Elon Musk Shows Off The Boring Company's LA Tunnel (theverge.com) 217
Elon Musk is keeping to his promise of opening the Boring Company's proof-of-concept tunnel to the public on December 10th. The two-mile-long Los Angeles tunnel takes 30 seconds to get through via a sped-up video. The Verge reports: Construction on the tunnel began over a year ago, and extends from SpaceX's Hawthorne, California headquarters, to an LA suburb. Since then, the Boring Company has been selected to build tunnels for Chicago and Washington DC, and has sketched out plans to build a larger network of tunnels under LA, with the aim of reducing congestion. The tunnels will theoretically use autonomous, electric skates to move anywhere from 8 to 16 people along the system's rails at speeds anywhere from 124 mph to 155mph.
sped up video (Score:5, Funny)
The two-mile-long Los Angeles tunnel takes 30 seconds to get through via a sped-up video.
Musk is reported to be working on a version where it only takes 15 seconds, by speeding up the video to ludicrous levels.
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The ultimate Darwin filter.
This place (Score:2)
200 to 250 km/h (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously just round numbers, but US media still can't bring themselves to use the quoted numbers. Instead they leave them out and do their best to convert to specific imperial numbers. Duh!
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Looking at the video the track is nowhere near straight enough to support those kinds of speeds.
At that speed the track has to conform to extremely tight tolerances to avoid derailing the train or throwing the passengers around. I suppose they would argue that this is a test tunnel but surely one of the most important things to test is the ability to lay the track within those tolerances and maintain it at those levels during operation.
Japanese high speed rail inspects the track every night using a laser me
Re:200 to 250 km/h (Score:5, Informative)
1) The curves are at the start and end (accel / decel). The trip will be purely accel and then decel.
2) This is just a 3km test tunnel. I seriously doubt the top speeds will be anywhere near those of Loop.
3) It's not even clear that Loop is going to use rails at all. As of the last discussions, it was still under investigation as to which option would be best.
4) Boring Company's goal isn't to make some sort of uber-sepecial-fancy tunnels. Their goal is to make tunnels cheaply and quickly.
5) The test tunnel's TBM (Godot) is only the first phase of that. They still have two more generations of TBMs to go through (Linestorm, and ultimately Prufrock). Godot is still pretty standard, although they modified the means to remove tailings, switching from diesel to battery-powered locomotives. Linestorm will make tunnels with passing zones so inbound and outbound trains can pass each other, and the TBM will run on battery packs delivered by the inbound locomotives. These two changes will save them from having to lay A) the powerful ventilation systems normally used to clear locomotive exhaust, and
B) the expensive power cables. I'm not sure if Linestorm is going to take the first steps toward automatic continuous casing or whether that's going to wait for Prufrock (same with the hot-swappable chilled cutting discs). Continuous casing and hot-swappable discs would on their own double tunneling speeds. But ultimately their goal is to additionally push cutting head speeds up to several times higher than they are today, since they're nowhere near physical limits.
You walk before you run.
Re:200 to 250 km/h (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks for confirming my suspicion. This is just a basic tunnel, nothing special or interesting, doesn't demonstrate anything new or innovative. All they did was prove they can dig a medium length tunnel, which isn't exactly news.
I get the walk before you can run thing, but why is this news, why is Musk tweeting triumphantly that he built a bog standard tunnel that's not even state of the art, and why are they bothering to let people ride through it? I think most people have seen a tunnel before, maybe even had their car driven through one on a sled.
Re:200 to 250 km/h (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for confirming my suspicion. This is just a basic tunnel, nothing special or interesting, doesn't demonstrate anything new or innovative.
It depends on the cost to dig it. It might be innovative it was cheaper than would otherwise be expected, by a significant margin.
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Strange that they didn't mention he cost then. If it was radically cheaper then showing the numbers would have been more impressive than giving people a ride through a completely ordinary tunnel.
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Prototypes are never cheap. Costs will be 'arm wavey' projections, like solar roads. 99% self serving bullshit.
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Tunnel boring machines are not a perfected technology.
IMHO Musk thinks he will be living in a warren of tunnels on Mars.
