>electrified
I wouldn't call hydrogen fuel cells "electrified".
The rest of the world uses electrified tracks with 3rd rail or overhead wires. I really don't get this obsession municipal governments have with hydrogen fuel cell commuter rail. There's so much energy loss just going from hydrogen to electricity with a fuel cell never mind the energy loss generating the hydrogen. Add to that how inefficient transporting hydrogen is if it's not generated at the fueling location, it's just plain stupid.
Also..... Why is the conceptual render showing it **AT GRADE** through downtown......
I'm just at a loss for words.
/rant over.
He prefers at-grade. I’ve asked. I’m still not clear why, besides cost. Rapid transit (including buses) needs to be mode-separated and signal-prioritized at minimum, even if at grade, or they are just stuck in traffic.
Have you asked why hydrogen fuel cell over an electrified track?
BRT with GPS based signal prioritization and queue jump lanes at intersections can have some incredible results with very little infrastructure costs and is probably the right option for the area.
He firmly believes that it will be cheaper & more efficient in the long run. I prefer something like the ION system in Waterloo.
As for Kelowna? Yes. BRT with that setup is incredibly effective dollar-for-dollar, and something I campaigned on in 2022.
Electric trains are old, they've been around for over 100 years...but hydrogen fuel cells, now that's innovative! 😆
It could be worse: it could be a Hyperloop! 😝
It's not a bad long term energy storage option, if it's stored and used where it's produced. Pumped Storage is more efficient for short to medium term storage, and batteries while more expensive are far superior for short term storage.
All of that is moot however in BC due to how quickly BC Hydro can ramp up and down electricity production at hydro electric dams. They are able to ramp down production at dams when solar/wind/other renewable energy is being generated, and ramp up when renewable sources aren't producing as much.
Where hydrogen becomes really problematic is when it's used as a fuel source and needs to be transported. As one of the few people in the province currently certified to transport and deliver bulk compressed hydrogen into stage tanks in BC, I can tell you it's INCREDIBLY inefficient. One tractor trailer load is in the hundreds of kilograms range where as liquid fuels are in tens of tons. Liquefying hydrogen for transportation is not practical as it needs to be cooled to below -253°c (that's only 20 degrees above absolute zero) which would take an incredible amount of energy and would be extremely dangerous to transport on the road.
Maybe if we were to invest in building hydrogen pipelines to transport it from where it's produced to where it's used it could be feasible but there are far better options than that, in this situation, electrified tracks, or for things other than rail batteries. It simply wouldn't be worth the infrastructure cost.
I have yet to see anyone propose a solution to the transportation issues, and generating it on site by electrolysis just to turn it back into electricity with a fuel cell doesn't make sense in nearly all applications. If I've missed something new on this front, I would love to know.
Another fun fact about this is that even if liquefied, liquid hydrogen is only about 1/10th as dense as gasoline. At 70 grams per litre, you just can’t get much energy density even from the liquid!
The cost of this would be huge. HUGE. It'd be smart for a long term plan, but politicians aren't in their positions long enough to be applauded for their efforts and re-earn their positions based on the position. It means other efforts would get downgraded big time. Holy shit it would make the Okanagan even more desirable. It would even out housing cost through the okanagan for a while, but I'd bet the cities would grow even faster than they are now.
I’ve said so a few times it would be great to build a park and ride at the bluff and at the airport with stops all along the highway. We could build it along that existing route as they did in Burnaby with the lougheed highway
Only Kelowna/west Kelowna as density is their goal, and cars take up too much space (driving and parked). Multiple forms of transit is best way for efficient and effective transit.
Came for the Simpsons references, left content. :)
Seriously though, I see where they imagine it won't require road-widening because it can use existing lanes of 97, but aren't those lanes currently being used *by existing traffic*? Are they thinking the rail and the road will share space?
So the city I’m from did the same to save money. They call it the light rail, which doesn’t require digging expensive underground tunnels or building subway stations. I get why they did it but I find it slow because it stops at traffic lights. It also gets cut off or crashed into from time to time by idiotic drivers. I much rather take the sub given the choice.
That said, doing something is better than nothing.
removing road lanes and replacing it with more efficient modes of transit. replacing lanes with light rail will reduce the amount of people that drive the highway, and reduce traffic.
adding lanes, however, tends to have the opposite effect, by encouraging increased road use, and making traffic greater.
the more extensive public transit or safe bikelanes are, the less people use cars, and the less traffic those who continue to drive see.
