The Best Argument for HSR I’ve Seen All Month
If you thought air travel was bad now, just wait until you see these “saddle seats” installed on an airplane near you:
The seat puts passengers in a semi-standing position, allowing airlines to leave only 23 inches of space between each row of seats, compared with traditional airline seats that are positioned 31 to 35 inches apart. Passengers must tuck their knees into the back of the seat in front. The seats don’t recline, though they do have a small retractable tray.
Meloni, the company representative, suggested that the seats would be used only for short flights, no longer than two hours.
Meloni said several U.S. airlines had expressed interest in the seat but declined to name then until the deals have been signed.
The seats, created by Italian company Aviointeriors, are probably not going to replace the seats you’re now used to, which are themselves rather cramped (especially for a tall person like myself), on every plane. But it is entirely plausible that you could see these installed on the shuttle flights between the Bay Area and SoCal.
So why is this a good argument for high speed rail? It’s a reflection of the fact that the airlines are having increasing difficulty serving the short-haul market, and will need to adopt these kind of solutions to make those flights profitable. Despite claims by HSR deniers that nobody will ever ride the California HSR trains because Southwest will supposedly offer the exact same service at the exact same fare forever, airlines have been looking to cut these shuttle routes for some time. Remember what JetBlue’s CEO said just a few months ago?
Q: Do you see nationwide high-speed rail as a threat or complement to the airline industry?
A: It’s a complement. I don’t think we need hundreds of departures every day from the Bay Area to Los Angeles.
And JetBlue’s COO explained this view in more detail regarding another major shuttle route, the Northeast Corridor:
It was an event filled with charts and maps that drove home how overwhelmed and outdated current air traffic control technology is. One solution [JetBlue COO Rob] Maruster said was obvious is taking airline passengers off some routes, like New York to Boston. “It seems like there’s a mode that might work better for us in that regard. When we see things like high-speed rail going into South Florida, we say OK, that makes sense. But I think this region, with almost 25 million people in the Tri-State area, makes a lot more sense for those kind of things.” Maruster says he’d like to see New York City and federal transportation officials put out a 20 or 30-year vision that addresses how airplanes, trains and other modes of transportation can be put together. He hasn’t seen one yet.
None of this should be surprising if you’ve been paying attention, especially if you remember the summer of 2008. We spent a lot of time discussing the airline crisis here on the blog, as high gas prices drove the airlines to slash flights. Carriers cut flights on the SF-LA corridor in 2008 – airlines see better profit potential for medium and long haul flights, instead of on the shorter shuttle routes.
Southwest Airlines, which helped kill the Texas HSR project in the 1990s, has also come around on HSR, having not lifted a finger to block any of the HSR projects being proposed around the country. Perhaps Southwest, like JetBlue, understands that their future isn’t in the short-haul services that can be replaced by bullet trains – especially when the California system will bring travelers to airports such as SFO, SJC (Diridon is close enough), BUR, ONT, and perhaps SAN.
It’s further evidence of how HSR is an essential part of California’s future. HSR opponents and critics believe we don’t need it, but they aren’t looking closely at the reality of the present situation, including what the airlines themselves are saying. The status quo isn’t viable, and is going to change. HSR is how California will not only adapt, but thrive.
Otherwise we can all cram into the saddle seats. Sound like fun?
Absolutely not. I wouldn’t be caught dean on one of these planes. A short flight – less than two hours? are you kidding? I can barely survive the one hour flight in the current seats ( and no Im not obese or exceedingly tall, at 5’10 195lb)
They are out of their freakin’ minds. What is the Airline MO anyway? To hear what pax complain about and then redouble their efforts to piss them off even more?
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Ho, ho, ho, ho!
Oh, what fun it is to have memory! What fun it is to have read a history of the Washington, DC streetcar system! What fun it is to recall that the Washington and Philadelphia systems both tried this in WW II because of wartime crowding, and found that people memorized the car numbers of the units so equipped, and avoided them!