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Right. The Boring Company isn't focussed on making transportation systems, innovative or otherwise - they're focussed on digging tunnels, which Musk believes can be done at least an order of magnitude faster and cheaper than it currently is.
Musk's dream, once cheap tunnels are available, is to build Loop transportation networks with them - but that's a long-term goal.
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It really isn't. These aren't household extension cords we're talking about. They're on the order 1-2 thousand kVA, sometimes more. These are not cheap to lay.
Batteries running on a 2-hour swap cycle, however, are 2-4 megawatt hours in capacity. Just going with an unimpressive $200/kWh, that's only about half a million dollars worth of batteries, give or take.
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Hey, if you think you can lay (and then remove) dozens of miles of 2000kVA line for less half a million dollars, go for it. Contracts must be piling up on your desk.
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Looking at the video the track is nowhere near straight enough to support those kinds of speeds.
At that speed the track has to conform to extremely tight tolerances to avoid derailing the train or throwing the passengers around. I suppose they would argue that this is a test tunnel but surely one of the most important things to test is the ability to lay the track within those tolerances and maintain it at those levels during operation.
Japanese high speed rail inspects the track every night using a laser measurement system. The trains themselves are inspected from the outside after every run, and then more extensively every 36 hours. I guess they think that the sledges will need much less maintenance to safely maintain those speeds.
I'm unimpressed, so far all they did was dig a bog standard rail tunnel.
I haven't watched the video yet, but would like to point out that it should be possible to build embankments in a curved tunnel. Underground in a curved tunnel intended only to be run at speed you could angle the embankment of the rail on curves and the vehicle could take corners at higher speeds. Be incredibly uncomfortable to passengers if taken slowly, but could be used for faster vehicles.
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I ... would like to point out that it should be possible to build embankments in a curved tunnel. Underground in a curved tunnel intended only to be run at speed you could angle the embankment of the rail on curves and the vehicle could take corners at higher speeds.
First of all you don't mean "embankments", which are raised earthworks in the open. You mean "banking" or "cant" (the latter is used in the UK railway world).
Secondly, I don't know about USA regulations, but in the UK the railway construction regulations do not permit more than a cetain modest amount of cant; AFAIR is is about 6 degrees. The reason is to avoid standing passengers falling over or merely being discomforted if the train has to stop at those places for signals or any other reason. You might th
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I ... would like to point out that it should be possible to build embankments in a curved tunnel. Underground in a curved tunnel intended only to be run at speed you could angle the embankment of the rail on curves and the vehicle could take corners at higher speeds.
First of all you don't mean "embankments", which are raised earthworks in the open. You mean "banking" or "cant" (the latter is used in the UK railway world).
Secondly, I don't know about USA regulations, but in the UK the railway construction regulations do not permit more than a cetain modest amount of cant; AFAIR is is about 6 degrees. The reason is to avoid standing passengers falling over or merely being discomforted if the train has to stop at those places for signals or any other reason. You might think that rule is too cautious, but that is how it is and I have no doubt there are similar regulations concerning roads, although not for fairground rides.
It is another matter whether Musk considers himself above any such regulations - his denials (and those of his aides such as Rei here) that the Hyperloop is a railway (and hence he hopes he can duck established railway safety requirements even though the principle is the same) could be a clue. Perhaps he will claim that the Boring tunnels and Hyperloop are fairground rides.
He has two different proposed uses for the tunnels. One is Hyperloop, where a passenger is strapped into a seat. The other is sledges that cars park on and are pulled along through the tunnel at high speeds on. In both scenarios the passengers will be seated, and presumably, strapped down. Unlike the train, you won't get people getting up and heading for a quick poo. I think a different set of regulations could be employed for a different technology. The concerns for above ground trains wouldn't reall
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Two words: Banked curve.
Here's the thing, tunnels are round, and it doesn't much matter if you put the tracks (road bed, etc) on the floor or at 90* on the wall, so long as you don't have inexperienced human drivers trying to navigate them, and you can rely on traffic traveling at an appropriate speed for the amount of banking. Think roller coasters, which can be designed to give a very smooth ride at high speeds through hairpin turns (but usually aren't, since getting thrown around is part of the fun of t
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It's not just the tight curve radius, it's the much smaller "wiggles" in the track. When travelling at 250kph they are going to throw the car around really hard, possibly even off the rails.
