livincinco

Last I heard though the fees aren't set for the new canal yet, so the projected increase in business is purely speculative. There's some concern that Panama is going to jack the usage fees up so high that it will impact volume.

I think I understand your point, but not sure why you feel that it would need to be that pre-planned. I don't see any reason why you would have to plan out a sequence of events any more than you currently do. I don't see any reason that you wouldn't be able to determine your tasks serially or change your mind en route.

Posted this on another thread, but it seems appropriate here. http://nypost.com/2013/10/31/fleeing-the-nightmarish-northeast/

It's a statement that points out the obvious without providing any added value. Some sort of action plan on how to reduce the pollution that is caused by refineries is noteworthy. Instead, we got: - Houston has refineries. Refineries are dirty. - Really, what do you suggest we do about it? - Nothing, just wanted to point it out.

A couple of major developments are expected to improve usability of electric cars in the near future. Initial results are indicating that inductive charging holds promise and will be tested in New York City. http://www.cio.com.au/article/529571/industry_cuts_cord_electric_car_charging/?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=sectionfeed http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2013/1026/Wireless-electric-car-charging-Coming-to-a-Volvo-near-you Toyota has announced that it expects to have solid state batteries ready for market by 2020 which will increase range on EVs to approx. 600 miles without requiring a recharge. http://revolution-green.com/2013/07/26/solid-state-batteries-apple-and-toyotas-next-big-thing/ These developments should continue to increase growth in hybrid and electric vehicles http://evobsession.com/100-electric-car-sales-447-95-us-2013/

Houston has refineries? Why wasn't I told about this?

Agreed that the minimum parking requirements should be repealed. That would be a strong step towards allowing Houston to continue its past development as a high-growth, low government regulation city.

On a similar note, article from yesterday's New York Post talking about migration from the Northeast. http://nypost.com/2013/10/31/fleeing-the-nightmarish-northeast/

You're correct. I made a mistake. I'm admitting to that. It's not that hard. You should try it sometime.

METRO is losing tax revenue which is its primary source of operational funding by not finding a way to extend the 1 cent sales tax to Pearland. This is especially true if Pearland is correct and this route is able to turn a profit with the federal incentives. The funding that they're looking for is relatively small and should be a lot easier to obtain than a major project.

My 2 cents - Food was good, the 8th Wonder Alt Universe on tap was quite tasty, but got about a dozen mosquito bites sitting out there.

Not sure if it's easier, but it is potentially cheaper. It sounds like their plan is to do this by utilizing federal funds instead of sales tax revenue, so it's potentially cheaper for city residents. Also, the City of Pearland seems to have a better history of managing their money than METRO does, so I wouldn't be surprised if they can execute this more cost efficiently as well. METRO clearly loses in this deal, but I'm not sure Pearland does.

This kind of looks kind of like the typical ability of government to take something that should make sense and move directly to a bureaucratic cluster... Pearland wants to work with METRO. METRO wants to work with Pearland, but needs Pearland to pay the 1 cent sales tax. Pearland can't charge the 1 cent sales tax because of state law, therefore Pearland has to setup its own P&R.

In the short term, it looks like everything is getting built in a way that requires the ability of the driver to retake control, but I definitely can see laws requiring drivers to retain control of the vehicle inside that municipality. Similar to the individual rules on phone usage. I think that you'll also see municipalities apply laws regarding distracted driving. Don't forget though that most of the existing car manufacturers are working independent of Google and cooperation is by no means guaranteed at this point. I wouldn't be surprised to see GM or Ford work closely with a "middle of the country" city.

For the short term the industry is taking a shortcut by stating that the driver needs to be vigilant and needs to take control of the vehicle at any time. That keeps the legal liability on the driver, but you're absolutely correct that there are a lot of long term liability questions that need to be worked out.

