the.dreamfinder said:
@marni1971 wasn't Universal's park garage designed for public transit/monorails to be slotted in?
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I know it's not exactly related, but the future parking structure on the Pumbaa lot at DLR is being designed to interface with the Anaheim Rapid Connection (ARC) fixed-guideway system (like MCO's trams to the satellite terminals). The elevated station will be on the 2nd or 3rd floor of the garage, and have an elevated walkway to cross Harbor Blvd and connect to the parks
 
DVCOwner

DVCOwner

A Long Time DVC Member
JungleTrekFan said:
Car owners pay to use their car buy physically owning one and fixing it and buying its fuel, but they never directly pay for the roads they use or the maintenance of those roads.
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This is not true. Every time I put gas in my car I pay a tax to the government to provide maintenance and construction of reads. I pay both a Federal tax and a state tax.
 

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