I can't find the reference now but I seem to recall that Japanese high speed lines had a tolerance of 10mm/10m, travelling at similar speeds. The track is inspected every single night with a laser measurement system.
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Ah, yes, that's an issue. But as other's have pointed out, that rail is almost certainly left over from constructing the tunnel, and would NOT be used for high-speed trains.
After all, this is a test tunnel, for testing their refinements of the tunnel-boring machines and processes. NOT a prototype high-speed rail system. In fact, it's not even a sure thing they'd use rail for their proposed eventual Loop system at all - traveling at those speeds on pavement is no big deal. At least not for cars. Which bri
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Obviously just round numbers, but US media still can't bring themselves to use the quoted numbers. Instead they leave them out and do their best to convert to specific imperial numbers. Duh!
What's wrong with converting units to those that your audience uses?
Re: 200 to 250 km/h (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:200 to 250 km/h (Score:5, Insightful)
It's almost as if they have style guides that tell them to use units that their audiences will understand! OMG that's so weird!
That's not a problem. They just should have used 125 - 150 mph. We're dealing with a rough estimate here, throwing in numbers like 124 suggests a precision that doesn't exist in the source.
Johnny Canal redux (Score:2, Offtopic)
https://youtu.be/F42qmFHNM-M
Allow me to be the one to say it (Score:3)
Booooooring!
Needs upgrades (Score:2)
Subways (Score:2, Informative)
Musk proposes that each vehicle carry only 8 to 16 passengers. A full subway train, in contrast, carries over 1000 passengers. Musk plans for a vehicle every 30 seconds, compared to every 90 seconds for a modern subway line. So Musk's system will be able to carry 16-32 people per minute, compared to a subway which carries around 700 people per minute.
Construction costs would also be higher for Musk's system. He plans for tunnels to have 14' diameter. However, subway tunnels are often constructed with 12' or
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However, subway tunnels are often constructed with 12' or smaller diameter
Can you give an example ? A quick search showed that most are closer to 20'
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But those tunnels shouldn't be the benchmark. They're small because they're old. Their small diameter prevents the tube getting higher-capacity double-decker trains (a la, Paris' RER). London's newest tunnels (crossrail) are using RER sizes nearer 20'.
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Double deckers are usually used for suburban and intercity rail, which need more space per passenger, because passengers expect to sit most of the way. Whereas for subways, whose trips are shorter and quicker, it is considered more acceptable for some of the passengers to stand. So trains are single level, decreasing construction (and rolling stock) costs.
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However, subway tunnels are often constructed with 12' or smaller diameter
Can you give an example ? A quick search showed that most are closer to 20'
The London Underground tube tunnels - nominal 12' diameter. The Glasgow underground tunnels are 11'.
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Where are you getting 90 seconds from? From what I can find subway trains generally run every 2-10 minutes during rush hours, or 120-600 seconds between trains. Your basic passenger throughput comparison still holds, just not quite as dramatically.
Construction costs though I must disagree with - the primary purpose of The Boring Company is to revolutionize tunnel-boring technology, which has pretty much stagnated in terms of cost and speed for many, many decades. I believe they're targetting an eventual
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Generally speaking using the best-case scenario in any comparison is useless.
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Musk proposes that each vehicle carry only 8 to 16 passengers. A full subway train, in contrast, carries over 1000 passengers.
I think that your numbers might be a bit off or confused between a vehicle and a train. While a train may carry over 1000 passengers, that train consists of a number of cars. But your basic point is correct--a typical subway car has a capacity of far more than 8 to 16 people.
A genuine question (Score:2)
I'll preface this by saying that I've made a number of critical comments about Elon Musk's ideas and actions in the past, and more often then not, they are modded down. I don't understand why, as I see Musk to be a good idea-man and a brilliant marketer, but he spends too much time inflating the brilliancy of his ideas before anything even gets off the drawing board.
So, I'll try a different approach. I read the article, and I watched the tweeted tunnel video. And I saw an accelerated recording of passing
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Nothing looks at all like what I saw here [youtube.com]. It looks like a tunnel, a boring tunnel constructed by The Boring Company. So allow me to pose a question instead. What makes this short tunnel so worthy of praise?