The “saddle seats” were called a “standsit” back then and riders would have rather taken a chance for a real seat or just stand anyway rather than put up with that nonsense! And this was in WW II, when people put up with a lot of other things, like sugar rationing, meat rationing, second-grade cigarettes, horrible booze (if you could find it at all), no nylon or silk stockings (women wore leg make-up, and had to draw a line up the back of their legs to represent the seam stockings had then)–oh, and gasoline rationing (actually to conserve the nation’s rubber supply until synthetic rubber plants could be built, natural rubber was cut off by the Japanese invasion of Indonesia). Most people had an “A” sticker, good for all of three gallons per week!
http://www.histclo.com/mat/rat/cou/rat-usw2.html
http://www.ameshistoricalsociety.org/exhibits/events/rationing.htm
http://www.alumnibhs.com/old%20geezer%20photos/gas_rationing_during_ww2.htm
Americans put up with all that–but they wouldn’t put up with a standsit!
Ho, ho, ho, ho!
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Reference (all I could find online):
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,773618,00.html
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
The future ain’t what it used to be. . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub6U9CL0K_A
jimsf Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 7:07 am
The hat at 2:00 is an aircraft in its own right, and I love the line “the bar will raise the spirits of those who don’t feel high enough in the stratosphere”
For real that is the standard of living we are suppose to be enjoying as Americans today. But we have traded all that for a pack of lies.
the lie that quantity is more important than quality. That cheaper is always better, that less is more, that no customer service is better customer service, that faster is always better, that gadgety and distraction is really progress.
jimsf Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 6:57 am
Hysterical. And thank you for reminding the people of today what it really meant to sacrifice. If it happened today, I don’t think we could pull it off as a country anymore.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
The big problem today is that nobody trusts the government enough; how many people think the new health care law would have had real death panels, how many think–know!–the current president is a Muslim (despite being in a “Christian” church, which was noted for a fire-talking preacher who also happens to be an ex-Marine), how many “know” we have more oil than we can use, how many “know” the government can’t run a rail service without subsidy. . .
Yet that same government sends out those Social Security payments, fights wars with the best and most professional military in the world, its local branches provide working fire and police protection, we have a working if overburdened air traffic system that is also government run, we even still get regular old-fashioned mail service that is protected by law (and by the professionalism of postal service employees) against random spying and tampering. . .Isn’t that government that works?
Is it perfect? Hell, no! But it still works better than what you would find in Mexico or South America or Africa. It’s main shortcoming, as I see it, is that big business is able to outmaneuver it with the greatest of ease. I must confess to not knowing what to do, other than to note that throwing money at that particular problem is anything but a cure-all, yet even at that , our civil service works tolerably well, especially considering that most employees on state and local levels have relatively modest pay. And as we have seen recently, at least some of the captains of capitalism can be anything but saints. . .
(caught dead that is not “dean”)
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 5:23 am
!!@#$%&&##@$$!!! No edit function! Unable to correct typing errors! !%$#@&*$%@!!!
Let’s see, 1 hour semi-standing in one of these seats, plus a couple hours in security and getting two and from the airport at either end, total trip time 5 hours, versus 6 or 7 hours on a bus. I think I’d take the bus!
I can imagine Ryanair or another super-low-cost airline trying these out. But I don’t see much market for this; those who want comfort will take a train or at least a traditional airline, and those who are really on a budget can take a modern intercity bus, with wifi, plenty of luggage space and easily accessible bathrooms. Why pay a premium to save an hour or two, while being in misery the whole time?
It would actually be more comfortable to stand fully upright with a rail to hold, like on a long subway trip, but I doubt that would fly with air safety regulators.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Try to get a typical plane past safety regulations for a bus or a train and you couldn’t. Aisles are too narrow and there isn’t enough emergency egress.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Do you really want airlines to regress to bus safety?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 8:42 am
When it comes to emergency egress, yes.
jimsf Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 10:18 am
You have to be able to get people out quickly. flying may be statistically safe, but that’s only because S many people fly in relation to the number of crashes. Surviving the crash is a different story. Getting out quickly when the plane is sinking or on fire is the most important thing.
