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For $1B, Elon Musk’s Tunnel to O’Hare Would Be a Miracle

citylab.com

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Re: For $1B, Elon Musk’s Tunnel to O’Hare Would Be a Miracle

#61

Post by microtherion »

matt4077 wrote: post #12
FLGMwt wrote: post #3

This is terrible. $25 for 12 minutes from one place in the loop to O'Hare CTA is $2.50 for 37 minutes (the $5 is if you start from O'Hare) This is only benefitting people for whom 25 minutes is worth $20/$22.50. $1bn or whatever absurd cost it comes out to be is much better spent on improving transit for the actual public. Or you know, to stop shutting down schools. EDIT: typo

Not to interfere with your cynicism, but the important information here is that Boring Co. is funding the construction itself. It's not public money being spent, and schools would be unlikely to receive any extra funding without this project. And, of course, this project is far more important as a real-world proof-of-concept for the technology than it is for its expected use for travelers. Reducing tunnel costs by 95…

> Not to interfere with your cynicism, but the important information here is that Boring Co. is funding the construction itself. It's not public money being spent

It's not uncommon for projects to start out that way, and then magically, public money starts appearing anyway.

If this really remains a privately financed project (financed out of the deep pockets of Musk's companies, and completed on time due to Musk's uncannily accurate forecasts), then more power to them!

Re: For $1B, Elon Musk’s Tunnel to O’Hare Would Be a Miracle

#62

Post by njarboe »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4
FLGMwt wrote: post #3

This is terrible. $25 for 12 minutes from one place in the loop to O'Hare CTA is $2.50 for 37 minutes (the $5 is if you start from O'Hare) This is only benefitting people for whom 25 minutes is worth $20/$22.50. $1bn or whatever absurd cost it comes out to be is much better spent on improving transit for the actual public. Or you know, to stop shutting down schools. EDIT: typo

> This is only benefitting people for whom 25 minutes is worth $20/$22.50 Roads suffer from induced demand [1]. You can't build your way out of traffic. The only solutions are tolls or quotas. In any case, if you can't find anyone willing to pay to use your infrastructure (at a price that recoups the investment), that's a sign you overbuilt. > transit for the actual public Cars going through this tunnel are cars off…

The concept of induced demand does not say you can't build your way out of traffic. This idea seems to come up a lot in transportation discussions. Driving a car on a road is not free in either money or time, so when a new road fills up it is because more people are going somewhere they want to go and are pay a cost to do so. Yes, when you build a new road near where there are already traffic jams, the new road gets filled up. This is not some magical thing that with infinite roads people will just drive all day so that they are full. I think most people who use this phrase don't quite understand it. The have learned that cars are morally bad and induced demand is some kind of concept that says building new roads for cars is pointless. I ask you, if there was a way for people to have instant point-to-point transportation that had little environmental impact, would you support its implementation?

The whole point of Musk's tunneling project is that with tunnels you can build as many tunnels as you want without the negative aspects of roads which are mainly taking up surface space and making a lot of noise.

Re: For $1B, Elon Musk’s Tunnel to O’Hare Would Be a Miracle

#63

Post by etiennemarcel »

bluedino wrote: post #34
ComputerGuru wrote: post #20

I can’t believe California pays 1 billion dollars a mile just to drill out tunnels. I think the going rate in Europe (not even China!) is something like $40M/km or fifteen times less than what California is paying per mile.

Even in one of the largest cities in the country? Can you dig a tunnel in London, Berlin, or Paris for that price?

This article is interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

"But while the Second Avenue Subway cost $2.5 billion a mile, the Line 14 extension is on track to cost $450 million a mile." (that price includes stations, emergency exits, rails and systems...)

Re: For $1B, Elon Musk’s Tunnel to O’Hare Would Be a Miracle

#64

Post by notatoad »

bluedino wrote: post #34
ComputerGuru wrote: post #20

I can’t believe California pays 1 billion dollars a mile just to drill out tunnels. I think the going rate in Europe (not even China!) is something like $40M/km or fifteen times less than what California is paying per mile.

Even in one of the largest cities in the country? Can you dig a tunnel in London, Berlin, or Paris for that price?

$250mm per km in paris and berlin. $145mm per km in Sao Paolo. $130mm per km in singapore. $58mm per km in madrid. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/11/1-billion-doe...

