Texas Central, developers of the high-speed train between North Texas and Houston, announced an agreement today with Bechtel to work together on project management services. Bechtel has completed more than 300 major train and subway projects, including the Channel Tunnel High Speed 1, Crossrail in London, Riyadh Metro and Dulles Corridor Metrorail in the Washington, …
How large are the benefits of transportation infrastructure projects, and what explains these benefits? Before 1870, India barely had railroads. It didn’t have many canals either, and only a small percentage of the population lived along the three main rivers. So when goods needed to be transported, people used steer, which could pull freight about …
SpaceX will make a massive network of literally thousands of low earth orbit satellites to provide high-bandwidth, low-cost internet connection to every square foot of planet earth. (This is at 9:38 to 10:37 in the TED talk video) Gwynne Shotwell: We actually don’t chat very much about this particular project, not because we’re hiding anything, …
Elon Musk tweeted that the SpaceX/Tesla hyperloop will try to reach half the speed of sound and brake within the 1200 meter test track. The pod has already reached over 220 mph (355 kph) and will try to reach 384 mph (500 kph). Upgraded SpaceX/Tesla Hyperloop pod speed test soon. Will try to reach half …
Closing the infrastructure gap before the year 2050 by strengthening existing infrastructure with ET3 is entirely feasible and it can be achieved in three coordinated phases: 1) bringing ET3 to maturity, including full-scale commercial deployment (2-5 years); 2) expanding ET3 networks around the globe at national levels (30 years); 3) connecting national ET3 networks into …
Google’s Waymo should have 20,000 self-driving cars giving rides by 2023. Those self-driving cars could be driving a billion miles every year. Currently Waymo passed 5 million self-driving miles in February, 2018. For Deep learning artificial intelligence, the key to better performance is getting to a billion or more examples. Waymo is already in the …
Elon Musk says the Boring Co urban loop system would have 1000’s of small stations the size of a single parking space that take you very close to your destination and blend seamlessly into the fabric of a city, rather than a small number of big stations like a subway. Better video coming soon, but …
California rail authority announced that the cost of connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco would be $77.3 billion and could rise as high as $98.1 billion. This is $13 billion higher than estimates from two years ago and doubles the original $33 billion. Nextbigfuture states the obvious that the $77.3 figure is still a lie …
Having super-high speed trains travel in vacuum or very low pressure is an idea that has been around for centuries and the maglev vacuum concept has been around for decades. A maglev (magnetic levitation) line would use partly or fully evacuated tubes or tunnels. Reduced air resistance could permit vactrains to travel at very high …
A new generation of Chinese medium-to-low-speed maglev trains can run at a maximum speed of 160 kph. China will operate five to twelve magnetic levitation rail lines with maximum speed of 160 kilometers per hour in cities including Chengdu, Wuhan and Guangzhou by 2020. More than 12 Chinese cities, including Tianjin, Hangzhou and Shenzhen, are …
BMW has proposed networks of elevated roads exclusively for e-bikes and scooters. The elevated road is simple and modular in design, economical to build as a result, and provides a fast, direct link between key traffic hubs, making it the perfect alternative for commuters traveling up to 15 km. The E3 Way would have ramps …