China’s crazy car-straddling elevated is reportedly just a giant scam

After first trial the bus has just collected dust. Beijing police have arrested 30 people.

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[puppies]

Go to Queens in New York or the El in Chicago and see what an elevated railway is like. It darkens the street and gives a distinctly dystopia feel of the neighborhood. It’s why all El lines in Manhattan were eliminated.

Besides, there’s the cost of building miles and miles of elevated track. What would be the cost per mile?

The TEB solved some of these problems. Building a TEB track is way cheaper than building an El. Apparently, it can turn, but traffic must stop and wait. And height restrictions are quite common. Many Brooklyn and Queens streets with Els have height restrictions on them.

This doesn’t mean this wasn’t some sort of scam. However, you don’t build a working mockup with a scam. You do nothing more expensive than a four colored brochure.

I don’t think the intesntion was to scam. It sounds more likely that this was over promised and way more expensive than the backers realized.

As I live in Queens and frequently take the 7, I sort of agree? But I would point out these examples were built over a century ago. Design and technology have improved since then and there are urban elevated rail systems that blend much better into their surroundings.

 

[puppies]

Vehicles taller than 2.2 metres (slightly over 7 feet) had to find another route around the TEB. When the TEB turned a corner, every vehicle underneath had to wait for the manoeuvre to complete before going around the corner themselves. And no one had really worked out how to solve the issue of cars driving into the "legs" of the bus.

These issues could be solved if driving becomes fully automated. Tall vehicles could be programmed to avoid TEB routes and turning maneuvers could be efficiently co-ordinated by computers. In the world we currently live in though, the TEB is a terrible idea.