$55mm per mile ($34mm per km) would be pretty cheap, but closer to what the rest of the world pays for subways than what NYC does. accounting for musk-math, expect it to cost more like $70mm per km, which would put it on the low end but not the bottom of international subway construction costs.

Re: For $1B, Elon Musk’s Tunnel to O’Hare Would Be a Miracle

#65

Post by ComputerGuru »

bluedino wrote: post #34
ComputerGuru wrote: post #20

I can’t believe California pays 1 billion dollars a mile just to drill out tunnels. I think the going rate in Europe (not even China!) is something like $40M/km or fifteen times less than what California is paying per mile.

Even in one of the largest cities in the country? Can you dig a tunnel in London, Berlin, or Paris for that price?

I misremembered. That was the cost in the middle of Barcelona, which is a big city: https://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2012/02/15/why-do-su...

Re: For $1B, Elon Musk’s Tunnel to O’Hare Would Be a Miracle

#66

Post by bbeekley »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #20

I can’t believe California pays 1 billion dollars a mile just to drill out tunnels. I think the going rate in Europe (not even China!) is something like $40M/km or fifteen times less than what California is paying per mile.

I don't think CA pays $1 billion/mi just to drill. The Purple Line Extension project in LA is forecast to cost $8.2 billion total and covers 9 miles (http://media.metro.net/projects_studies/westside/images/fact...). That's pretty close to $1b/mi but it's also all-inclusive and a subway underneath one of the densest, busiest streets in LA.

And the cost of subway in Europe is much more than $40M/km. The Crossrail project in London is 118 km and 15 billion GBP (http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/crossrail-in-numbers). That's about $280 million/mi. Definitely less than the LA project, but it's the same order of magnitude and much of their mileage is in suburban London.

Re: For $1B, Elon Musk’s Tunnel to O’Hare Would Be a Miracle

#67

Post by njarboe »

distances wrote: post #59
twistedpair wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much is it worth not to not miss your flight that you spend hundreds of dollars to book?

The usual way is to just reserve enough time to get to the airport, no?

That is true. So a reliable mode of transportation to the airport that is always 15 min saves people more that 20min than an unreliable system that averages 35min but sometime takes say 60 min. To use the unreliable system you have to always plan for the delayed time. Most people don't want to spend even more time sitting around airports.

Re: For $1B, Elon Musk’s Tunnel to O’Hare Would Be a Miracle

#68

Post by lucdurette »

FLGMwt wrote: post #3

This is terrible. $25 for 12 minutes from one place in the loop to O'Hare CTA is $2.50 for 37 minutes (the $5 is if you start from O'Hare) This is only benefitting people for whom 25 minutes is worth $20/$22.50. $1bn or whatever absurd cost it comes out to be is much better spent on improving transit for the actual public. Or you know, to stop shutting down schools. EDIT: typo

I agree

This is a typical Chicago/Illinois gimmick again The state and the city is so corrupted, another attempt to distract from the other bull-shit they are trying to pull.

The word is, only the mayor and the governor are interested in an express train. Everyone else is happy with the blue-line.

Chicago is so parallized trying to make any decsion. I am ready to bet, the deal will fall aprat during the negocaitions

Re: For $1B, Elon Musk’s Tunnel to O’Hare Would Be a Miracle

#69

Post by graeme »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #13

> In Toronto, where the subway system doesn’t reach the international airport, a brand-new airport express line has fallen seriously short of ridership expectations, even with its one-way fare of $12.35 The reason this is failing is because of awareness. I travel to Toronto for work 4-5 times every year (for the past 12 years). I heard about this extension being approved a couple years ago and I've never seen a sign…

Good point about the signs. I found the UP express rather hard to find. Great experience though once aboard.

Re: For $1B, Elon Musk’s Tunnel to O’Hare Would Be a Miracle

#70

Post by zajd »

FLGMwt wrote: post #3

This is terrible. $25 for 12 minutes from one place in the loop to O'Hare CTA is $2.50 for 37 minutes (the $5 is if you start from O'Hare) This is only benefitting people for whom 25 minutes is worth $20/$22.50. $1bn or whatever absurd cost it comes out to be is much better spent on improving transit for the actual public. Or you know, to stop shutting down schools. EDIT: typo

Pretty awesome living in an oligarchy, no?
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