I would have potentially agreed with you a year ago, but the development has been very rapid in the last 12 months. Specifically, the FTHSA has already released guidelines for different levels of driverless cars and has indicated federal support for continued development. http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/automobiles/302643-obama-administration-issues-policy-for-driverless-cars There are already three states that have approved some basic legislation related to testing of autonomous cars and at least nine others have introduced legislation towards that end. Nissan, BMW, Audi, Toyota, Ford, Tesla, Google, GM, and Mercedes have all announced that they are working on autonomous cars and Nissan says they will have one on the market by 2020. Tesla says they will have theirs before then. Navigant research just released a report estimating sales of autonomous vehicles at 95 million in 2035. I also linked to KPMG's research on the subject in my first post. http://www.navigantresearch.com/newsroom/autonomous-vehicles-will-surpass-95-million-in-annual-sales-by-2035 You can call that speculation if you like, but that's a lot of action to dismiss that lightly.

Fair enough, but I would also point out that this is already much further along than hydrogen. Hydrogen is theoretical, but never really advanced to practical. In this case, there are a number of major manufacturers that have committed to putting autonomous cars on the street within a decade. I'd also argue that they are different because hydrogen had to be a straight conversion while this can be incremental.

One of the appeals of driverless is crash prevention. Crash prevention allows the elimination of heavy safety features and reduces the overall weight of the car. That results in reduced wear on roads as well as improved fuel efficiency . Hybrid has consistently gained market share for years. The Toyota Prius is the number 1 selling car in California now. I don't think full electric is ready for primetime yet but it is getting closer. I doubt hydrogen will be viable in the forseeable future.

I haven't seen anything talking about required changes to existing infrastructure for the first generation. The emphasis is on the automakers adjusting to the existing infrastructure. The changes occur in the car with greatly increased sensory capabilities in the car to read the existing signage/road conditions. The last numbers that I saw were that Google's driverless cars had already driven over 450,000 miles. Don't know if you had a chance to watch the Mercedes video that I posted earlier in the thread. It's pretty impressive.

BTW, for those who doubt whether this can be developed in 25 years, I thought I would share this Radio Shack cellphone commercial from 25 years ago just for laughs. That phone cost $1400, weighed 4 lbs, and cost a $1/minute to make calls. EDIT - sorry, I know this is off topic, but I couldn't resist putting this one up too.

I wouldn't be surprised to see development of non-autonomous and autonomous lanes on highways, but agree with your point. The safety benefits start to kick in pretty quickly as well as some the energy efficiency benefits and both of those are considerable. To truly get to the highest level of mobility benefits though, you have to be able to fully automate the grid. Then you can do things like remove stop signs and streetlights to allow continuous flow. It may never get to the point that the grid is fully automated and all of those benefits are realized, but the safety benefits alone are large enough to continue to drive the investment.

Huge differences between a driverless car and a train. A driverless car provides point to point transportation on existing infrastructure and greatly increases the efficiency of that existing infrastructure. A train provides a fixed route on a new set of infrastructure. There's quite a few commercial options that are starting to develop for people that can't afford or don't want to own a car - Zipcar, Uber, and a bunch of other startups are developing to fill that need. Driverless cars fit extremely well into that kind of a model.

That's a very real question and one that there's a lot of discussion about. Driverless cars have collision avoidance systems so they won't hit the car in front of them, but does everybody end up stacking up behind the slow car? The same question exists with bicycles. This is potentially a huge benefit for bike riders because they wouldn't have to worry about getting hit, but you could conceivably have bikes riding down the middle of the road, blocking all cars just because they can. That's what I find so fascinating about this. Huge potential benefits, but a ton of questions about implementation that are going to need to be addressed. Large amounts of money being poured into answering those questions though.

From what I've been reading, there is general agreement that the car needs to have the ability to re-engage the driver for the foreseeable future and that's one of the biggest challenges - doing that in a way that is seamless and safe for all. I absolutely agree that we're going to see an incremental implementation that may take 15-25 years, but we're going to start seeing impact within 3-5 years. The sweet spot for passenger rail in comparison to air seems to be <750 miles based on most of the research that I've seen. Once you get beyond that, the speed differential with air travel becomes a huge advantage. In Japan and Europe, that's not much of a constraint, but once you get outside of the northeast corridor in the US, you're looking at clusters that are in that range, not a continuous network and that's a challenge.

There are several big differences but the most notable is. Freight rail is inter-city. Passenger rail as frequently discussed on this forum is intra-city. I question the ROI of rail as an intra-city means of transportation, especially in light of ongoing innovation such as I've described above.