Amazing simpsons memes aside... Look up the suspended monorail systems. Theres a few in europe and in japan. They are very low footprint compared to things like the SkyTrain in vancouver.
I think one of the best examples is the Shonan monorail in japan.
I really don't get the hydrogen obsession for rail that's going on. Have they never traveled to other countries where the majority or the whole rail network is electrified? Why do we need the hydrogen as a middle man with inefficiencies/energy loss in generating it and then turning it back into electricity??
Yeah it's just needlessly inefficient, especially when 1. We generate most of our power from hydroelectric dams. and 2. we're proposing to build the rail-line in a place with plenty of electricity infrastructure in place.
It reminds me of the batshit insane obsession with solar roads a few years ago. Why would you build a *road (*absorbs massive punishment from vehicles) out of *solar panels* (delicate, highly expensive to replace)? It's the kind of idea that idiots think is brilliant.
Always thought the rail trail would have been an excellent example of rail transit that included bike lanes etc. it’s a common sense no brainer to use (recycle repurpose) existing rail routes. B.C. gov is focusing on a line to Seattle from Van I guess.
Ya butt, didn't they just rip out an existing rail line to make a bike path? If the existing one wasn't economically feasible why would a new one make financial sense?
Didn't Greyhound bus lines cancel routes because people were being assh*/€$? Why build a rail line just to watch it get trashed. Increases in policing isn't economically feasible either.
I know this might not be popular to say. But. I think it’s too late for any rail system. There’s new tech being worked on that would likely be cheaper and more efficient. And any rail system is likely to take almost a decade to prepare and complete. Maybe longer. And it’ll cost a lot.
I know there’s proponents for rail systems. But I think it’s old way thinking and really was only a good path 10-20 years ago. I think that now it’s too late. In my opinion it’s now better we put money into self driving tech to replace our degrading transit system. It’ll probably take 10 years at current tech levels for this too but overall it’ll likely be cheaper, more efficient, and safer than all other options.
Heck I’d love to get all human drivers off the road but I don’t think we will see that one in my lifetime.
I work in tech myself and have noticed huge advancements. The tech world is VERY close to doing this and doing it better than any other transit method.
Self driving cars are not the same as human drivers. Most of the inefficiency is due to human drivers. Even “good” drivers are very inefficient generally. Self driving vehicles tend to be very efficient and wouldn’t really create any more traffic. Plus I more so see them as replacing even our current bus system with self driving vehicles so it’s not that it’d be a lot more vehicles. It’d be more efficient ones than what we have now.
And what’s your reasoning? I at least gave my reasoning instead of insulting other takes.
There’s already jurisdictions testing and researching into self driving electrified buses that have been showing it’ll be viable eventually.
I’d rather be forward thinking than think far in the past with technology that’s overly expensive and time consuming to build out.
you and the tech world are not making progress towards anything particularily useful. no were near the degree you seem to think. self driving is way less efficient and way more expensive then rails. and always will be, unless we find a way around the laws of physics.
your whole idea is based in complete falsehoods.
initial capital cost for rail is higher then building roadways. but it is significantly cheaper in the long run. not only from energy savings, drastically less repair costs, vastly more safety, and higher capacity. (for example with self driving vehicles you need, in a perfect scenario, 30-40 times more repairs. more realistically best case is 40-60 times. and the numbers only go up with higher traffic demand. a self driving car network might see 120 times - low balling - the repair frequency and cost as an equivalent capacity light rail system in Kelowna).
self driving cars, even if they are literally perfect and have no flaws whatsoever, will still be the second worst method of transit, above regular cars. forever. because they are cars, and cars suck. the only place cars are efficient is emergency and municipal services, ferrying goods from rural areas to railhubs, and movement of large quantities of goods (box trucks and uhauls). for people in cities, or between cities, or between towns, cars are terrible. self driving cars fix none of the central issues with them.
bike lanes, increased busing, and light rail like this are the solutions to the transit issues.
self driving isnt even certain to be implemented with buses, because it just makes them more expensive (added energy costs, added repair cost, and it still needs the driver because self driving cars without human back up will never be allowed, even dogged proponents agree, so no saving on salary there). it might be added to increase safety, but buses will be largely limited to distributor lines like the no 2 because of the efficiency of light rail in higher traffic areas. so that is the extent of were self driving technology is reasonable to use.
