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The Boring Company FAQ

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Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#171

Post by prawn »

rmason wrote: post #160
erentz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is all very odd and everyone is lapping it up. He claims to want to reduce tunneling costs by a factor of 10, but starts by quoting a very high benchmark of $1 billion per mile which is quite easy to beat. Then he reduces diameters to something much smaller than all the expensive mega projects, into the range of something where technology is well established and costs are already 1/10th of his quoted $1 bil…

One of the reasons that subways are built only in very large cities is that you need a very high population density to make it worthwhile because of the cost of digging the tunnels. But what if the cost were a tenth as much? I posit that for a city of 500,000 - 1,000,000 it might become practical to have subways and that radically changes the transit equation. So I am very bullish on Musk bringing down the cost of tu…

I've got confidence in them too. I think internet commenters are far too quick to overlook the fact that Musk is not going to push forward a venture like this without loads of research from a team of really smart people. It's not like it's just the one Elon with a fantasy about tunnels. It'd start with a bunch of talented people brainstorming and then, early in the process, they'd surely be speaking with really knowledgeable people who know the industry and pitfalls.

If smart and motivated teams can't do something, can anyone?

With something like soil, maybe they figure the technology will be useful even if it only services projects with easy terrain and environments and avoids areas with swamps.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#172

Post by tomjakubowski »

objclxt wrote: post #132
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's trying to hit a price point. We're not completely allergic to the $20M freeway bridge that's about 100ft long, and comes with heavy upkeep costs over the long term. So, $100M per mile with Upkeep Lite™ sounds good when making conversation about the topic. Also the $1B/mile is the cost of the Purple Line extension in Los Angeles. Worst case cost no doubt. A real figure nevertheless.

> So, $100M per mile with Upkeep Lite™ sounds good when making conversation about the topic. Also the $1B/mile is the cost of the Purple Line extension in Los Angeles. Worst case cost no doubt. A real figure nevertheless. The figure is way out. Crossrail in London has a $20 billion total budget (£15b GBP), with 26 miles of tunnel[1]. But the tunnel is only part of the project, several billion is being spent on new re…

I don't know where this "$1B/mile" just for tunneling figure comes from. That's certainly not the tunneling cost for any current subway extension project in Los Angeles: all-in (i.e. not only tunneling) estimates for the first phase of the Purple Line extension are at $2.8B for 3.9 miles of heavy rail subway; the full Purple Line Extension is estimated at $6.3B for 9 miles of heavy rail subway.

The closest thing is the Regional Connector project, which will be 1.9 miles of light rail and has a budget of $1.8B. But that's the entire project budget. Tunneling costs are only part of it; it's hard to find a finely grained budget, but total construction (including four new underground stations) is budgeted at $1.2B here [1], which is still "just" $600M/mile.

[1]: https://mtadash.mlmprojectservices.com/projects/5773#/cost

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#173

Post by so33 »

sAuronas wrote: post #89
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…

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

I take objection to this because, aside from other cities where public transit is the norm, the interurban system in LA [0] was dismantled, partially because it was forced out by cars that increased congestion to the point that streetcars could no longer run on time, and partially because of car companies advocating that buses could replace the streetcars (they didn't).

Things don't exist in a vacuum, and LA decided to make itself a city where you could only be comfortable getting from place to place inside a car.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#174

Post by Tomminn »

erentz wrote: post #74
Animats wrote: post #61

So, the key ideas are: - Smaller diameter tunnels. 14' is suggested. This is slightly larger than the deep London Tube lines. - Electrically powered TBMs. Those exist. However, often the business end of the machine is hydraulically powered. Musk is probably thinking of going all electric, at least for the cutter head. After all, he has lots of experience with high-torque electric motors. - Do cutting and tunnel ring…

Yeah this is all very odd and everyone is lapping it up. He claims to want to reduce tunneling costs by a factor of 10, but starts by quoting a very high benchmark of $1 billion per mile which is quite easy to beat. Then he reduces diameters to something much smaller than all the expensive mega projects, into the range of something where technology is well established and costs are already 1/10th of his quoted $1 bil…

I think the sled idea is really interesting. Imagine a conveyor belt like you have in airports. Except it moves cars at 150 mph through an underground tunnel instead of people at 15mph.

