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Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

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Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#51

Post by pault »

simias wrote: post #39
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.

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…

The tunnels are smaller, so they're allegedly significantly cheaper, and the narrow diameter is compensated for with automation.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#52

Post by CalRobert »

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 a lot of the frustration is that all this tunneling stuff seems like a huge distraction from what we KNOW works.

Mixed use development near transit supplemented by a network of bike lanes an 8 or 80 year old would feel safe cycling on.

Tunnels aren't magic. Does anyone here think they won't succumb to induced demand just like any other road? Even if they reduce congestion (and they won't - the 405 carpool lane made commutes a minute longer, not shorter) all that means is people who want more space move farther from the city, enabling more urban sprawl, and thereby trashing the planet even more.

Quick, cheap tunneling would be GREAT for building subways, though. Shame Elon hates public transport https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-t...

The other thing about Elon is that one wonders how many clever people are toiling away on solving the world's problems but can't get attention/funding/support because Elon sucks it all up, AND he's dangerously close to going full Kanye on Twitter (cave rescuers are pedophiles? wtf?), which doesn't help anything.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#53

Post by nimbius »

For those not familiar with LA's private property rights, they are some of the strictest in the nation. The 710 freeway, originally designed and intended to go all the way from long beach to pasadena, has successfully been litigated for fifty years to prevent it from ever doing so. heavy truck traffic has to exit to surface streets to continue to the city or route around it using the 101. trucks are prohibited on the 110.

And the residents standing in the way of this project? not even very powerful residents. Just backed by a handful of attorneys well versed on property rights.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#54

Post by Anechoic »

mav3rick wrote: post #37
untog wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes it could be said for any infrastructure project, which is why nearly all of those projects are subject to environmental assessments.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#55

Post by chrisco255 »

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.

All states have some form of this, but CA takes it to another level.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#56

Post by choxi »

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.

He's building us an express loop in Chicago: https://www.boringcompany.com/chicago/

They're even paying for the whole thing, I think most residents here are excited about it.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#57

Post by readhn »

well, im not sure where this tunnel would be located BUT if he was digging under my $500,000-1,000,000 residential house (or whatever the prices there are) or my commercial property i sure as hell would sue the billionaire all the way to the bank as well. For him its just "playing games" oh let me dig a tunnel so i can skip the traffic on MY way to work. For me - its my livelihood - house is a single biggest purchase in most people's lives (or my business - if he is digging under my commercial property). If this tunnel affects my building - what do i do when things go wrong (foundation cracks)?

I have to go around and ask 10 people in my neighborhood if its ok if i want to move a freaking wall inside my house and this guy can just go and dig up tunnels without asking us ... just because he feels like it and he is a billionaire.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#58

Post by untog »

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.

I think the negativity is an inevitable reaction to the Elon Musk hype machine, which he himself plays into. Recall the Thai diving incident, when he proposed a submarine solution that was neither realistic not workable.

In this instance, it would have been obvious from the get-go that a project like this would run into environmental concerns. The whole thing has been a waste of time and sucked attention away from more realistic possibilities. This broadly applies to Hyperloop as well, which is cool tech that solves none of the problems holding back transportation in the US, which are almost all political.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#59

Post by lightedman »

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…

"It seems sort of shortsighted to block a tunneling company on environmental grounds."

It would seem equally short-sighted to make such a statement without thinking about what lies underneath most of Southern California. Oil fields galore, gas deposits, aquifers, and many superfund cleanup sites.

Digging around SoCal is already a half-impossibility. You never know when you're going to run across a deposit of natural gas and BOOM.

Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan

#60

Post by leesec »

simias wrote: post #39
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.

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…

>Technologically speaking are they really ahead of the competition?

Yes and have been since 2012 when they started producing the Model S. It's been 6 years and major manufacturers have still not caught up.

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