
A Real Tube Carrying Dreams of 600-MPH Transit - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/technology/hyperloop-virgin-vacuum-tubes.html
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mntmoss
The other day I started thinking about the state of transit in the SF area and
found a few articles from the past few years that presented a rather different
picture from the hyperbolic Uberized/company bus/e-scooter/Hyperloop future:
that the focus of local transit investment in the near term, and hence the
development projects, is most likely to be in the ferry system. A terminal
expansion around the SF Ferry Building was recently completed, and SMART to
Larkspur is on schedule for this year(replacing a tight bus transfer from San
Rafael), opening up the ferry connections to northern cities. Ferry ridership
is up massively in the past few years, the system is well-liked even with full
rush hour loads, and it's relatively inexpensive, with fast turnarounds - in
the tens of millions for this most recent addition - to continue adding
capacity. The only major limitation is in choices of destination.

The flashier high-speed projects(including hyperloops, whether or not they are
worthy tech) serve their purpose best once they're connected to a strong local
system. That's a big factor in the unfinished outcome of California HSR being
a disappointment: It's not just that the Central Valley cities are "too
small," it's that they don't offer much to connect to internally and they
aren't doing a lot to develop a core around the new stations. From what I can
recall, the proposals were mostly park-and-rides, which is like throwing away
the investment.