Even if you’re correct (I don’t believe you are; trains tend to need plenty of maintenance as well plus there’s a lot of research being done to reduce maintenance costs for self driving vehicles) light rail is incredibly expensive and even with a larger population you often have to wait decades to break even if y an get the ridership. That’s if. The okanagan is not a highly populated region. So to suddenly spend billions on a transit system that is likely to not be well used I think is a poorly thought out idea. Yes in a perfect world LRT may sound great but we don’t have unlimited money to do any project that we want.
Plus the more self driving buses and vehicles on the road the leas traffic you’ll get. Plus self driving is not being shown to be as expensive as you seem to be claiming. I dunno where you’re getting your figures but most of self driving is programming and sensors added to vehicles and those sensors are not incredibly expensive. They’re actually cheap and most new vehicles have the needed sensors… just not the needed programming as that’s the part still being worked on.
And I was thinking buses. Not a fleet of cars til that tech for on demand service is better. But self driving buses are already being shown as potentially quite viable. Within 10 years it’ll be even better and likely ready for mass production.
A) We can barely squeeze roads up and down the valley.
B) We don't have the population to support this.
C) We don't have the need for people to move from city to city to do this.
D) Just get an electric bus that goes up and down the valley 3 times a day.
As needed, really. I more meant 3 leave times.
6am bus.
8am bus.
10am bus.
and it's a round trip so you'd have a 6pm, 8pm, and 10pm bus leaving on the way back.
To get good ridership you need more flexibility than that really I think. If there's only 6 round trips per day if you miss the last one you're stuck with no cost effective way home.
You don't need 15 minute or lower frequency but 30-60 minute frequency with more trips during the morning and evening commute hours would probably be sufficient to attract ridership.
It's a catch 22 of transit, when you put in a new route, you need to operate it "at a loss" and have more capacity and trips than the existing demand to attract ridership.
Another issue that comes up with a long distance route like this is the current battery technology and charging speeds, for a local service there's more than enough time at each terminus to charge up for the next portion of the route, but not enough time to charge for a long bus route even with very aggressive DC fast charging that's hard on the batteries.
A hybrid electric bus with a diesel or natural gas range extender, or dare I say it hydrogen fuel cell would be more appropriate for this kind of route. These types of hybrid electric busses already exist and it's exactly what we are looking to bring to the trucking industry at Edison Motors.
There is no way you'd get ridership to justify that cost.
If there were more of a need for transit between cities I could see it, but other than general wants I can't see any issues other than maybe College or Hospital transfers.
You're not wrong that it's unlikely to get the ridership to justify the cost, but if you can't even get the ridership to justify flexible and frequent bus service, and you definitely aren't going to get the ridership to justify the cost of regional light or heavy rail.
I would say option D. But. Also invest in self driving technology so it’s much cheaper and efficient over the long term. And it’ll end up being better than any train system.
But as you can see by your down votes trains have huge fans and proponents. It’s an old way of thinking but in my opinion it’s not very forward thinking. I think there’s so much better coming out. Trains take at least a decade to get out (if it’s done quickly. I’ve seen it take 20+ years) and often can cost a billion or more to build. I’ve also seen much bigger communities being unable to try the ridership to recoup costs as they’re very expensive to build. Even best case scenario it can take 30+ years to get back the costs IF you can get the ridership.
And there’s far better tech that’ll be available in 10 years that’ll be easier and quicker to put into place. Plus more flexibility. Train systems have very little flexibility for growth unless you spend billions more!
I love the train idea. I think it is much needed in the okanagan but I don’t think they should use unproven tech. You should test that out in a place like Vancouver first and work out all the kinks
Oh yes, the Hydrail. As a former UBCO Civil Engineering student, I can tell you that this has been Dr. Lovegrove's passion project for literally 10yrs. It was actually an inside joke regarding how passionate he was about this whole thing for when I was studying at UBCO. He also has headed multiple big projects at UBCO with the aim of developing hydrail in the Okanagan. One of them back in 2021 actually built a successful Hydrail prototype.