Traffic is often massively asymmetric so you can just reverse the direction it travels at noon.

It seems plausible that keeping a conveyor belt in good service is cheaper than keeping a fleet of railway cars is. It's also significantly less hassle as you don't need to figure out where to put railway cars when they get the end of the track. Finally it's costs would scale fairly linearly with distance, making short belts totally doable in a way that short railway systems are not.

The natural throughput of the system will be high. Like a new car on the belt every x seconds, where x is not a big number, seems totally plausible.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#175

Post by so33 »

cavemanklaus wrote: post #96
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…

Agreed this is exactly the line of inquiry needed Dave. The Boring Company while novel, does not seem to be a representative "first principles" approach Elon has taken with other problems, it's we have cars how do we move more of them faster. I lived in London 10 years and happily moved from home, work, social activity on trains and buses very easily and happily. It's either you move to it, or it moves to you, or cha…

Freight would be a great case for tunnels, if you could find a way to make the freight companies (say, Amazon) pay to use it. There's a reason why Amazon is pushing drone delivery, and I bet it's because they think they can get the rights to use the skies for free.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#176

Post by bsder »

sAuronas wrote: post #89
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…

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

Public transit SOLVED the problem 100 years ago in the US. And then it was sabotaged by the big automakers.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#177

Post by crush-n-spread »

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…

Bollocks. Let me refute your central points. You suggest that

1. People should leave their houses less

2. Cities should become less dense

3. Busses should get more crowded

4. Somehow, get everyone on a bike.

Actually, these points are so ridiculous, I'm not gonna wasted my time.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#178

Post by rurban »

imron wrote: post #152
inetknght wrote: post #24

Building tunnels in California and LA is great and all. But I'd like to see him do it in Houston, honestly, where common knowledge ( cough ) says that you can't dig deep in Houston because it's a swamp. Houston has, arguably, worse traffic than LA

> you can't dig deep in Houston because it's a swamp. That just means you need to dig deeper!

No, the ground water level is ~2m. This is a swamp, tunnels would be too expensive. And Houston is too big.

Houston had a working public mass transport system, but big automotive pressure/corruption destroyed it. That's why Houston is unique. The mayor is elected every two years, because corruption is so rampant.

The now widest highway worldwide, the I10 to Katy once had a railroad track in the middle. They even had a star system and park & ride before WW2.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#179

Post by simonh »

lorenzorhoades wrote: post #168

I think people are missing the strategic importance here. Tesla is going to be in the game of self driving cars. Once self driving cars happens, there is no longer going to be anyone who buys cars, they will simply hail a ride using the self-driving Telsa(Uber, Lift, Google) network. Soul-Crushing-Traffic is going to be optimized heavily, using certain algorithms and the inter connectivity of the cars. However, one H…

I don't see how the tunnels can be commercially viable just carrying Teslas. That's a tiny fraction of traffic. Apart from anything else I can't see cities granting permits for exclusive tunnel systems like that, which don't benefit the broader public.

Re: The Boring Company FAQ

#180

Post by prawn »

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 think remote work and online shopping are developing perfectly well without Musk's help. And I think we need to increase the density of cities (at least, city centres and inner suburbs).

How do the sleds preclude developing public transport? Why wouldn't we see mini-vans pick people up from homes or community hubs and then use the tunnels to take an express route to the CBD? Or larger sleds that accommodate a bus or truck sized pod? If these HOV pods avoided a congestion charge, there would be an incentive to use them.

Obviously drivers and their cars will fill any space given to them, and cycling tunnels might be too expensive, but hopefully a change in traffic flow and parking availability would make room and safety for cycling above ground.

Imagine buses with good cycling storage so you could ride to the hub, board a bus, zip to the CBD, alight and ride the last few kilometres to your destination.

Entrenched interests will fight it for a time, but it wouldn't surprise me if these guys could make it happen.

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