Inside a Mechanical Parking Garage 295
poisedleft writes "Slate has this article about a mechanical parking garage in DC. 'Despite the undeniable Jetsons cachet of the robo-garage, the Summit Grand Parc went automatic only because it had to. A 60-foot-by-106-foot lot behind the building, the only land available for a conventional garage, couldn't hold more than 14 spaces.' One potential problem for suffering city dwellers: long lines at rush hour."
I don't know (Score:0, Funny)
Beware... (Score:5, Funny)
Can you leave your dog in it? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not new news (Score:2, Funny)
Look at the previous post! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Not new news (Score:2, Funny)
Why do we park on a driveway but drive on a parkway?
Re:Not new news (Score:3, Funny)
Persoanly I'm a work at my own office near my house/home at client site consultant. There will never be a posibility of living near all my clients.
Currently I'm in NYC and have come to this conclusion the city should phase out city busses they wreck havoc in the streets I have been nearly run over by them a few times a months for the last six months as there drivers seem to drive on the I'm bigger than you and they cant fire me pricaple so they just rush out in front of vehicals forcing them to brake hard. Secondly phasing out all on street parking would help a ton by opeing up 2 lines on every road. Mass transit makes more sence if it's not competing with cars. As it seems to be your point that cars are not a good thing mass transit needs to become consitantly faster and more convenient that cars. High speed trains with an agrigate speed and frequency faster that the average non rush hour car speed would be needed. Lets look at me for an example.
I have a 2-2.5 hour commute from CT to NYC. The first 30 miles I go by car as the train takes 2x as long and only runs ever few hours makng the missed train penalty significant. I then go the rest of the way about 90 minutes on a trains going less than 65 mph including stops. This is faster during rush hour only. Off peak I can make the same trip in a car in little over an hour at 80mph average in my car.
Lets look at possible solutions using high speed trains:
High levels of automation can reduce the expensive and error prone human factors.
A signle high speed train could use a detach/ reattach system to avoid slowing down. A single/set of cars would be at the station before the train arrives it would gather all the passengers, accelerate and meet up with the long distance train and join it at the head of the train. Departing passangers would move to the rear car(s) and they would detatch and decelerate to a station stop. Keeping the average speed for all passangers near maximum. Some statistics would allow the traint o know what stations it can skip if there is nobody destined for it. A train like this running on 10-15 minute spacing and say 150 MPH would be faster assuming 30 minutes time wasted between each end on cummutes that are about an hour. This number goes down significantly as the person needs to waste less time getting to and travaling from the station. Will it ever happen probably not, people are to dumb on average to figure out what car they need to move to and to scared of a train going throguh there back yard at 150+MPH. I think the average commute is like 35 minutes I dont see mass transit comming close to this.
BTW I agree peope shouldent overextend themselves in buying a house but I also dont think people should be forced to live in the city some people like that life many others hate it. I work on the if you can see your neighbor they are too close rule.