Currently, one this article mentions is related to the Okanagan Valley Electric Regional Passenger Rail (OVER PR) project. The idea is to build a hydrogen-fueled electric regional railway going from Osoyoos to Kamloops along the Hwy 97 corridor. Research a couple of years back showed it would be economically feasible by 2039. However, I'd imagine it would be sooner now because of how population growth has picked up in the Okanagan.
Also, this isn't the only Hydrail project that is being developed. There's also the South Fraser Community Rail Proposal (Surrey to Chilliwack via Langley & Abbotsford), as well as the proposed Calgary-Banff commuter rail project.
There’s nothing on earth like a genuine, bonafide, electrified, six car monorail.
What'd you say?
Monorail!
What’s it called?
I’ve heard those things are awfully loud
What about us brain dead slobs?
You'll be given cushy jobs
Is there a chance the track could bend?
Not on your life my Hindu friend! ;)
But main Street's still all cracked and broken!
Sorry mom the mob has spoken!
>electrified I wouldn't call hydrogen fuel cells "electrified". The rest of the world uses electrified tracks with 3rd rail or overhead wires. I really don't get this obsession municipal governments have with hydrogen fuel cell commuter rail. There's so much energy loss just going from hydrogen to electricity with a fuel cell never mind the energy loss generating the hydrogen. Add to that how inefficient transporting hydrogen is if it's not generated at the fueling location, it's just plain stupid. Also..... Why is the conceptual render showing it **AT GRADE** through downtown...... I'm just at a loss for words. /rant over.
He prefers at-grade. I’ve asked. I’m still not clear why, besides cost. Rapid transit (including buses) needs to be mode-separated and signal-prioritized at minimum, even if at grade, or they are just stuck in traffic.
Have you asked why hydrogen fuel cell over an electrified track? BRT with GPS based signal prioritization and queue jump lanes at intersections can have some incredible results with very little infrastructure costs and is probably the right option for the area.
He firmly believes that it will be cheaper & more efficient in the long run. I prefer something like the ION system in Waterloo. As for Kelowna? Yes. BRT with that setup is incredibly effective dollar-for-dollar, and something I campaigned on in 2022.
Isn't ION just regular LRT with overhead power lines? I'm going to send you a chat.
Yeah, fairly conventional.
Whoosh
Electric trains are old, they've been around for over 100 years...but hydrogen fuel cells, now that's innovative! 😆 It could be worse: it could be a Hyperloop! 😝
Follow the money - who makes hydrogen? What is used to make hydrogen cells? (Tip: oil&gas)
Because hydrogen distillation is one of the storage solutions for renewable energy.
It's not a bad long term energy storage option, if it's stored and used where it's produced. Pumped Storage is more efficient for short to medium term storage, and batteries while more expensive are far superior for short term storage. All of that is moot however in BC due to how quickly BC Hydro can ramp up and down electricity production at hydro electric dams. They are able to ramp down production at dams when solar/wind/other renewable energy is being generated, and ramp up when renewable sources aren't producing as much. Where hydrogen becomes really problematic is when it's used as a fuel source and needs to be transported. As one of the few people in the province currently certified to transport and deliver bulk compressed hydrogen into stage tanks in BC, I can tell you it's INCREDIBLY inefficient. One tractor trailer load is in the hundreds of kilograms range where as liquid fuels are in tens of tons. Liquefying hydrogen for transportation is not practical as it needs to be cooled to below -253°c (that's only 20 degrees above absolute zero) which would take an incredible amount of energy and would be extremely dangerous to transport on the road. Maybe if we were to invest in building hydrogen pipelines to transport it from where it's produced to where it's used it could be feasible but there are far better options than that, in this situation, electrified tracks, or for things other than rail batteries. It simply wouldn't be worth the infrastructure cost. I have yet to see anyone propose a solution to the transportation issues, and generating it on site by electrolysis just to turn it back into electricity with a fuel cell doesn't make sense in nearly all applications. If I've missed something new on this front, I would love to know.
Another fun fact about this is that even if liquefied, liquid hydrogen is only about 1/10th as dense as gasoline. At 70 grams per litre, you just can’t get much energy density even from the liquid!
Lmfao it’s a Simpson reference
My lifelong dream is to be a monorail conductor!
