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Would you buy an EV from a Chinese OEM?

  • Yes

    Votes: 17 17.2%
  • No

    Votes: 66 66.7%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 16 16.2%

  • Total voters
    99
I think the idea is compatible with a majority of the fleet being conventional cars. I would think it's also adaptable in terms of battery capacity to help with pushing unpowered cars (on the continuum to battery mules/locos). I think the more exciting long term potential would be to recover some of the small scale, local freight delivery that has been captured by road transport. Getting really heavy trucks off the road would be very helpful for road wear and tear and congestion.
 
Was just reading this critique of urban rail in Britain and decided to calculate the position of Canada. Turns out we are at 44% (7/16)... not so bad in comparison
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I'm not certain it is logical to conclude whether a city is well served by public transit by the existence of urban rail alone.

By the parameters of this argument, Toronto is excellently served by public transit, seeing as they have subways, streetcars, and soon light rail. The fact that we only have 2 real subway lines and most of our streetcars get caught up in traffic so bad they can't seriously be considered a viable form of transport is not mentioned.
 
Hmmmm. 75% of Dutch cities don't have rail transit?

I suspect their definition of "functional urban areas" ends up excluding a lot of places that are effectively suburbs to larger cities or conurbations and are served by bus networks connecting to regional or suburban rail.

Specifically, if you see the source article, their definition is, " ...cities with populations greater than 250,000 have either a metro, light rail or tram network,..."
 
I'm not certain it is logical to conclude whether a city is well served by public transit by the existence of urban rail alone.

By the parameters of this argument, Toronto is excellently served by public transit, seeing as they have subways, streetcars, and soon light rail. The fact that we only have 2 real subway lines and most of our streetcars get caught up in traffic so bad they can't seriously be considered a viable form of transport is not mentioned.

The checkbox mindset. It's why we have so many painted bicycle gutters in Canada, that nobody actually wants to use. But hey, paint a line on a stroad where cars routinely drive at 70-80 kph (even though posted limit is 60 kph) and you can say you have a good bike network.
 
Have these people been to any US cities other than a few major metros? Better served by public transit, really?
No kidding. Dallas actually has the largest rapid transit LRT system in NA but a long shot at about 150 km but the ridership levels are low and the service frequency is horrid. Edmonton which has 1/5th the population of DFW and a system that is only 25 km long has 20% higher ridership.
 
I'm not sure what the above page of conversation has to do with 'The Coming Disruption of Transport...." LOL

But I think @kEiThZ is largely spot on in talking about check-boxes; and even moreso 'artificial metrics' for which 'Listicles' are famous.

I don't think its wrong to suggest that many British Urban Centres have surprisingly few KM of Metro per thousand residents, outside of London, that is essentially true.

But it is not a hugely useful piece of information in isolation. You would want to consider how people in those centres are commuting (private car, public bus, bike, etc.) and how well that is serving their needs.
Then the logical follow-on would be to consider whether additional Metro/Light-Metro would sufficiently improve commute times/quality of life/reduce congestion or pollution etc. to represent good value for money.

I will add though, in reference to bicycle gutters, as I've shown in the Cycling thread, this is changing and in a significant way. It did, however, represent much of Canadian infrastructure planning until a few years ago.

That example though of contrasting quality of infrastructure, just as one must look at frequency/speed of rail service illustrates the futility of check-box lists where more nuanced discussion and analysis is required.
 
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Have these people been to any US cities other than a few major metros? Better served by public transit, really?
I have and the quality of service is not great.

Even some of the major cities don't have quality of service. Service can be 15-90 minutes for headway with 30, 45 and 60 being the norm.

Other than Minneapolis, streetcar service in the US is 15 minutes with low ridership to the point why was it built in the first place? This is only to place I have been to with a question mark for Boston. Buffalo used to have 10 minutes, but has increased to 15-20 minutes. It currently down to a single track in the downtown as the rest of the ROW being converted to mixed traffic again..

I was planning on visiting a number of cities with streetcars I haven't been to, but die when I cancel that part of my trip this summer.

Europe was about 10 minutes for trams.
 

Cheaper trips increase car usage. Robo-taxis will make traffic worse without accompanying regulation (I don't know what that regulation would be)
 
... Robo-taxis will make traffic worse without accompanying regulation (I don't know what that regulation would be)

The transition will be challenging but in the long-term, when robo vehicles are in the large majority, real-time congestion charges, slot auctions will be a possible solution. A slot might be the right to use Bloor eastbound between Yonge and Church between 8:46am and 8:47am at a cost of 2 cents: link together slots to form a trip. Fees might be set to make roadways 100% self-funding and free-flowing. Leave 5% capacity for last-minute trips, like emergency vehicles. Of course, the user of the robo-taxi service or personal vehicle would see a simple single fee for the trip. Routing software will take care of optimizing the route, booking the slots, suggest cheaper times of day, or even suggest public transit for a portion of the trip where roadway congestion is high.

Cloud computing platforms today bill at a scale 1/1000th of a penny: this level is perfectly doable. I wouldn't be surprised if the robo-taxi companies lobby for it as it's not capital efficient for their vehicles to be stuck in unmoving traffic.
 
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Cheaper trips increase car usage. Robo-taxis will make traffic worse without accompanying regulation (I don't know what that regulation would be)
It seems some cities are currently managing fleet sizes for robotaxi operators, but how long that remains tenable will have to be seen. I expect some kind of per km road tax (on odometer km) and/or congestion charges will be necessary. It's not just passenger trips. It will also be goods delivery (food delivery, etc.).
 

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