Yeah, good to see kids are still kids, lol.

It’s not even science fiction, they actually tried that back in the day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_de_l’Avenir

Moving walkways were initially conceived as a true form of public transit.

I’m going off of memory here, but what I heard was that passenger rail was never really as profitable as freight, so the government basically had to force all the rail companies to keep doing passenger trains. The massive subsidization of car transit made it hard for them to compete. Amtrak was basically created as a way to take the responsibility for doing passenger rail away from the rail companies, in exchange for guaranteed priority usage of the rails.

The priority of passenger trains is unenforced, so they have to wait for slow freight trains all the time. Additionally, the math on speed is different for freight vs passenger rail. A freight train getting somewhere an hour faster doesnt matter nearly as much as a passenger train getting somewhere an hour faster, so improvements to facilitate faster trains falls on amtrak.

Amtrak does own some rails, e.g., the northeast corridor, which is nice and profitable. It’s also worth noting that the “unprofitable” lines are still vastly vastly vastly more profitable than roads.

Absolutely crazy to me that the UK and EU were so behind on this compared to the US. I guess the US’s traditionally good (who knows what’s happening now) disability lobby was more powerful than its “screw anyone not in a car” lobby.

The law in the US was passed in 2010, though implementation of the rule took a few years. I think Tesla were the only ones who didn’t make any noise until they were absolutely required to, probably for obvious reasons.

Can’t recommend a specific brand, but I got my shaker from a restaurant supply store. It really shouldn’t need to cost much to work well.

For context, angel’s landing is one of probably the top 5 most famous hikes in the country. It’s so popular that they have timed entry, and you have to book a time well in advance. It would be very, very, very hard to get lost, you can see the spot you started from pretty much the whole way, you are part of a steady stream of people, and there’s cell service. There is no “alone” on that hike.

People have died on that hike, but if you exclude suicide and people who were intentionally going off trail to get pictures closer to cliff edges, it’s very unlikely. You are probably safer getting dumped there than at a restaurant in a part of town you aren’t familiar with.

I would not put that anywhere near the same category as guy who left his girlfriend on a mountaineering expedition.