hurricanes would have no real issue on above ground track construction. It isn’t that different from regular concrete reinforced elevated tracks. The real issue would be protecting the reinforcing from corrosive salt air. 

Source: I design buildings and roads in florida.

CSHR is (supposed to be, someday) an actual high speed rail line, expecting 200mph operation. Brightway is NOT. Brightway runs well under 100mph for most of it’s length, with a relatively short section of 125mph. Those are the same speeds that passenger trains run all over the US at grade. And also all over Europe on…

But Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis both said they wanted to build tunnels in Florida? Surely they wouldn’t lie about the viability.

Well, I think the thing about Florida is that it’s a place where you can’t either lower the tracks or put tunnels underneath it, because, you know... flooding.

YES. We’re talking about the fucking PRIVATE RAIL INDUSTRY here. They’ve proven time and again there isn’t a federal safety regulation they won’t ignore to save money.

A bicyclist also ran in front of the train this weekend in the same town https://www.clickorlando.com/traffic/2024/01/15/video-brightline-train-narrowly-misses-bicyclist-in-melbourne/.

Its crazy to NOT have full gates at a high speed at grade crossing. LIRR just completed their 3 track on the Hempstead line and eliminated a bunch of at grade crossings by having traffic duck under the rails. This allows the express trains to stay express and not slow down at the at grades and more importantly is…

It all depends on if they followed the safety guidance and created safe intersections for high speed trains and traffic. The private company chose to not invest in safety and retune more money to their shareholders. Most of the train regulations in this country seem to be more suggestions for private entities to…

I can’t answer this in empirical terms; only in anecdotal ones.

people with western mindsets who are likely not going to cut corners just to “get planes in the air.”

The money for replacement parts hasn’t.

I wouldn’t want a Tesla if they were free. Every new Tesla that sells is more food for Mr Muskrat’s ego. There are plenty of other good EVs around.

Are we really still pretending that the Model 3 is a legitimate competitor for the 3 series? The build quality isn’t even close to the same standard, the interior is worse than all but the cheapest of economy cars, and it’s somehow even less reliable. Maybe a few years ago you could argue about Tesla having the…

Ah, yes, with that mindset, let’s go fly Aeroflot or some indonesian small regional airplane. I mean, on average, the aircraft industry is safe, so who cares about faulty parts and subpar assembly.

The biggest issue with this is going to be not only availability of the parts, but the condition of the parts when they arrive at the shop. I work in a top-shelf shop that used to see a lot of Teslas. We stopped taking them in because the wait for parts was usually measured in months and we had up to 1/2 of our…

I still believe this thing will be an abject failure in the marketplace.

I haven’t heard much about the megawiper lately.

How in the world is this not considered totaled?

Elon’s problems may follow him to Mars, or:

I really hope all those muskovites that called him a genius for so long have learned something and changed their minds.