Buses have a front door, a rear door, at least two rooftop emergency hatches, and most of the windows pop out as well, pretty much the same for most trains.
Planes… well, you better just hope you don’t crash to begin with. The first thin I do is count my rows to the exits ( and try to book a seat near one) I’m flying to PSP next week and as much as I love the spectacular views of the cali geography between here and there, I spend the whole time thinking. ” I hope we don’t fall out of the sky.”
Please build hsr now.
Peter Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Just don’t inflate your lifevest before you’re out of the plane…
jimsf Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 10:59 am
considering its still 100+ down there, the emergency slide directly into the nearest pool would be nice.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Yes, if planes crash, the result is catastrophic, regardless of whether you’re in an exit row. The upshot is that planes very rarely crash. In the US, planes are the safest mode of travel: per passenger-km, they beat both buses and mainline rail. They don’t beat HSR or the safer commuter rail networks, but they do beat the FRA-regulated network.
Those seats might get me to like the Embraers — the cabin is too short for standing.
SFO-LAX is ideal for them. I suspect United and US Air are among the airlines looking at them. But now, with all the hassles of getting to and from airports, checking in, security, and delays, I drive between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It may be an hour or so longer, but it is a lot less stressful, and more predictable.
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 9:55 am
No way is sf0-lax ideal for them. No one will accept this.
Victor Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 10:15 am
Yeah Me neither, It would really bother My leg and hip joints no end, I’d rather take the train, Besides if they look like saddles one could get saddle sores possibly.
Johnathan Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 10:54 am
I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
Rush hour in Tokyo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0A9-oUoMug
The 12-car trains come every 2-3 min. The rush hour train traffic happens for four hours every day. On average, people commute one hour by train to school/work.
Driving is even worse. You’re stuck with $6/gallon gas, monthly parking space rental costs, safety inspection every 2-3 years (about $1200-$2400), insurance, highway tolls (about $15 round-trip or $4000 annually), and traffic.
Given the options, we may need to deal with the reality of peak oil and population changes.
Aaron Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 11:44 am
For what it’s worth, I remember reading studies in psychology that showed that Americans have the highest ‘requirement’ for personal space, save for maybe Britons, and that East Asians generally had the lowest requirement. I lived in LA’s Koreatown for two years and I quickly had to accustom myself to the fact that people standing what I interpreted to be practically on top of me was in fact not considered rude at all – I got used to it with time, largely because I wasn’t just there for the low rents but because I also loved the community and the hodgepodge of culture.
Those changes will eventually come to America as it becomes more urbanized (Tokyo, after all, is the largest city in the world), but while peak oil may cause that to happen, I don’t think it will happen in 3-5 years time. Certainly, the next generation will have a smaller definition of personal space, but even today most urban, progressive transit-utilizing Americans wouldn’t tolerate what the Japanese accept as normal on the JR Yamanote line and the Toei/Metro systems.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Aaron, do you have a reference? Without having seen the study, I find this dubious and stereotyped. Within both Asia and Europe, the stereotypes are the opposite of or orthogonal to the American stereotype. The Japanese are stereotyped as caring deeply about their privacy and personal space; that’s the main allure of capsule hotels over hostels. The Shinkansen, you should remember, offers 38-41″ of seat pitch. Within Europe, the stereotype is that Southern Europeans are used to being in closer proximity to other people and Northern Europeans are used to greater distances.
Aaron Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Sure, here’s a link (There’s no way I could come up with the original reference, the class was 9-odd years ago). It bears out both what you mentioned and what I said as well – basically, that for purposes of traveling, some people may tolerate smaller spaces than Americans, but that for more formal settings
Money quote(s):
In other parts of the world, conversational space is larger than is customary in the U.S. Some Asians prefer a larger distance than North Americans. Because people who bow need at least three feet between them to avoid knocking heads, this is understandable. In Asia, North Americans can be perceived as getting too close.