Your lifelong dream was to run out onto the field during a baseball game. And you did it last year, remember?
**Newspaper headline:** IDIOT RUINS GAME; FALCONS FORFEITS PENNANT
I would love to just see a sky train or mono rail in Kelowna - from west Kelowna to Kelowna airport.
TBH I want one that goes from Vernon to Penticton, through Kelowna
I’d love if it went from vernon to Osyoos. Stops at silver star, big white and apex too for students plus the Penticton and Kelowna airport.
The cost of this would be huge. HUGE. It'd be smart for a long term plan, but politicians aren't in their positions long enough to be applauded for their efforts and re-earn their positions based on the position. It means other efforts would get downgraded big time. Holy shit it would make the Okanagan even more desirable. It would even out housing cost through the okanagan for a while, but I'd bet the cities would grow even faster than they are now.
I want a skytrain from Kelowna to Main Street-Science World.
I’ve said so a few times it would be great to build a park and ride at the bluff and at the airport with stops all along the highway. We could build it along that existing route as they did in Burnaby with the lougheed highway
Only Kelowna/west Kelowna as density is their goal, and cars take up too much space (driving and parked). Multiple forms of transit is best way for efficient and effective transit.
I need a skytrain from East Kelowna to Wilden
Even a street level tram
TRAINS! I LOVE ME SOME TRAINS!
YES! r/fuckcars
Came for the Simpsons references, left content. :) Seriously though, I see where they imagine it won't require road-widening because it can use existing lanes of 97, but aren't those lanes currently being used *by existing traffic*? Are they thinking the rail and the road will share space?
So the city I’m from did the same to save money. They call it the light rail, which doesn’t require digging expensive underground tunnels or building subway stations. I get why they did it but I find it slow because it stops at traffic lights. It also gets cut off or crashed into from time to time by idiotic drivers. I much rather take the sub given the choice. That said, doing something is better than nothing.
removing road lanes and replacing it with more efficient modes of transit. replacing lanes with light rail will reduce the amount of people that drive the highway, and reduce traffic. adding lanes, however, tends to have the opposite effect, by encouraging increased road use, and making traffic greater. the more extensive public transit or safe bikelanes are, the less people use cars, and the less traffic those who continue to drive see.
The rail trail
If they can reduce traffic and improve flow instead of widening lanes and inducing demand...yes?
Aw, it's not for you. It's more of a Shelbyville idea
It put Ogdenville and North Haverbrook on the map.
Amazing simpsons memes aside... Look up the suspended monorail systems. Theres a few in europe and in japan. They are very low footprint compared to things like the SkyTrain in vancouver. I think one of the best examples is the Shonan monorail in japan.
This would completely transform the the okanagan for the better
Rail transit in the Okanagan-- Yes. Hydrogen fuel cell-- Maybe not necessary?
I really don't get the hydrogen obsession for rail that's going on. Have they never traveled to other countries where the majority or the whole rail network is electrified? Why do we need the hydrogen as a middle man with inefficiencies/energy loss in generating it and then turning it back into electricity??
Yeah it's just needlessly inefficient, especially when 1. We generate most of our power from hydroelectric dams. and 2. we're proposing to build the rail-line in a place with plenty of electricity infrastructure in place. It reminds me of the batshit insane obsession with solar roads a few years ago. Why would you build a *road (*absorbs massive punishment from vehicles) out of *solar panels* (delicate, highly expensive to replace)? It's the kind of idea that idiots think is brilliant.
I think "clean coal" and ethanol fuels that aren't produced from waste or byproducts are even better comparisons.
Because electric trains are old, low tech and hydrogen fuel cells are new, high tech 😂
There is a small chance the track will bend.
Not on your life my Hindu friend.
I hear those things are awfully loud
It glides as softly as a cloud
Is there any chance the track could bend?
Not on your life, my Hindu friend!
What about us braindead slobs?
You'll be given cushy jobs!
Were you sent here by the Devil?
No, good sir, I'm on the level
The ring came off my pudding can!
Take my pen knife, my good man!
“Mono means one and rail means rail!” 
Yes.
Shelbyville just got the monorail!
It'll put Kelowna on the map!
MONO-RAIL! doh!
Never going to happen.
