51–60 of 472 posts
This is FANTASTIC! It's important to understand how massive the Earth is (even though it's a pinprick when compared to the sun). You can EASILY go 3-D or deep. The deepest mines in the world are around 12,000 feet deep. This is about 6x the height of the tallest building in the world (2000 feet tall). Imagine, thus, putting in a tunnel at what would be every 5th floor of a skyscraper and that you could fit 6 skyscrap…
The old strategy of hiding your outlandish claim in an assertion in the first sentence! "To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D" The word "must" is a very strong one here, there are other options: * Reduce the amount of travel that people need to do (remote work, online shopping). * Reduce the density of cities (enabled by remote work or longer commutes with better internet access). * Incre…
Doesn't a tunnel under a building significantly increase the chances of the building falling down? What about flooding?
No clue why this is downvoted, these are valid concerns. Measuring and avoiding ground settlement consumes an enormous amount of engineering and contracting resources in every urban tunneling job. Flooding too can lead to work stoppages or long delays. You should have seen the Queens Bored Tunnels and Structures Project after Hurricane Sandy. It was pretty soupy. Source: Was a tunnel boring engineer in NYC, where we…
> Tunneling R&D. In the United States, there is virtually no investment in tunneling Research and Development (and in many other forms of construction). Thus, the construction industry is one of the only sectors in our economy that has not improved its productivity in the last 50 years.
Yesssss.
I'm more interested in the nuances of tunneling, like how they'll handle water seepage and flooding. Flooding is actually a huge problem with climate change causing larger and more frequent major weather events. After Hurricane Sandy, it took almost a week to reopen the subway tunnels. I can just imagine the kind of kinetic force that'll occur if a sled carrying a car slams into a section that has a few feet of water…
This does not answer the most obvious and important question: why not invest in public transport? It's boring but it will work.
I am not being facetious when I say "it won't help establish humanity on Mars".
The old strategy of hiding your outlandish claim in an assertion in the first sentence! "To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D" The word "must" is a very strong one here, there are other options: * Reduce the amount of travel that people need to do (remote work, online shopping). * Reduce the density of cities (enabled by remote work or longer commutes with better internet access). * Incre…
The old strategy of hiding your outlandish claim in an assertion in the first sentence! "To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D" The word "must" is a very strong one here, there are other options: * Reduce the amount of travel that people need to do (remote work, online shopping). * Reduce the density of cities (enabled by remote work or longer commutes with better internet access). * Incre…
Add a congestion charge or tolls, and a proper public transport network. The solution is not more roads, it's fewer cars.