Jacob Alperin-Sheriff

The congestion pricing rationale was as much about reducing commute times for obligate drivers as anything else

Okay but I can’t imagine a US mayor proudly saying they’re gonna do something at the expense of private vehicle use

I didn’t post it I just saw this from Moshe Lion

Hi @alonlevy.bsky.social I was told to tell you about the great transit loving YIMBY mayor that Moshe Lion is apparently styling himself as (beginning of an interview with religious Zionist magazine)

The subway hero episode of 30 Rock outweighs some deaths of suicidal people imo

IE unlike the Golden Gate Bridge or a cliff it’s a two step process, you’re not dying from jumping into the tracks alone, need train to hit

Either way, why waste precious transit funds on this it’s clearly orthogonal to automation AND surely far more expensive than several dozen sensors per station to alert for track obstructions.

I think it’s more “people not having to see someone else die” they still have 2A option

How is that related to automation?

Ah, what is the purpose/need for these?

And surely operators had bidirectional comms prior to?

Didn’t they do that when they upgraded for continuous cellphone reception

And the idea is that the automation will allow reduced headways between trains?

Are they relying on sensors on the track that weren’t there before to let trains know where other trains locations are as a failsafe beyond GPS? How have they been doing it prior, via voice comms “I’m between stations A and B?”

IE those exist already on every car they’re just manually activated no?

Oh I didn’t think of the fail gracefully issue.

The signaling and doors should surely be in the tens of thousands per train at most to hook into the automation computer system (minus software writing)

Why would automation costs scale linearly with miles of track? Maybe with number of stations

Also 1 billion per mile isn’t plausibly as much as 50 times what it could be realistically like this could be

I just can’t understand how they could price it at 3-4 times the cost of 1 from scratch Waymo car per rail car in the system especially when most of the infrastructure necessary is there

Okay but building a tunnel seems wildly more expensive than integrating already existing sensors to feed into software and writing software to automate (child’s play relatively speaking)

Uh … that just makes it even worse to cost $5.6 billion

@nilo.bsky.social @alonlevy.bsky.social How is the 5.6 billion price tag to automate WMATA not like 50 times as expensive as it should actually be?

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How does BART manage to get to 10 minute headways when it has a quadruple tracked section and significant interlining?

It’s not about risk it’s about reality

Actually BOTH of the first 2 increase the number of tripled lines (unless you build a new SS to Columbia Pike line)

some kind of Memorial station around the Bureau of Engraving and Printing

1 alone causes a new triple interlining unless it’s something like a new Silver line, Silver Spring ↔️ Pentagon ↔️ Rosslyn ↔️ via new South bypass into Orange/Silver west to Dulles etc, via Columbia Heights and then south on 14th with a Logan Circle, McPherson Square interchange with Blue/Orange

Very true though WMATA is often hitting the 1 million ride mark Tue-Thu thanks to the great President Trump’s back to the office move (also I can’t imagine what Virginia traffic is like)

But then you run into the too much problem, sad to see