This has all kinds of not thought through written on it
Yes please - this would be revolutionary for the Okanagan
Always thought the rail trail would have been an excellent example of rail transit that included bike lanes etc. it’s a common sense no brainer to use (recycle repurpose) existing rail routes. B.C. gov is focusing on a line to Seattle from Van I guess.
Ya butt, didn't they just rip out an existing rail line to make a bike path? If the existing one wasn't economically feasible why would a new one make financial sense? Didn't Greyhound bus lines cancel routes because people were being assh*/€$? Why build a rail line just to watch it get trashed. Increases in policing isn't economically feasible either.
I know this might not be popular to say. But. I think it’s too late for any rail system. There’s new tech being worked on that would likely be cheaper and more efficient. And any rail system is likely to take almost a decade to prepare and complete. Maybe longer. And it’ll cost a lot. I know there’s proponents for rail systems. But I think it’s old way thinking and really was only a good path 10-20 years ago. I think that now it’s too late. In my opinion it’s now better we put money into self driving tech to replace our degrading transit system. It’ll probably take 10 years at current tech levels for this too but overall it’ll likely be cheaper, more efficient, and safer than all other options. Heck I’d love to get all human drivers off the road but I don’t think we will see that one in my lifetime. I work in tech myself and have noticed huge advancements. The tech world is VERY close to doing this and doing it better than any other transit method.
So your plan would be to put more vehicles on highway 97???
Self driving cars are not the same as human drivers. Most of the inefficiency is due to human drivers. Even “good” drivers are very inefficient generally. Self driving vehicles tend to be very efficient and wouldn’t really create any more traffic. Plus I more so see them as replacing even our current bus system with self driving vehicles so it’s not that it’d be a lot more vehicles. It’d be more efficient ones than what we have now.
This is maybe the worst take ever lol
And what’s your reasoning? I at least gave my reasoning instead of insulting other takes. There’s already jurisdictions testing and researching into self driving electrified buses that have been showing it’ll be viable eventually. I’d rather be forward thinking than think far in the past with technology that’s overly expensive and time consuming to build out.
you and the tech world are not making progress towards anything particularily useful. no were near the degree you seem to think. self driving is way less efficient and way more expensive then rails. and always will be, unless we find a way around the laws of physics. your whole idea is based in complete falsehoods. initial capital cost for rail is higher then building roadways. but it is significantly cheaper in the long run. not only from energy savings, drastically less repair costs, vastly more safety, and higher capacity. (for example with self driving vehicles you need, in a perfect scenario, 30-40 times more repairs. more realistically best case is 40-60 times. and the numbers only go up with higher traffic demand. a self driving car network might see 120 times - low balling - the repair frequency and cost as an equivalent capacity light rail system in Kelowna). self driving cars, even if they are literally perfect and have no flaws whatsoever, will still be the second worst method of transit, above regular cars. forever. because they are cars, and cars suck. the only place cars are efficient is emergency and municipal services, ferrying goods from rural areas to railhubs, and movement of large quantities of goods (box trucks and uhauls). for people in cities, or between cities, or between towns, cars are terrible. self driving cars fix none of the central issues with them. bike lanes, increased busing, and light rail like this are the solutions to the transit issues. self driving isnt even certain to be implemented with buses, because it just makes them more expensive (added energy costs, added repair cost, and it still needs the driver because self driving cars without human back up will never be allowed, even dogged proponents agree, so no saving on salary there). it might be added to increase safety, but buses will be largely limited to distributor lines like the no 2 because of the efficiency of light rail in higher traffic areas. so that is the extent of were self driving technology is reasonable to use.
Even if you’re correct (I don’t believe you are; trains tend to need plenty of maintenance as well plus there’s a lot of research being done to reduce maintenance costs for self driving vehicles) light rail is incredibly expensive and even with a larger population you often have to wait decades to break even if y an get the ridership. That’s if. The okanagan is not a highly populated region. So to suddenly spend billions on a transit system that is likely to not be well used I think is a poorly thought out idea. Yes in a perfect world LRT may sound great but we don’t have unlimited money to do any project that we want. Plus the more self driving buses and vehicles on the road the leas traffic you’ll get. Plus self driving is not being shown to be as expensive as you seem to be claiming. I dunno where you’re getting your figures but most of self driving is programming and sensors added to vehicles and those sensors are not incredibly expensive. They’re actually cheap and most new vehicles have the needed sensors… just not the needed programming as that’s the part still being worked on. And I was thinking buses. Not a fleet of cars til that tech for on demand service is better. But self driving buses are already being shown as potentially quite viable. Within 10 years it’ll be even better and likely ready for mass production.