…
Another aspect of growing up in crowded environments is the unwillingness to be alone in public. In much of Asia, people gravitate towards other people. For example, if you are alone in an elevator in the Philippines and another person enters, he will probably stand right next to you. That person doesn’t want to speak to you; it’s just the local custom. If you are sitting in an Indian movie theater surrounded by empty seats and an Indian enters, he is likely to sit next to you. And in Indonesia, if you are standing on a virtually empty escalator, an Indonesian may walk down until he is standing on the same step as you. This sort of behavior often drives North Americans to distraction, but it is considered appropriate in many parts of the world.
I could keep googling but that’s pretty much the big idea, that it depends both on culture and on circumstance.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
The link bears out much of the stereotype: Middle Easterners stand closer than Europeans (which is standard stereotype in Israel, which has people from both backgrounds), South and Southeast Asians prefer company, etc. But tellingly, there’s little there about Japan specifically, other than that its subway is really crowded – and just as tellingly, the comparison is to New Yorkers, not Americans. The built environment can quickly influence culture: people consider their transportation systems’ average crowding levels as normal and easy to deal with, but groan at higher crowding. It’s true for both subway crowding and traffic congestion. A driver from 1910 transported to today would marvel at the expressways and the higher speed limits, but would go nuts from all the traffic jams.
Andre Peretti Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 6:55 am
“Southern Europeans are used to being in closer proximity to other people and Northern Europeans are used to greater distances”
The stereotype is not verified for trains. British trains are the most cramped I ever rode, and this is not only due to the narrower English gauge. They cram more seats in each car. Just compare the Virgin Pendolino to its Italian version.
Dan S. Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
The capsule hotels in Japan were invented so that the Japanese businessmen would have somewhere to crash if they stayed out too late drinking and missed the last train home. Not sure that the hostel vs. capsule hotel thought experiment really holds up here. Tellingly, in the economic downturn of the last 2 years, some capsule hotels are now renting rooms by the month. I don’t think their allure is particularly in their privacy (each capsule just has a window curtain to close it off) but in their being exceptionally cheap. And the very nature of their tiny proportions seems to indicate that the Japanese are pretty comfortable with small spaces and being in close quarters with others.
Matthew Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
I think our population will peak with a lot lower densities than you see in the megalopolises of South and East Asia.
YesonHSR Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Americans are to “big” stuff in those seats…half of them scream now about small cars..thats why there are so many baby semi-trucks on the roads!
Any airline that wants to sell tickets to families with children would be nuts to install these. I don’t see how a little kid could manage a seat like that if their feet can’t touch the floor, and if you have a baby there is no way to install a carseat and you have no lap either.
Design fail.
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 10:39 am
The airlines have simply created an economic model that they can’t sustain and they are putting off the inevitable. Ari travel should be reserved for the tasks for which it was originally designed. Long distance travel. Large planes flying coast to coast or internationally with enough passengers on board to make it profitable. All this little hopping around adn teh huge expense that goes with it combined with the need to compete and offer fares that don’t cover the cost, in an attempt to attract passengers who really can’t afford the cost of flying to begin with, results in this failure of a shell game. So now they try to make up the difference by charging for bags, food, restroom, and by cramming more and more people on smaller planes.
Divide the country into thirds or quarters, within those quarters fast rail is the solution, connecting those thirds or quarters, warrants an air trip.
Aaron Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
If they tried to do that I suspect they would create a third, cheaper class for people willing to do it. Still, I don’t see most airlines doing that today, except maybe Spirit Airlines or Ryanair. Even Southwest knows that they have to provide a minimal level of service, as seen by their recent ads about bags flying free.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Or they’ll install the saddle seats for the current price and if you want things like the ability to sit down like a normal person, or have room for a child, you can pay extra.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
No, Southwest actually has a marginally higher pitch than the legacy airlines. It’s nothing like Ryanair, AirAsia, or Spirit.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Under today’s conditions this is true.