The tunnel itself is not exciting. But we live in the Golden Era of Marketing and Musk seems to be a marketing master.
Re: A genuine question (Score:2)
What makes this short tunnel so worthy of praise?
Nothing. Musk has said from day one that tunnels are boring. Maybe if you would pay attention and stop asking stupid questions you wouldn't get modded down.
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"his car is most profitable in it's class"???!!!
Hahaha, no Tesla is not making a profit, they are losing money. There is precise definition of "profit" in accounting, and Tesla is not doing it.
Not liking a criminal failure is common among normal people.
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Alas, with SpaceX's 80 hour work weeks nobody ever actually leaves.
Re:Elitst (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a test tunnel. Most companies wouldn't open a test tunnel to anyone.
You don't just jump into a major commercial project as your first endeavour.
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It's a test tunnel. Most companies wouldn't open a test tunnel to anyone.
Maybe they're concerned about people getting hurt, insurance issues, trade secrets .... there are plenty of reasons not have the public poking around.
However, when Brunel was building the Thames tunnel in the early 19th century, he would have dinner parties down there for all the big shots in the city to show that it was safe and to raise money.
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"It's a test tunnel."
We know it's possible to bore tunnels, there's lots of them in use all over the world, so I'm not sure what he's testing.
Re:Elitst (Score:5, Insightful)
We also knew it was possible to make rockets. The concept isn't new. He just thinks he can make a better version.
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We also knew it was possible to make rockets. The concept isn't new. He just thinks he can make a better version.
Of a tunnel?
Re: Elitst (Score:3)
It's a reusable tunnel. Shut up!
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Yes.
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Re:Elitst (Score:5, Interesting)
Musk talked about this project in an interview last week. [youtube.com] He talks about how surprisingly little innovation has occurred in tunneling technology lately. Everything is still running on diesel power, requiring massive infrastructure to feed fresh air to the operation. In early talks with experts, he asked if they were limited by power or by heat, and they didn't have an answer.
So that's a big part of the reason why he started the Boring Company in the first place. He not only had the selfish motivation to alleviate his own commuting woes, he also found an industry ripe for disruption. Just switching from diesel to electric (an area in which he has some expertise) they can greatly reduce the cost, and that's just the first step in a longer plan.
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What a load of bullshit. News to me that tunnelling machines are diesel powered, although in a remote aea without electric power there can be diesel generators on the surface supplying the cutter motors by cable. In fact tunelling technology is doing fine without Musk - there have been a lot of big tunnelling projects in Europe recently, with the Crossrail project [wikipedia.org] and the Northern Underground Line extension to Battersea [railengineer.uk] in London alone.
I know things are a bit behind in the USA regarding railways, but ev
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So, it's only of use if you want to go to SpaceX.
Got it.
Ah the real issue raises it's ugly head.... Tunnels are way too expensive and are even more limited than roads. They only go from point A to B and there is no choice about exiting them in between.
Tunnels are great when everybody wants to get from point A to point B and no place else, like from England to France under water or though a mountain. But in an urban environment, they are kind of useless, especially the high speed kind, because a significant number of folks only want to go part way between A and
Re:Elitst (Score:5, Interesting)
So, it's only of use if you want to go to SpaceX.
Got it.
Ah the real issue raises it's ugly head.... Tunnels are way too expensive and are even more limited than roads. They only go from point A to B and there is no choice about exiting them in between.
Tunnels are great when everybody wants to get from point A to point B and no place else, like from England to France under water or though a mountain. But in an urban environment, they are kind of useless, especially the high speed kind, because a significant number of folks only want to go part way between A and B, and the tunnel is worthless for them..
I'm not an accountant working for the boring company so I have no idea about their finances. However, I can see how building a tunnel in certain urban environments might be cheaper than buying land at elevated downtown prices from existing developers- going through legal processes to force them to sell (which usually involves giving the owner of every building you have to demolish above market value) and then clearing away the rubble and debris and then building the road. If there is need for more roads in a high density urban area, underground might just be cheaper.
I think IF there is a financial case for the type of tunnels he wants: urban areas are much more likely to work than rural areas. In fact, it is only in urban areas that it makes any sense at all.
