Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan • Hacker News Board

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#31

Post by untog » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 2:34 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #19

It seems sort of shortsighted to block a tunneling company on environmental grounds. In the long term, cheap tunneling would be fantastic for the environment. Most of what we consider the biosphere is on the surface, and to the extent that there's life in the tunneled area, by volume tunneling isn't going to be significant for a long time. (Volume is much larger than surface; in general, areal intuition fails miserab…

> In the long term, cheap tunneling would be fantastic for the environment.

Depends how the tunneling is done, surely? If it's haphazard and prone to problems or even collapse I doubt it's an environmental plus.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#32

Post by macintux » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

johnnyfaehell wrote: post #26

sschueller wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issues is not that we don't want these things. People cheer for NASA and you hardly ever read anything negative about those missions. Elon is why people complain. He rubs a lot of people the wrong way with this tweets and attitude. You can be diplomatic and move things forward or you can be abrasive like Elon and also move forward.

> You can be diplomatic and move things forward or you can be abrasive like Elon and also move forward. Just curious, can you name some people who have been diplomatic and managed to move things as far forward? I honestly can't think of many actual achievers that have been diplomatic about things.

There’s some line to be drawn between acceptable abrasiveness and calling critics pedophiles.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#33

Post by dpcx » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #16

jseliger wrote: post #5

My dad used to work in local government and likes to call the automatic opposition, "People united against anything." Today we call them NIMBYs. California has empowered them in peculiar and powerful ways, as anyone, anywhere, can challenge any project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which actually supersedes the national version (NEQA).

And yet development should take the environment into consideration because it can have massive consequences. Those consequences are ultimately an externality of the development project and evaluating it in advance can help inform the true financials of the project.

I wonder whether those that were taking the environment in to consideration for the development thought beyond the project to what environmental impacts could be lessened by the project. I'm not a Musk fanboy, but if these tunnels will work the way he's suggesting, the amount of traffic that would be removed from the roads (and by extension, the pollution) would probably be a net benefit to the environment.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#34

Post by cavanasm » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

leesec wrote: post #12

imglorp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about the continued negativity on this. Hasn't he pretty much accomplished everything he has said? Batteries, cars, solar, space, it's all working.

Honestly, I cannot help but get frustrated even though I know I shouldn't. How are people rooting against this person? Do they not want space exploration/green technology/incredible cars/transportation innovation/globally accessible satellite internet/self driving cars/etc? I don't even really understand where the hate comes from, because he missed a few deadlines, because he dreams big? I'm sure his critics have mis…

I think they're rooting against him because he's been, frankly, extremely rude and petty in public to people that don't seem to deserve it. It's one thing for a celebrity to "feud" with another celebrity, it's another thing entirely when they do so to essentially anonymous people just trying to do their jobs (specifically, the well known investor call stuff, and also that cave diver).

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#35

Post by blondie9x » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 2:36 PM UTC

Musk can do better than this. We need real subways and trains for transit. We do not need another express freeway lane that's underground. This is just adding more room for cars. Building on the existing approach of solving traffic by adding more lanes. This will not help Los Angeles nor America as a whole shift away from car dependency.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#36

Post by sambe » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

traditionalist wrote: post #10

Why doesn't Musk take his business elsewhere where he's welcome? I can imagine LA being a nightmare for this sort of project. He needs a place where bureaucracy is thinner and people are actually excited about everything new.

Isn’t that exactly what he’s doing? It says the issue has been settled amicably and they’re looking elsewhere.

Also, how do you define “welcome”? A single lawsuit doesn’t mean much about overall endorsement.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#37

Post by mav3rick » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #31

jerf wrote: post #19

It seems sort of shortsighted to block a tunneling company on environmental grounds. In the long term, cheap tunneling would be fantastic for the environment. Most of what we consider the biosphere is on the surface, and to the extent that there's life in the tunneled area, by volume tunneling isn't going to be significant for a long time. (Volume is much larger than surface; in general, areal intuition fails miserab…

> In the long term, cheap tunneling would be fantastic for the environment. Depends how the tunneling is done, surely? If it's haphazard and prone to problems or even collapse I doubt it's an environmental plus.

That could be said for any infrastructure project ever. If X isn't done right,it will be disastrous for the environment.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#38

Post by erikig » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

jbaczuk wrote: post #18

traditionalist wrote: post #10

Why doesn't Musk take his business elsewhere where he's welcome? I can imagine LA being a nightmare for this sort of project. He needs a place where bureaucracy is thinner and people are actually excited about everything new.

Good question, I imagine because you need the big city, the traffic volume, and potential users to justify the cost of doing such a big project.

The Boring Co isn’t giving up on LA entirely.

This was just one test tunnel. They have already succeeded on their other 2 mile test tunnel (Dodger Stadium) and are working to extend that.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#39

Post by simias » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 2:38 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #6

ForHackernews wrote: post #2

Well, that was completely predictable. It's not obvious to me that any of the Boring Company plans are anything except vaporware.

I'm curious about the continued negativity on this. Hasn't he pretty much accomplished everything he has said? Batteries, cars, solar, space, it's all working.

IMO his greatest accomplishment by far is Space X, from an engineering perspective it's the one that seems the most impressive and hardest to achieve.

Tesla is impressive but it seems more like the success of a vision, making electric cars look cool and inspirational, not "like a real car but eco-friendly and boring". Technologically speaking are they really ahead of the competition?

Meanwhile the Boring company and especially Hyperloop fail to convince me. For the former it's mostly that I don't see what he's bringing to the table. If digging holes underneath large cities is so great why did we wait for him to do it? Why does it seem to be such a huge pain when everybody else does it but it would be cheap and easy for him? What's the secret sauce? Where's the innovation? It's not like we didn't know how to dig tunnels before Musk. They've been extending Paris Metro line 14 into the northern suburbs lately and it's a long, expensive and complicated process, both technically and administratively. What would Musk do better?

For the hyperloop it's almost the other way around: the innovation is obvious but what's unclear is if it can work in practice and actually be useful, so I think that would be a better situation to argue that "he's got Space X to work, why not Hyperloop?"

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#40

Post by dclowd9901 » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 2:38 PM UTC

jbaczuk wrote: post #25

Is it just me or is it ironic that the reason for cancelling is environmental impact, when the tunnel would help alleviate congestion and smog due to gasoline-powered traffic?

It’s not just you and the cancellation isn’t about environmental impact, it’s abojt NIMBYism.

Perhaps even more ironically, those who live by an transit area would expect to see their home values increase due to desire to live near mass transit in big cities (see SF, NYC)