My point is that as fuel costs continue to rise, even Southwest will be forced to consider this. They may not be the first ones to adopt it, but they might follow.
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
up next, discounted seats available in the cargo hold. According to this, pets survive it well, most of the time anyway….
Matthew Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
Uugh, I had a nightmare about taking my cat on a flight, and her getting killed. I’d drive her even if it was cross country.
Does Amtrak let you take a pet with you if you get a room?
Nathanael Reply:
September 21st, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Unfortunately, Amtrak currently does not allow carriage of pets. This is a major piece of policy stupidity which they can only get away with because so few people take trains — every European railroad except (for no apparent reason) Eurostar allows pets to be taken with you.
Peter Reply:
September 21st, 2010 at 3:44 pm
I’m guessing Eurostar doesn’t allow it because of the import restrictions for pets into the UK, and the train stations don’t have quarantine facilities.
Nathanael Reply:
September 21st, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Hmm. That doesn’t seem to make sense, because pets with appropriate “pet passports” can take them in their cars on (A) the ferry, and (B) the Eurotunnel shuttle. And can take them on the foot ferries too. I think the ferry terminals don’t all have quarantine facilities either, and I *know* the Eurotunnel car shuttles don’t.
Peter Reply:
September 21st, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Oh well then, it was a thought.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
They’ll probably be the last to do this, if ever. Southwest has very aggressive fuel hedging; in the late 1990s, people criticized it for speculating on oil futures. Then 2008 rolled in and it managed to stay profitable.
Despite the stereotype, the two biggest American low-cost carriers are the ones that compete the most about service. JetBlue doesn’t even mention price in its advertising; it talks about how great its service is. In recent years the only legacy that tried to compete on service was Continental, but eventually it folded and decided to go for the same service quality as the other legacies, even before the United merger.
The one American company that tried to fully emulate Ryanair’s model, Skybus, went bankrupt within two years.
Aaron Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Southwest’s tack since the legacy airlines started panicking has been, in summary, “We always had a sustainable business model, we’re not going to drastically change it just because you people are running around with your hair on fire.” I don’t work for SWA even if it may sound that way but I’ve come to expect better service on SWA than on Delta or American for this reason – they have always been “no-frills” in terms of never purporting to offer meals or other special things, but they focus on on-time and polite service. They’re who you fly if you want to get from Point A to Point B in largely the same condition that you departed Point A. No fancy food, no XM radio or satellite TV, but no up-charges for baggage or poor conditions on the aircraft either – on a flight from Providence to LAX all I get is some soda and peanuts – but I knew to expect that and I bought food to go in Providence. Rising fuel prices will of course lead to rising ticket prices but given how SWA has operated thus far, I don’t expect them to start tacking on all of these charges that the other airlines have, I suspect they’ll keep their standard corporate culture and just raise ticket prices accordingly.
That isn’t to defend the idea of taking short-hop flights at all – I don’t think it’ll be too long before those ticket prices become inexorably painful. But I’d far sooner expect a legacy airline or Ryanair to pull this crap before SWA did, and as you note, the short hops (LAX-OAK, LAX/BUR-PHX, in-state Texas flights) used to be their core business model but they’re definitely shifting towards mid-range flights now rather than those shorter commuter flights. I still remember in the “old days” having to take ridiculous 3-stop flights between PHX and Columbus OH, and they don’t tend to do that any more, in favor of medium-range flights instead of short-haul flights.
But it’s the legacy airlines whose business model is wholly unsustainable, fuel costs just being one of many pieces of that puzzle for them, albeit a large piece.
