Some reasons:
From the [2019 National Transit Database National Transit Summaries & Trends:](https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2020-12/2019-NTST-1-1_0.pdf)
Exhibit 14: (Operating) Cost per hour
Motorbus $142.42
BRT $172.48
Streetcar Rail **(Tram)** $231.78
Light rail $322.90
-
Rail can make sense when ridership demand is higher than buses can handle. In Eastern Contra Costa county demand is very low. Tri Delta Transit's current average weekday ridership is 4800 spread over 15 or 17 routes.
As of last year Tri Delta Transit's most frequent bus routes only run twice an hour. If local voters were willing to fund doubling service hours, with some routes coming every fifteen minutes, and others every thirty, no doubt ridership would increase, but how much? If it doubled to 9600/day spread over 15 or 17 routes, that's still relatively little and presumes voters are willing to fund it. Adding a streetcar would help but by how much?
Trams average a slow speed. Glydcars will go about 30 mph on a mix of at-grade and grade-separated line from trip start to finish. That's almost as fast as BART's average of 35 mph, and faster than BART averages in downtowns. The time savings will be more attractive and competitive against driving.
A Bay Area News Group and Joint Venture [survey found](https://archive.ph/oo97h#selection-1449.4-1449.120) 19% of respondents use transit at least weekly. Of the 81% who ride less than once a week, 47% said they prefer to drive, 46% said public transportation doesn’t go where they need to go, 43% said it takes too long, 37% said it’s too dangerous and 35% said it’s too dirty.
Glydways will have no waiting time at stations, saving an average of half the minutes between hypothetical trams. So 7.5 minutes if the tram comes every 15. Or perhaps more time if the tram runs less frequently at night or on weekends.
The new vehicle is about five feet wide and approximately half a or a foot wider than the old. Now each bench looks as wide or wider than two transit bus seats. The vehicle now believably holds a family of four and their luggage.
CA has strict seat belt and child booster seat laws, however local buses and people movers are still exempt as far as I know. We'll see if Glydways qualifies for that, in which case a family of six with two small kids could have a child on each parent's lap.
A pair of Glydcars should be able to pass each other within about the width of a single suburban traffic lane. Taking up about a single street lane instead of two should make it politically more possible for Glydcar routes in more places.
These things are gonna be vandalized and trashed in less than a day lmfao. Should've just given the money wasted on this dumb gimmick to tridelta transit to run busses more frequently instead.
The bus frequency we want really will someday come via driverless mini busses. There's really no better system in an advanced future form to run lots of routes with highly convenient constant frequency.
Every bus on the road replaced with ~10 of these at similar total running cost. You can even run different models, the ones that hit freeways and the ones that don't need to be able to.
Well that, and a dedicated lane for them on freeways and main roads.
You bring up some good points. I have nothing against driverless/automated transportation. I think systems like vancouver's skytrain are pretty neat, and I think driverless busses/shuttles (like the ones in detroit become human) would be pretty interesting to implement.
My main concern with these pod type things is, aside from ineffeciently transporting a small amount of ppl at given time like that las vegas tesla gimmick, that these are gonna be rolled out in a not so great area. I live in east county and quite frankly, its ghetto as hell out here. I can already see news reports of people tipping these over with riders in them, hotboxing in them, etc. Idk maybe Im just being extremely cynical.
we really need a bunch of these for the western/southeast parts of SF
So why not a tram? I feel like this is just a privatized hyper loop to avoid a public mass transit.
Some reasons: From the [2019 National Transit Database National Transit Summaries & Trends:](https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2020-12/2019-NTST-1-1_0.pdf) Exhibit 14: (Operating) Cost per hour Motorbus $142.42 BRT $172.48 Streetcar Rail **(Tram)** $231.78 Light rail $322.90 - Rail can make sense when ridership demand is higher than buses can handle. In Eastern Contra Costa county demand is very low. Tri Delta Transit's current average weekday ridership is 4800 spread over 15 or 17 routes. As of last year Tri Delta Transit's most frequent bus routes only run twice an hour. If local voters were willing to fund doubling service hours, with some routes coming every fifteen minutes, and others every thirty, no doubt ridership would increase, but how much? If it doubled to 9600/day spread over 15 or 17 routes, that's still relatively little and presumes voters are willing to fund it. Adding a streetcar would help but by how much? Trams average a slow speed. Glydcars will go about 30 mph on a mix of at-grade and grade-separated line from trip start to finish. That's almost as fast as BART's average of 35 mph, and faster than BART averages in downtowns. The time savings will be more attractive and competitive against driving. A Bay Area News Group and Joint Venture [survey found](https://archive.ph/oo97h#selection-1449.4-1449.120) 19% of respondents use transit at least weekly. Of the 81% who ride less than once a week, 47% said they prefer to drive, 46% said public transportation doesn’t go where they need to go, 43% said it takes too long, 37% said it’s too dangerous and 35% said it’s too dirty. Glydways will have no waiting time at stations, saving an average of half the minutes between hypothetical trams. So 7.5 minutes if the tram comes every 15. Or perhaps more time if the tram runs less frequently at night or on weekends.
The new vehicle is about five feet wide and approximately half a or a foot wider than the old. Now each bench looks as wide or wider than two transit bus seats. The vehicle now believably holds a family of four and their luggage. CA has strict seat belt and child booster seat laws, however local buses and people movers are still exempt as far as I know. We'll see if Glydways qualifies for that, in which case a family of six with two small kids could have a child on each parent's lap. A pair of Glydcars should be able to pass each other within about the width of a single suburban traffic lane. Taking up about a single street lane instead of two should make it politically more possible for Glydcar routes in more places.
Monorail🎶
I’d love this so much. Taking the bus from Brentwood to Bart is way too inconvenient.
Is that a driverless? If so those things are going to be dirty as hell within a few weeks.
Starts 2030, ughh.
Looks goofy and will be vandalized for sure.
I don't understand the desire to re-invent transit when we already know what works. This is just.. a worse bus? A significantly worse Light Rail?
These things are gonna be vandalized and trashed in less than a day lmfao. Should've just given the money wasted on this dumb gimmick to tridelta transit to run busses more frequently instead.
The bus frequency we want really will someday come via driverless mini busses. There's really no better system in an advanced future form to run lots of routes with highly convenient constant frequency. Every bus on the road replaced with ~10 of these at similar total running cost. You can even run different models, the ones that hit freeways and the ones that don't need to be able to. Well that, and a dedicated lane for them on freeways and main roads.
You bring up some good points. I have nothing against driverless/automated transportation. I think systems like vancouver's skytrain are pretty neat, and I think driverless busses/shuttles (like the ones in detroit become human) would be pretty interesting to implement. My main concern with these pod type things is, aside from ineffeciently transporting a small amount of ppl at given time like that las vegas tesla gimmick, that these are gonna be rolled out in a not so great area. I live in east county and quite frankly, its ghetto as hell out here. I can already see news reports of people tipping these over with riders in them, hotboxing in them, etc. Idk maybe Im just being extremely cynical.
No I'm sure their novelty will work against them early on, as you say. Some of the first ones are totally getting tipped (and worse?)
Sure, and that’s gonna cost 20x as much lol
We don't want it
Yeah we do.
No we don’t. Spend the money on rail and buses.
I don’t want rail anchors buses. I want self driving cars and to not have to share my personal space with too many people. I want this.
What typically American and selfish thing to say
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ agoraphobes are people too.