Comments | dag29580863: Conserve Energy: Commute with a Hamiltonian

dag29580863

Conserve Energy: Commute with a Hamiltonian

Sep 15, 2006 03:13

I'm looking forward to an entirely electric commute.

( An exercise in physics )

Comments 9

guardmisfit September 15 2006, 10:35:52 UTC

"and give Caltrain a modern image that is comparable to the BART service."

For some reason, I am finding it very difficult to associate Caltrain with BART... but my experience is with Amtrak, so maybe I'm just biased... give me BART over Amtrak any day. Or make Amtrak run every 15 minutes and cut its prices in thirds.

chimerically September 15 2006, 17:42:40 UTC

If Caltrain actually labeled its trains, their service would be SOOO much better. And maybe they could do mostly bullet trains long-distance (and run them ALL the time, not just commute times) and then run local trains that stop at every station just back and forth within each zone (with some overlap, perhaps) or something. Fitt's Law for the commute.

rubrick September 15 2006, 17:44:59 UTC

That last description is not *too* far off what Caltrain is (though I'm not sure exactly how the prices compare). It only comes close to every 15 minutes (more like 20) during peak hours, but it's certainly more frequent than Amtrak. The main problem is that it's just the one line, which doesn't get close enough to enough of the places one would like to go to.

dag29580863 September 15 2006, 18:23:00 UTC

The line itself runs a very useful route, but, like Morgan said, they are really shooting themselves in the foot by making the system so obscure that you need a travel agent to plan your commute.

angerona September 15 2006, 14:42:30 UTC

Nifty!

threadwalker September 15 2006, 16:52:35 UTC

Cool. Want to see!

chimerically September 15 2006, 17:39:24 UTC

YAY! A POST! HE'S ALIIIVE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE!

*ahem* Sorry.

I look forward to playing with it, too. :~)

rubrick September 15 2006, 18:21:50 UTC

Light rail actually gets 90% of the way to most places in the south bay

This I find hard to believe. By what definition of "most places" and "south bay"? I don't even have the foggiest idea where the nearest light rail station is to where I live (though I'm not too far from Caltrain).

dag29580863 September 15 2006, 18:28:42 UTC

The trick is to define "90%" correctly. San Jose proper is well covered, and if you allow two miles of cycling, it will cover Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, and three miles will get you to most of Cupertino and Palo Alto.