Now, as for whether his plans will work, I couldn't tell you. I know he envisions a whole network of tunnels spidering all throughout the land below cities going more than just one or too places. I couldn't guess if this will work financially or not, or whether cities will pay him. Chances are- he signs a contract to make the tunnels at a price that works for him- and then the cities foot the bill for maintaining those underground tunnels for eternity after that. He will be protected from the maintenance costs and get his pay cheque and leave happy.
I suspect the cost to build the tunnels may be cheaper than ploughing through high rises and commercial districts in some places... but I'm sure they won't be cheap to maintain.
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The problem here is that any "network" of tunnels that intersect or have lots of stops are NOT fast do to simple physics and passenger comfort. There are a limited amount of acceleration you can use and if you have to stop every four to eight blocks that's going to significantly limit your speed. Subways have this very limitation now, Musk hasn't fixed that or has any novel ideas about addressing any of this.
My observation here is simply that Musk banding about with his hyper loop idea AND trying to demons
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As I understand, the concept is to use high-speed tunnels to further destinations (like LA to San Diego), then slower vehicles inside the urban areas. With enough computerized control and sensors, it's possible to know precisely when a vehicle will pass through an intersection, and from that to compute how other vehicles can adjust their speed or route to ensure smooth traffic and maximum throughput.
In comparison, existing subways have very minimal sensing, with central controllers only knowing what block r
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As I understand, the concept is to use high-speed tunnels to further destinations (like LA to San Diego), then slower vehicles inside the urban areas.
That's silly, verging on stupid. You don't need a tunnel between cities. You only need a tunnel to get out of a city. Once you do that, there's plenty of open land which could be used to build a cheaper surface-based system. The big benefit of the tunnels is that you can go under urban areas.
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Now calculate how much it would cost to build enough tunnel for bidirectional rail which would serve the same corridor. We won't even worry about any additional costs, like stations becoming more expensive and the like...
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I haven't looked into this too much, but I thought that the idea behind the boring company was that costs would be lower through first, making smaller tunnels and second, automating the boring/concrete lining process. I guess we'll see if there are enough areas where any cost savings gets them into a competitive position.
Certainly when you see the projected costs of something like a new Chesapeake Bay bridge, a tunnel would seem to be able to compete on cost.
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The problem with that line of reasoning is that the "additional costs" are where tunnels actually take the advantage.
Yes, their stations are more expensive, but they don't have to lay out tracks around mountains, avoid residential areas, or consider (much) the impact on wildlife. Tunnels don't need reinforced-embankment bridges over every waterway. They're (mostly) deep enough that their noise and vibration isn't significant. They aren't going to make any new barriers to existing traffic, human or otherwise
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You must not own land if you are advocating to make it easier for a government entity to take it away.
Making laws that only affect "other people" is a brilliantly short-sighted way to fuck yourself over when you become "other people" to someone else who wants shitty laws passed.
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Actually, yes, Musk *has* addressed those issues, and the solutions are fairly easy - eliminate the intersections and minimize stops.
Your tunnels are after all located in three-dimensional space - unlike on the mostly 2D ground surface there is negligible added cost for going higher or lower. So if you want a high-throughput "intersection" you do it the same way as for highways - an overpass with transfer ramps. It adds the cost of some extra tunnels length for the ramps, but that's about it.
And eliminatin
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This one one of the specific items that he has thought about. The plan is for each "skate" to be exp
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You are still thinking of massive multi-hundred passenger trains. Smaller vehicles with sidetracks at "stations" allow for more through traffic on the main tunnel lines. If the vehicle size is smaller, building a sidetrack to get the vehicle off the main line becomes cheaper, and allows vehicles that don't need to stop at that station to bypass it easily. Much like cars on a freeway. If you don't need to exit, you don't.
Yes, this will take some sophisticated traffic management in order to make it happen
Re: Elitst (Score:2)
Because you're not going 1.5 miles, stupid. You're probably going 50+ miles, out of which 1.5 is severely congested, 5 is moderately contested, 15 is lightly congested and the rest is smooth sailing. You want to walk 50 miles? Have at 'er. I'm taking the car.
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Your reading comprehension needs work.