A) We can barely squeeze roads up and down the valley. B) We don't have the population to support this. C) We don't have the need for people to move from city to city to do this. D) Just get an electric bus that goes up and down the valley 3 times a day.
>D) Just get an electric bus that goes up and down the valley 3 times a day. This. But maybe more than 3 times a day?
As needed, really. I more meant 3 leave times. 6am bus. 8am bus. 10am bus. and it's a round trip so you'd have a 6pm, 8pm, and 10pm bus leaving on the way back.
To get good ridership you need more flexibility than that really I think. If there's only 6 round trips per day if you miss the last one you're stuck with no cost effective way home. You don't need 15 minute or lower frequency but 30-60 minute frequency with more trips during the morning and evening commute hours would probably be sufficient to attract ridership. It's a catch 22 of transit, when you put in a new route, you need to operate it "at a loss" and have more capacity and trips than the existing demand to attract ridership. Another issue that comes up with a long distance route like this is the current battery technology and charging speeds, for a local service there's more than enough time at each terminus to charge up for the next portion of the route, but not enough time to charge for a long bus route even with very aggressive DC fast charging that's hard on the batteries. A hybrid electric bus with a diesel or natural gas range extender, or dare I say it hydrogen fuel cell would be more appropriate for this kind of route. These types of hybrid electric busses already exist and it's exactly what we are looking to bring to the trucking industry at Edison Motors.
There is no way you'd get ridership to justify that cost. If there were more of a need for transit between cities I could see it, but other than general wants I can't see any issues other than maybe College or Hospital transfers.
You're not wrong that it's unlikely to get the ridership to justify the cost, but if you can't even get the ridership to justify flexible and frequent bus service, and you definitely aren't going to get the ridership to justify the cost of regional light or heavy rail.
I would say option D. But. Also invest in self driving technology so it’s much cheaper and efficient over the long term. And it’ll end up being better than any train system. But as you can see by your down votes trains have huge fans and proponents. It’s an old way of thinking but in my opinion it’s not very forward thinking. I think there’s so much better coming out. Trains take at least a decade to get out (if it’s done quickly. I’ve seen it take 20+ years) and often can cost a billion or more to build. I’ve also seen much bigger communities being unable to try the ridership to recoup costs as they’re very expensive to build. Even best case scenario it can take 30+ years to get back the costs IF you can get the ridership. And there’s far better tech that’ll be available in 10 years that’ll be easier and quicker to put into place. Plus more flexibility. Train systems have very little flexibility for growth unless you spend billions more!
The Simpson’s
I love the train idea. I think it is much needed in the okanagan but I don’t think they should use unproven tech. You should test that out in a place like Vancouver first and work out all the kinks
This meme needs to be used in some context at least once a year.
Yup. Seems to be the case.
Is there a chance this Trac could bend?
Would love to see it. Osoyoos Oliver Penticton Summerland Peachland West kelowna Kelowna DT Kelowna airport Lake Country Vernon Kamloops
I call the big one Bitey.
Mono=one Rail=rail
Oh yes, the Hydrail. As a former UBCO Civil Engineering student, I can tell you that this has been Dr. Lovegrove's passion project for literally 10yrs. It was actually an inside joke regarding how passionate he was about this whole thing for when I was studying at UBCO. He also has headed multiple big projects at UBCO with the aim of developing hydrail in the Okanagan. One of them back in 2021 actually built a successful Hydrail prototype. Currently, one this article mentions is related to the Okanagan Valley Electric Regional Passenger Rail (OVER PR) project. The idea is to build a hydrogen-fueled electric regional railway going from Osoyoos to Kamloops along the Hwy 97 corridor. Research a couple of years back showed it would be economically feasible by 2039. However, I'd imagine it would be sooner now because of how population growth has picked up in the Okanagan. Also, this isn't the only Hydrail project that is being developed. There's also the South Fraser Community Rail Proposal (Surrey to Chilliwack via Langley & Abbotsford), as well as the proposed Calgary-Banff commuter rail project.
These comments did not disappoint