@macrumpton I was thinking the same. It could prove to be a smart idea. Houston should pay attention to this when thinking about upping mass transit here.
He said there are two possible types of vehicles - with and without rails. The rail-less ones use a computer guidance system that tracks painted lines on the road. I'd personally feel a lot safer with the rail version.
sorry, seeing "Houston" and "mass transit" in one sentence makes me laugh...
every single time I go back there to visit my relatives, I'm surprised at the huge lack of buses you guys have there... but I guess it's not too surprising considering I'm comparing it to Vancouver, where buses are everywhere...
if this concept could work, Houston would probably be a better place than most... I can just imagine jumping onto one of these from IAH to Sugar Land... maybe let the people in Beijing work out the kinks first...
@Blaque14K : I live in Houston (or the suburbs really) and it's hard to ever see anything effective ever coming out of METRO until they get a bunch of better people to run that. They'd probably use 5X as much money than it needs to be, it will get delayed for a long time, and the fares will probably be $2.75. Plus there are a heck of a lot bad drivers in Houston who'd probably fumble it up when it comes to driving around that thing. I think a really good BRT is more feasible for Houston.
@waterboy99troop : Lol, I live in Houston and visited Vancouver last June. This is very unlikely to happen here, not just because of lousy METRO, but Houston's a tough city to even build a good public transport system. Everything's pretty spread out once you leave downtown, the weather is often hot and humid to wait at a station with no AC or sometimes even no shelter, there are a good number of bad drivers here, and they'd have to battle with the general perception around here that mass transit is something for the poor, criminal immigrant types.
That's why I kinda miss Vancouver. Sure, the bus tickets cost 2X more, but the system actually works a heck of a lot better than here.
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Considering they have tracks a more accurate title would say trains rather than buses.
@macrumpton I was thinking the same. It could prove to be a smart idea. Houston should pay attention to this when thinking about upping mass transit here.
@macrumpton or Trams.
@macrumpton
He said there are two possible types of vehicles - with and without rails. The rail-less ones use a computer guidance system that tracks painted lines on the road. I'd personally feel a lot safer with the rail version.
@joe23521 What's the point of having ones without rails? How often does a bus change its route?
@d0mth0ma5
I assume it would be for temporary / chartered uses?
I want to see the wheel base. I have a hard time seeing how these things turn.
@Blaque14K
sorry, seeing "Houston" and "mass transit" in one sentence makes me laugh...
every single time I go back there to visit my relatives, I'm surprised at the huge lack of buses you guys have there... but I guess it's not too surprising considering I'm comparing it to Vancouver, where buses are everywhere...
if this concept could work, Houston would probably be a better place than most... I can just imagine jumping onto one of these from IAH to Sugar Land... maybe let the people in Beijing work out the kinks first...
@d0mth0ma5 Simple you don't have to put down rails. Even if bus routes only changed after 10 years you would still have to lay new track.
@Schmich
Don't look at the cg mock-up, watch the video. The bus-train is modeled to have three sections so that it can turn.
@Blaque14K : I live in Houston (or the suburbs really) and it's hard to ever see anything effective ever coming out of METRO until they get a bunch of better people to run that. They'd probably use 5X as much money than it needs to be, it will get delayed for a long time, and the fares will probably be $2.75. Plus there are a heck of a lot bad drivers in Houston who'd probably fumble it up when it comes to driving around that thing. I think a really good BRT is more feasible for Houston.
@waterboy99troop : Lol, I live in Houston and visited Vancouver last June. This is very unlikely to happen here, not just because of lousy METRO, but Houston's a tough city to even build a good public transport system. Everything's pretty spread out once you leave downtown, the weather is often hot and humid to wait at a station with no AC or sometimes even no shelter, there are a good number of bad drivers here, and they'd have to battle with the general perception around here that mass transit is something for the poor, criminal immigrant types.
That's why I kinda miss Vancouver. Sure, the bus tickets cost 2X more, but the system actually works a heck of a lot better than here.