The Boring Company FAQ • Hacker News Board

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#81

Post by zild3d » Wed, May 17, 2017, 4:23 AM UTC

cft wrote: post #58

discodave wrote: post #48

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…

Musk is proposing a technology. You are proposing social(ist?) ideas.

why is one superior to the other in your opinion? If it solves the problem, it solves the problem

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#82

Post by smhost » Wed, May 17, 2017, 4:23 AM UTC

discodave wrote: post #48

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…

I mean, it's also art. I would want it in my city just for that pissing-contest factor of 'hey, look at this cool shit we've got'. We deserve to make our cities beautiful and to build monuments to be proud of.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#83

Post by vacri » Wed, May 17, 2017, 4:25 AM UTC

Independent of the tunnel, a network of sleds able to move vehicles at one sled per vehicle... is going to be ludicrously expensive and the maintenance costs will be huge. Current roads don't need sleds, sled tracks, elevators, switching and management, safety gear etc, and that's even before we get to the usual tunnel needs of ventilation, pumps, and lighting.

It seems a bit odd to be proposing very high maintenance infrastructure at a time when the US is famously facing a huge problem in not being able to afford maintenance for its existing infrastructure.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#84

Post by iamacynic » Wed, May 17, 2017, 4:26 AM UTC

LandoCalrissian wrote: post #76

iamacynic wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that can hold maybe a dozen passengers there's no reason this system couldn't carry a bus. musk markets to the elites first, then uses that to subsidize the mass market solutions.

Or how about trains underground...

yes, imagine that, subterranean.. rail.. ways.... a type of 'sub-way'. possibly even a private one.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#85

Post by nihonde » Wed, May 17, 2017, 4:27 AM UTC

zild3d wrote: post #79

discodave wrote: post #48

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…

If NYC didn't have a third dimension for transportation (subway and trains), no amount of busses and bikes would fix the soul-destroying traffic. The listed alternatives are all nice, but none of them allow you to move at 125+ mph. We should be able to get to our destination faster, not just with a bit less soul-destruction. Remote work is of course not for every or even most professions, and I don't see why it would…

Tokyo is a much bigger city. They solved the problem by building elevated toll highways. Much simpler solution than digging new holes everywhere and keeping those silly carts running.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#86

Post by dcosson » Wed, May 17, 2017, 4:29 AM UTC

deftnerd wrote: post #41

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…

> it took almost a week to reopen the subway tunnels.

More like a few years collectively - a section of the G was closed every weekend for many months, the R was closed for a year, the L closes in 2019 for over a year.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#87

Post by Erik816 » Wed, May 17, 2017, 4:29 AM UTC

nihonde wrote: post #85

zild3d wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If NYC didn't have a third dimension for transportation (subway and trains), no amount of busses and bikes would fix the soul-destroying traffic. The listed alternatives are all nice, but none of them allow you to move at 125+ mph. We should be able to get to our destination faster, not just with a bit less soul-destruction. Remote work is of course not for every or even most professions, and I don't see why it would…

Tokyo is a much bigger city. They solved the problem by building elevated toll highways. Much simpler solution than digging new holes everywhere and keeping those silly carts running.

Isn't that still taking roads 3D?

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#88

Post by kstenerud » Wed, May 17, 2017, 4:33 AM UTC

discodave wrote: post #48

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…

Those avenues are already being pursued. He's pursuing one that is not. That's a good thing.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#89

Post by sAuronas » Wed, May 17, 2017, 4:35 AM UTC

discodave wrote: post #48

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…

Cities like LA will become denser over time. It might seem counterintuitive but increasing density alleviate traffic (people walk).

You can't clean a hotel or flip a burger remote.

Public transit has failed to solve the problem despite a 100-year head start.

Cycling... in LA...

I don't think the Boring Company is trying to solve the gridlock. They will, however, provide an option for those who can afford to pop down into a Teslalane [sic] for a trip to the airport. And that's fine. It's [Teslalanes] infrastructure that ultimately helps the city thrive until the time that the land use patterns rebalance. There will always be traffic - but it won't always have the same overall impact.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#90

Post by Fricken » Wed, May 17, 2017, 4:35 AM UTC

econnors wrote: post #65

Fricken wrote: post #55

So in the concept video it shows passengers loading on to a sled at surface level that can hold maybe a dozen people, and then it descends on an elevator 50 metres to the tube and goes down the line. This sounds cost effective compared to a full on underground subway station, which really aren't cheap to build even if you 10x the cost of tunneling, but it isn't good for much unless all those passengers intend to also…

I think you're right that stops will be longer, but it's my understanding they'll also be less frequent and they'll cover greater distances than a regular subway track (in say, NY). So you'll end up getting there faster and not have the stress of driving in traffic.

For a conventional subway at rush hour, there's 1000s of people getting on or off every hour at any given station, which isn't feasible if you're only loading a dozen people at a time. The alternative being to build proper underground stations, which are a big part of that 'billion dollars per mile' subway construction cost.

And this reminds me of Musk's Hyperloop whitepaper, where he estimated it would cost 10 billion to run an evacuated tube from LA to SF, which was ridiculous. There's all this reality that he failed to factor in to his calculations, and once you've addressed the full costs relative to people moving capacity, all of the sudden Hyperloop doesn't look so great compared to conventional high speed rail, and his Boring concept starts looking more and more like conventional subway.