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Personally I can’t stand southwest. I hate their interiors and the lack of tv like I get on virgin america. The the only things that gets me though the hour is having the tv and touch screen to order the snack and beverages. I don’t like that perky southwest song and dance nonsense either. I also prefer the leather seats on jet blue and virgin. I can’t stand the southwest boarding insanity either. That whole thing with those poles with letters and numbers wtf. For criminy sakes load the plane from back to front and let every sit in the waiting area until their rows are called and be done with it already.
I (do not) heart southwest. At all.
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
and by the way, lately I find a lot more lower fares on virgin and jet blue between the bay and socal than I ever find on wn.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
I don’t fly JetBlue. It’s non-union.
jimsf Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 7:10 am
I did not know that ( I inly fly them into long beach once every couple of years) but knowing that, means I will no longer fly them. Are you sure though? Please don’t tell me virgin isn’t either. Then I won’t be able to fly at all.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
I don’t know about Virgin. But yes, JetBlue is non-union. Their K-10 filing states that,
Southwest, by the way, is heavily unionized, even more so than the legacy carriers.
Why not just stack passengers like cordwood? I’m sure the airlines can work out a deal with a major pharmaceutical company to provide heavy sedatives in gas form.
Just pile everyone in, gas ‘em till they stop moving, fly to destination, walk around with a syringe full of adrenaline and wake everyone up.
“Flying so comfortable you won’t even remember it!”
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 10:57 am
^I currently use my home version of that using a combo of valium and bloody marys for flights of 3 hours or more.
This is hilarious! Next they’ll put in a safety feature where you are lined up head-to-toe in a tin can and packed in oil.
rafael Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Lined up? Check!
Scanned head-to-toe for “safety”? Check!
Aluminum can? Check!
Proximity to distilled dino-juice? Check!
Sounds like we’re there already.
On the other hand, you might be on to something: Tokyo capsule hotel, meet the blended wing body commercial jetliner of the future. Just don’t expect the bunks to be quite as roomy.
This is a funny concept but I doubt it will fly in America, if anywhere. So I wouldn’t make any decisions about HSR in California based on “saddle seats.”
The current, real inconveniences that come with flying are good enough reasons to take the train.
Dan S. Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Agreed on both points. I think the chances of this happening in the land of the free and home of the obese are just about 0%. Possibly negative. Dennis Miller disclaimer applies.
Robert, are you sure this is real? I’ve read that there are regulations mandating a minimum seat pitch of, if I remember correctly, 27″.
BruceMcF Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Are they legislation or regulation? Regulations can be changed, if there is sufficient industry interest, otherwise why would airlines have put the effort into capturing the FAA?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Precisely. Regulations can be changed. The key issue is whether passengers will be able to exit these seats quickly in an emergency. Of course, under a Republican FAA (if/when they retake the White House) I could see them signing off on this even if it impedes passenger evacuation times.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Don’t be so sure. I can easily see the Republicans listen to JetBlue more than the legacies. Many components of JetBlue’s business model – Neeleman’s personal religious ethic, the airline’s non-union status, the use of Mormon housewives as an outsourced call center labor force – appeal to neo-liberal and conservative business-class boosters.
Aaron Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Quite real, I read this in the LA Times a couple days back. But you’re probably right and I suspect the installation of these would require a variance on said regulations, one the FAA would probably look at with a fairly skeptical eye – I have to wonder how likely those “seats” are to cause knee injuries during severe turbulence, not to mention the fact that I’m not convinced that a traditional seatbelt would function properly – an average or thin person could well just slide around in said seatbelt.
Everyone will like this
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
don’t forget to check page 11 for the railway terminal design and tech conference – ( for those happen to find themselves in denmark next march)
A retrospective on the now retired 0-series bullet trains.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfhTW2VHmFQ
Spokker Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Oh, it’s not specifically about the 0-series, just the bullet train in general. Still good.
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
I’ll never understand the tiny airline windows they use. The main advantage of trains over planes is comfort, why include these claustrophobic windows unnecessarily?
swing hanger Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Shinkansen trains are slightly pressurized when running (the doors are sealed also) to deal with changes in air pressure caused by the numerous tunnels on the routes. That said, when you actually sit down, the “smaller” windows (they are still much bigger than airline windows) are not noticeable, plus the larger interiors of shinkansen vs. TGV makes them feel roomier.
