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

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

#71

Post by rndgermandude »

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?

Madrid built a subway tunnel (Metrosur) for about $60M per km (about 41 km length in total) in 2003. That's about $97M per mile. Tho, the tunnel is actually outside of the actual metropolitan area,

Berlin calculated some planned subway extensions (U1, U8 lines) at $120M to $280M per mile (2017), tho, those are short extensions of existing tunnels of about 1 km each and only estimations not actual costs.

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

#72

Post by selectodude »

neaden wrote: post #17
bonestamp2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is only benefitting people for whom 25 minutes is worth $20/$22.50. This is not true for everyone though. Business travelers take cabs between the loop and o'hare. So, $25 is actually faster and cheaper -- so it's a great use of their money! Even if it was more expensive than a cab, most business travelers would happily spend a little more of someone else's (company) money to get there faster.

Cabs get you right to the address you want to go though. This will still have the last mile problem.

That's substantially less of an issue in a dense urban environment like Chicago.

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

#73

Post by njarboe »

allannienhuis wrote: post #58
skybrian wrote: post #54

From the article: "The Musk 'Loop' would have a capacity of 2,000 passengers per hour in each direction, which is about 60 percent of the Blue Line’s current, mostly-under-capacity average hourly ridership." So that's good, right? This looks like a situation where a high-capacity line isn't actually needed and one that's lower-capacity but cheaper to build line would save money. So maybe it's appropriate use of a tec…

isn't it saying that the loop capacity is 60% of the _current ridership_ of the blue-line? not 60% of an unused maximum. Seems to me the 'loop' would be criticised for being constantly busy & over capacity.

Hopefully they can just increase the price to keep it at just capacity. As long as they don't charge a super high price to maximize profits and the train is mostly empty (like I see with many toll roads), I don't see why using price to keep it just full is a problem. Use the extra profits to build another tunnel.

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

#74

Post by apeace »

The idea of having Boring Company pay for the construction and then reap the profits strikes me as a really great idea.

When the government pays for construction, the contractors don't have a strong incentive to actually finish the project. They'll keep getting paid no matter how long it runs over or how over-budget it goes.

But in this situation, Boring Co won't make any money unless and until they get it up and running.

I know nothing about this. Has this been done successfully before? What are the potential downsides I'm not thinking of?

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

#75

Post by sriram_sun »

jcomis wrote: post #37
thomasdelteil wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The project will be financed by the Boring company, not by the city. The Heathrow express in London work on a similar concept, it takes 15 min to go to Heathrow compared to 1h with the tube, and they charge ~10 times the price of a regular tube ticket.

And Heathrow express is nearly empty all the time...

Well for clueless tourists like me, I sucked it up and paid up the 50 pounds or whatever it costs for the roundtrip to the airport.

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

#76

Post by gowld »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #53
ma2rten wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also benefit everyone else because there would be less congestion.

The severity of congestion at peak demand is governed by what people will tolerate. The duration of congestion is what changes when you change capacity. Even if you doubled the amount of every form of transit overnight the severity of congestion at peak would quickly reach equilibrium at about the same level as before. Peak demand for transit (road, rail, etc) will always exceed available supply as long as the popula…

Your comment is more correct if you remove the "No."

"Less congestion" can mean either "shorter span of time" as you further explained, or "less congested at some time point".

The former should be what readers jump to, because "congestion" is nearly binary at a moment in time -- either traffic is flowing smoothly (1-2x optimal travel time) or it is clogged (>2x travel time). "Slightly clogged" isn't really an important case for travelers.

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

#77

Post by ceejayoz »

ben_w wrote: post #29
bitslayer wrote: post #7

The design is bullshit. People would have their legs crushed as the car descends, and then they would fall into the hole and die.

People are very good at not being crushed by moving things or falling into massive holes. I myself fail to be crushed or fall into a massive hole literally every time I use an elevator. Or go past a building site. Or…

The hole illustrated in the Tesla video is horrendously unsafe (almost like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster), but I'm 100% certain the final product won't look anything like that.

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

#78

Post by kevinmchugh »

nelzya wrote: post #27
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

In reality Blue Line (CTA) is much slower, you have to plan for an hour. It's almost impossible to use with big suitcases, it's the only line that's still using the old cars with dividers in the middle of the door. The airport express trains exist in all major European cities where they replace not public transportation but taxi and limousines providing convenient way to travel.

The 2400 series was retired in 2015. Does the 2600 series have the dividers?

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

#79

Post by gowld »

selectodude wrote: post #72
neaden wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cabs get you right to the address you want to go though. This will still have the last mile problem.

That's substantially less of an issue in a dense urban environment like Chicago.

How is walking half a mile with luggage less of an issue?

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

#80

Post by selectodude »

martinald wrote: post #32
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

Assume it does cost $1bn, then that's 40million rides to break even (obviously a lot of other costs I'm ignoring here). If only 5% of people using OHare (80million) take it, then that's 10 years before it is paid back. Considering this infrastructure should last 50 years minimum, it could well be profit generating or at least revenue neutral.

I bet fewer than 50 percent of people who go to O'Hare even leave the airport.
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