Consider a 10 mile commute, not horribly long and ridiculous, but still beyond reasonable walking distance. If 1 mile of that commute is severely congested and takes 30 minutes to get through, and the remaining 9 miles are at full freeway speed, it still takes you ~45 minutes for that 10 miles.
Literally nobody except you came to the conclusion that he was talking about an 8-block 50-mile anything.
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Actually, I've never lived in a town which didn't have tunnels. And I've moved often.
(And don't get me started about tunnels which are not for street traffic, but for utilities and other infrastructure.)
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Apparently you miss my point. I'm saying that this isn't new, that the limitations of tunnels remain, even when Musk builds them. Urban environments are poor places for his Hyper loop idea do to the short distances involved and Tunnels are *very* expensive to build at least for passenger and freight traffic.
The ONLY possible advantage tunnels have is that they can ignore densely spaced urban property boundaries, at least in some cases, as they connect point to point, but this is NOT universally true and
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Urban environments are poor places for his Hyper loop idea do to the short distances involved
That makes urban environment poor places for high speed traffic. It has nothing to do with tunnels.
Tunnels are *very* expensive to build at least for passenger and freight traffic.
That makes tunnels primarily useful for urban environments. Nobody is going to build an expensive tunnel in a place where ground is cheap.
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Exactly this. Many cities have a desire to build or further their tunnel infrastructure. The biggest issues with this? First, it's hugely expensive. Second, it's slow. Third, it requires the movement of massive amounts of earth that must be deposited somewhere (often many many miles away).
What Musk is trying to do is demonstrate how modern tech and some creative thinking can make tunnel building both time and cost effective (something I'm sure Boston would have liked during their "big dig" and Seattle
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The whole purpose behind the Boring Company is to shift the economics around tunnel building.
Well, then.. Good luck to Musk. The issue he faces is the same issue that has faced miners forever, the method that works for you today at the current location, is unlikely to work in another location, even in the same tunneling project. Packed soil mines totally different from fractured granite, which may vary from foot to foot based on how much ground water is flowing around the tunnel bore. Digging in the LA basin is but one kind of solution and developing solutions that work well there won't amount
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Tunnels certainly have limitations, but the biggest one is cost. And that is EXACTLY what The Boring Company is focused on - reducing the cost and construction time of tunnels. Tunnels currently cost ~10x what a comparable elevated road would cost to build - if they can make the construction costs roughly equivalent, as they're hoping, then you can get all the benefits of an elevated road, without any of the the eyesore or right-of-way issues, and much greater earthquake safety.
After all, they're not repl
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Tunnels are largely safer during earthquakes than being on an elevated structure where it can sway and fall over, and have multiple pre-cast highway segments moving at different rates / directions.
Re:Elitst (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah the real issue raises it's ugly head.... Tunnels are great when everybody wants to get from point A to point B and no place else, . But in an urban environment, they are kind of useless ....
That explains why tunelling urban metros like the London Underground railway are always empty.
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Ah the real issue raises it's ugly head.... Tunnels are great when everybody wants to get from point A to point B and no place else, . But in an urban environment, they are kind of useless ....
That explains why tunelling urban metros like the London Underground railway are always empty.
Sorry I didn't make it clear. I was talking about Hyper-loop transport where physics limit your speed due to passenger comfort and the practicality of having to have multiple access points you have to stop at along the way. Subways have their place, but Hyper-Loop doesn't replace them.
Tunnels have their place for passengers, but they are hugely expensive and usually too limiting to actually use, except in the densest urban environments (going slow) or situations where getting to point B from point A is a
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The plan for the tunnels is Loop, NOT Hyperloop - the physics are completely different when you're talking autonomous flatbeds and mini-busses, and no vacuum.
Depending on how cheaply the tunnels can be dug, they may eventually be well suited for Hyperloop partial-vacuum tunnels, but that's not part of the current plan. Hyperloop (arguably) makes sense for medium-to-long-range transportation(several 10s to 100s of miles), it definitely *doesn't* make sense for short-range transportation, which is what the L
Re:Elitst (Score:5, Insightful)
But in an urban environment, they are kind of useless
Are you serious? Urban environment are filled with tunnels. From subways to bypasses to getting to the other side of a river, to anything that needs to from A to B with lots of houses in between, or specifically needs to be underneath those houses (sewers maybe?). Tunnels are primarily useful in urban environments because there's a shortage of space there.