Dan S. Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
I don’t know for sure, but I think the windows on the trains that run from Tokyo to Osaka have the smallest windows of all the Shinkansen for the reason that the tunnels on this run are the oldest in the system (it being the first route that opened) and are the smallest in tunnel diameter. This makes the air pressure changes as trains enter / exit the tunnels to be the highest in the national Shinkansen system. All the Shinkansen trains are pressurized so that your ears don’t pop in these situations; perhaps with these old, smaller tunnels they find it to be most practical to use pretty small windows. The windows on Shinkansen trains on other routes are significantly bigger, though.
Yeah, I’d be careful of proclaiming that HSR causes economic growth. HSR would probably lead to a substantial demographic shift to the Central Valley, but it’s not an economic panacea.
However, I will admit that on a social standpoint, riding HSR is far more comfortable (and productive if you have wi-fi) then on a car, bus, or airplane. You also save more time to do some fun stuff and generally have a healthier lifestyle.
wu ming Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
in the long run, it’s more of a double negative, electrified HSR will allow the regions and cities that it connects to soften the blow of the huge economic cost of peak oil on a cheap oil legacy infrastructure and related economy.
Airlines aren’t the only ones. BART has studied saddle seats for its trains.
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
the average ride on bart is probably 30 minutes, certainly less than an hour, and you can get out if you want at the next stop if you are uncomfortable. Once they lock you into an airplane your stuck there for an hour, longer usually, including pre and post.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
If you don’t like the concept, then don’t buy a ticket. Unlike high-speed rail, nobody is forcing you to pay for it.
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Oh please, cry me a river. We all pay for crap we don’t want or agree with in this country. I have a list of mile long of stuff a lot more costly, wasteful, and of lower priority that I have to pay for and so does everyone else. “they force me to pay for something ” wah. lame. Suck it up. Besides, this project is paying for with bonds, bonds that mature in the future, so that the people who benefit most from the forward planning, the next generation, will pay for what was planned for them, so they can use it.
REally, forced to pay. please. Did you cry crocodile tears for the billions in treasury and countless lives lost in the past decade over lies? Or did you have a flag and magnetic yellow ribbon on your explorer?
bleh Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 4:23 am
Are you kidding? Just about every single part of air traffic is subsidized in one form or another. Of course we pay for it.
jimsf Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 5:27 am
Drunk Engineer, Morris, Syn, this one is just for you…. knock yourselves out.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 6:11 am
I like the current president personally, I don’t think he’s a bad person, he seems to be a good family man and all (and he shared all these characteristics with his predecessor, plus he seems much smarter than his predecessor), and I still think things would have been worse if we had chosen the alternative–but I think he’s too “conservative,” which in this case means too cautious. Darn it, we needed and still need that rail rebuilding program more than we needed or need bank bailouts.
Think of how a rail rebuilding program–and I mean a big one, a comprehensive one, addressing everything from HSR to streetcars to freight electification to even interurbans, in short, something comparable to the Interstate Highway Program and the other federal matches in the roads department–would address employment issues, energy issues, security issues (helping to keep us out or resource wars) and transportation issues, not to mention helping to keep our money in circulation here.
Instead, we get jitters about money. I’ve got news for you–money’s not worth much by itself. You can’t wear it, you can’t eat it, it won’t keep the rain of your head, or take you on a trip. It can turn itself into these things, but it can’t do that on its own, and when it is transformed into those things, you no longer have the money.
We shouldn’t worry too much about money; there are other things of greater importance.
I would bet there weren’t too many concerns about money, budgets and deficits in WW II. We had more important things to deal with then, too.
Matthew Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Interesting color selection: They chose an active color for the decreases, and a passive color for the increases. That gives the cuts more visual impact.
They also chose colors that are perfectly useless for a colorblind reader.
