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I live in Highlands Ranch outside of Denver. We take the LRT and regularly it takes LONGER than the roads. Why? Due to large numbers of stops esp in short periods.
Here is the map. Look at the bottom right and follow e line. 18 stops. Roughly 20 miles. It takes 40 minutes for what I can drive AND PARK in 20 minutes. That is inefficient.

Now as to drag, the faster that you, the more that aerodynamics figures in. BUT, travelling at an average of 30 mph, like the LRT (20 miles in 40 minutes), means that a lot of time is spent accelerating and decelerating, which it does. As such, lots and lots of energy is wasted because these are several times what those pods will weigh. And as to energy, if you take a 200 ton commuter and start/stop it every mile, i promise you that cars WILL outdo it easily esp. today's EVs.

I live in Highlands Ranch outside of Denver. We take the LRT and regularly it takes LONGER than the roads. Why? Due to large numbers of stops esp in short periods.
Here is the map. Look at the bottom right and follow e line. 18 stops. Roughly 20 miles. It takes 40 minutes for what I can drive AND PARK in 20 minutes. That is inefficient.

Now as to drag, the faster that you, the more that aerodynamics figures in. BUT, travelling at an average of 30 mph, like the LRT (20 miles in 40 minutes), means that a lot of time is spent accelerating and decelerating, which it does. As such, lots and lots of energy is wasted because these are several times what those pods will weigh. And as to energy, if you take a 200 ton commuter and start/stop it every mile, i promise you that cars WILL outdo it easily esp. today's EVs.

http://www.electroauto.com/

sells and electric-car conversion kit. An inventor in korea has developed an electric generator from sea water

http://www.1000inventions.com/detail2.php?id=942

There are at least a dozen of these types of inventions out there. This is the only one I know of being looked at for commercial scale production. During the Y2K scare there was a small-scale commerically available version of this called the EnviroGen generator.

There is a company in India Reva producing a in-city car (tops out at 35 MPH). Most in-city trips top out at about 35 MPH. Plug this types of cars into a well designed mass-transit system such as DCs Metropolitan Transit bus/train system or Denver's Regional Transit bus/train system and you have a descent solution.

http://www.revaindia.com/

http://www.wmata.com/

http://www.rtd-denver.com/

Denver's RTD already has a pretty decent trip planner on its website, though I find it to produce results much like computerized driving directions - they may be the fastest method, but I'd rather take two busses and have a one hour trip than take five busses and have a 45 minute trip.

Passenger rail in the US is pretty much screwed and has been since we made the decision to go with highways instead - it would take major Federal funding and interest to get it to any reasonable level, and theres just not the citizen-level demand for it.

I think that depends on where you are. Out west, in Colorado, where I live there is a big interest in it. In 2003 voters approved a 4.7 Billion dollar initiative to extend the light-rail system well outside of the Denver area. Unfortunately it's going to take them twelve years to complete it and traffic here is getting difficult now.

Denver is extending some of its new commuter rails and a proposed monorail downtown is a subject of fervent debate.

Denver is extending some of its new commuter rails and a proposed monorail downtown is a subject of fervent debate.