Question: if speeding up the ski lift cars makes the lines longer, why wouldn't slowing them down make the lines shorter?

These arguments always seem to presuppose that the status quo is optimal, and ignore the limiting cases.

Ehh, really you don't just speed up the lift you redesign the whole loading and unloading system to allow it to load and unload more people per second. You see this in actual high speed lifts.

> You see this in actual high speed lifts.

Except that the chairs on a high speed lift have to be so much further apart, so you're not actually getting more people to the top in the same unit of time.

Source: I'm an Engineer and worked on fixed grip (slow) and detachable (fast) chairs and gondolas for 5 seasons.

"We have a circulating system with a fixed population..." Not quite the same since people getting off the hyperloop won't be turning around to get on it again.

He said the primary use case was commuting..

Wow...this is one of those rare intuitive insights that make you think "I'm not as smart as I thought"

Schelling! Forgot about that one.