Dan S. Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
All right, drunk guy, I’ll bite too. Can I withhold my taxes from paying for the airline system then, since I don’t like planes? That includes tax preferences for airports, funding for the air traffic control system, budget of the FAA, and the salaries of the TSA people. Can I withhold my taxes from paying for the road system since I don’t like cars? Well, some of it I can by not paying gasoline taxes, but as we know, not all roads are built only using gas tax monies. Not to mention Caltrans, CHP, 511, lost city revenues due to parking requirements, etc, etc, etc. You must truly be hitting it lately. Please have another drink on me.
So if some of your tax money goes to paying for a train system, it won’t be the first transportation system that you’ve been paying for. All modes are subsidized. Rail is just less popular overall, so it gets singled out.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
The MTA studied having no seats on some rush hour trains. JR East actually implemented this for a while.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
They actually built some. They are in service today. The seats were designed to be locked in the down position off peak and in the up position during peak. They never unlocked them.
Dan S. Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
If you’re speaking of foldy seats on JR trains, I can report that the Yamanote line has them on the 6-door cars. There seems to be one or two of them on each train. Basically, there’s a 3-person folding bench seat in-between all the doors. You can pull them up or put them down as you like. I think without anyone sitting on them they flip up automatically. They are usually in the down position, but you can see them folded up pretty regularly too.
Interestingly (to me), they have apparently decided that 5 and 6 door cars are unnecessary, and the next set of trains to run on the Yamanote will be all 4-door cars. When that happens, they will complete the new platform barriers they have already started to install at select stations.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 21st, 2010 at 6:32 pm
No, he was talking about the MTA’s aborted experiment with flip-up seats.
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
They should just put linear bench seats in some cars used during rush hour. I remember seeing those on the boston subway way back in the 70s. Sure more people have to stand but there’s more room overall. Bart cars are too long to have only one set of doors at each end with today’s ridership so an additional set of doors would be helpful as well.
Actually, I think they’re kind of cool. Saddle seats provide correct posture, so they’re better for your back than regular seats. And those in the picture look comfortable enough to sleep in, if you had some way to keep your head from falling forward or to the side.
jimsf Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
you’ve got to be kidding.
Derek Reply:
September 18th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
You haven’t ever sat in a saddle seat, have you?
jimsf Reply:
September 19th, 2010 at 7:13 am
No, and I never will. If I want to sit in a saddle I’ll ride a horse.
Matthew Reply:
September 20th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
Well, it’s at least worth being open minded to. Sometimes the most ridiculous sounding things are true.
Maruster says he’d like to see New York City and federal transportation officials put out a 20 or 30-year vision that addresses how airplanes, trains and other modes of transportation can be put together. He hasn’t seen one yet
in other words, a comprehensive multi modal nationwide transportation strategy. That would make way too much sense to actually happen in the US. Our system, is designed from the ground up to be one giant 50 state nimbyland, where on every level, from the bock on which you live, up to Capitol HIll, its nothing more than a bunch of competing interests looking out for themselves and their clicks. Its not even “us” against “them” but everyone against everyone. I don’t know how much longer it can go on before the US deteriorates to the point that people start moving out.
Nathanael Reply:
September 21st, 2010 at 3:51 pm
It’s already deteriorated to that point. Immigration from Europe is rare while emigration to Europe is common — but that’s old news. Did you notice that immigration from Mexico crashed and actually has started to reverse since the latest Depression hit ? Apparently the economic opportunities are better in Mexico. :-P
I think the designer spent too much time at a Six Flags theme park looking at all the stand-up rollercoasters! But at least the rollercoaster ride is only 2 to 3 minutes long, not 2 hours, and is a lot more fun!
JimBo
These seats strike me as an inevitable ADA lawsuit.
I’m just worried what happens during one of those inevitable 6 hour mechanical failure delays. It’s already intolerable while sitting down, imagine a plane-full of people partially standing for 6 hours during the delay.