I don't know how good or cheap the Boring Company's tunnels are, but cheaper tunnels would be incredibly useful. (I'm less convinced about Musk's vision of underground cars on moving platforms, but who knows how that works out.)
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The electric moving platforms eliminates car exhaust, and therefore, greatly reduces the ventilation requirements of the tunnels. Which, helps allow them to be smaller in diameter. And it all feeds into a cheaper tunnel. Or so goes the theory.
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Depends on the tunnel. The idea Musk is selling is a network of tunnels with frequent access points, and no human control within. You drive your car to an access point, it gets loaded on an electric flatbed "skate", and unloads you at your destination, without ever facing any of the congestion created by people driving exactly wrong way for promoting throughput.
Even with relatively uncommon access points, such a system could accelerate traffic throughput dramatically - put an access point every few miles
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And besides, tunnels are entirely capable of branching and splitting you know. I could see a computer controlled network rout
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Huh. I guess the literally millions of people that use the tunnel system under Manhattan and get off at points in between the far ends of a route don't exist? I completely forgot that the New York Subway system was "kind of useless"...
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Ah, but you make my point for me. Subways exist. Musk hasn't solved any novel problem there, nor will he..
But you also realize that building Subways under ground is HUGELY expensive. Only viable where the real-estate is just not available. For instance, in Dallas, we have our DART light rail system, it rarely goes underground, only where it was just too expensive to obtain the right of way. Even though down town it just took over a series of allies and roads and runs at street level. Then there is th
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People pay to use transportation infrastructure to save them money (or if they don't have a vehicle) all the time. The former group includes things like toll roads, toll bridges, ferries, etc. The latter group includes... well, all public transportation.
Loop is designed for both (vehicle capsules and passenger capsules). Are you saying that you wouldn't use a system that could cut, say, an hour commute down to a 15 minute commute? And even if you didn't, the fact that others would would directly benefit
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Are you saying that you wouldn't use a system that could cut, say, an hour commute down to a 15 minute commute? And even if you didn't, the fact that others would would directly benefit you on the surface.
I was going to reply with something like your second sentence, then saw you had already written it. People will expect others to pay the toll to go via Boring and thus free up the roads for themselves without paying anything.
This happened with the SF Bart system. Everyone was in favour of it being built, saying things such as "it will be like adding another couple of lanes of freeway". But when it opened most of them expected to benefit from it by other people using BART, not themselves.
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Stop shilling Rei. You aren't Elon Musk, you're just his wanna be.
Are we sure he isn't Musk?
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Are we sure he isn't Musk?
Yes. Musk wants to go to Mars. Rei wants to go to Venus.
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Not to mention the safety hazards from accidents, explosions, toxic fumes from burning plastic, etc. Or even just natural disasters like flood and earthquakes which are rather common.
Yes, terrorists will love these tunnels.
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His "rant" is not at all silly. It has touched a major weakness of the system. Having worked as an engineer for London Underground I can assure you that loading and unloading passengers from trains, and moving them up and down from street level, is a very major part of the system and involves extensive engineering in itself. The idea of queueing and loading cars takes things to an even greater level. Have you ever watched how slow it is to load/unload cars onto a river or sea ferry? And the parking/queui
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One of the big issues with ferry and train queues is that they're large-batch endeavours. A bunch of people queue up as the loading time approaches, then the ferry arrives and has to wait for all the vehicles to be loaded (not helped by the fact that passengers generally don't ride in their car), and then they all get transported at once.
If instead you have a single vehicle arrives at any time and immediately gets loaded onto a 1-car ferry(skate) and departs, as is planned for Loop, then the queue depth is
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It's fine if the next person arrives before the queue is clear, so long as at least one person is served before they arrive the queue will continue to shorten. But yes, sometimes queues build up - that's why queues were invented instead of just random mobs of people standing around waiting. Helps minimize the worst-case wait times, and perhaps more importantly enforce a certain amount of fairness, as primates like us appear to be hardwired to rebel against perceived unfairness. (Also, LIFO and FIFO queues
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They're made by Acme and happen to be rocket powered. You insensitive clod...
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Strapped to the back of a Tesla shell.