> The Boring Company is no longer seeking the development of the Sepulveda test tunnel and instead seeks to construct an operational tunnel at Dodger Stadium
Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan
121–130 of 206 posts
Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
California's insane housing prices (at least near the aforementioned economic centers) indicates that people are clamoring to move there. If you drive people away, more will replace them, possibly after causing prices to drop somewhat.
To me it indicates much more than that: high taxes, high regulatory fees, high cost of labor. The median cost per square foot for a home in California is $319 dollars, the median cost per square foot for the entire U.S is $151. The median home price in California is $379,000, and the U.S. is $225,000. One only needs to do a simple web search to see the current migration from California's tech centers to other tech de…
Prices can't exist without people willing to pay them. It doesn't matter how high your taxes, fees, and labor costs are, if people aren't willing to pay, prices don't stay high.
Another way of interpreting "The median home price is California is $379,000" is "people are willing to pay, on average, $379,000 for a home in California."
The home prices are the data to support my hypothesis. If there wasn't demand for houses then prices would fall. Demand for houses means people want to move there. If there were a net migration out of the state, prices would be dropping.
Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan
#123It 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…
I kind of want to send these ‘environmentalists’ pieces of asphalt because that’s what their actions here are going to cause the entire planet to be covered in.
Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
"California has empowered them in peculiar and powerful ways" Fun example of this is John Wayne airport in Orange County pilots do a special takooff involving cutting power to engines to reduce noise for Newport Beach neighborhood below dating back to a lawsuit from the 80s.
This seems reasonable to me. If they can take off while reducing nose pollution, they should. I wonder if they do this at other airports located in of near cities such as LGA.
Seems unreasonable to me, who's to say which neighborhood deserves more or less noise pollution? Oh right, economic status and ability to file massive lawsuits. If that takeoff method was all around better they would just do it everywhere, Congress outlawed other airports from doing the same in 1990
"In 1990, Congress, fearing that many localities could eventually hamstring the growth of aviation by implementing their own patchwork of noise restrictions, passed the Airport Noise and Capacity Act which outlawed curfews at airports. John Wayne was grandfathered in, however, due to the original lawsuit being filed in 1985."
https://www.avgeekery.com/whats-rollercoaster-takeoffs-orang...
Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan
#125Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan
#126It 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…
Tunneling does have deleterious effects. After all, the biggest targets of the environmental movement are those companies who make gigantic interconnected tunnels that most people know by the name of mines. (Granted, it's the ore processing that does develop the most ire, but the handling of spoil has been implicated in several disasters such as the Aberfan disaster).
The first major issue of tunnels is that you have to put all of the stuff that you dug up somewhere, and the usual methods of dumping (such as the nearest coastline) aren't very environmentally-friendly. There are also some other issues you can find going underground--radon emissions come to mind.
The other key thing to analyze is the effect of the entire project. The Boring Company isn't selling better tunneling technology, they're selling a form of transit. (And it's pretty clear that Musk is personally interested in speeding up single-occupant vehicle as opposed to improving mass transit). The standard environmental impact analysis compares different approaches to see which one would minimize negative impacts. Quite frankly, the proposed Loop transit system is a very space-intensive, low-throughput system, which makes it a pretty poor option for the environment in comparison to standard subways.
Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any suggestions? China comes to my mind, but that comes with a whole other can of worms.
India has a lot of potential, unlike China much of the infrastructure needed for the population still does not exist. A connection from Mumbai to New Mumbai under the sea like NYC comes into mind. The problem is i doubt given the experimental nature (still) the govt. will be bold enough to try it
Dealing with the politics of getting anything done in India will make the dealing with the people in LA look simple and trouble free. India is a mess because of the government policies, bureaucracy and corruption. I strongly feel if India has a dictatorship like China for let’s say a 20 year period, they could far exceeded the enconmoy of China.
Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
LA already has a pretty large rail network. Problem is when they try to build new subways it takes many many years to go even a mile and is met with the same lawsuits Elon faced. Fact is, California culture wants it but doesn’t want it at the same time.
> Fact is, California culture wants it but doesn’t want it at the same time. That applies to every culture, ever, and I have a hard time identifying some "California culture" that encompasses the state. The difference is that in California, the people who don't want it largely outnumber the people who want it more than in most places.
> The difference is that in California, the people who don't want it largely outnumber the people who want it more than in most places.
Measure R (2008, 67% in favor) and Measure M (2016, 71% in favor) both passed with supermajorities and raised Los Angeles taxes by billions to pay for rail and other public transit options. To me, that seems to indicate that the majority wants these kinds of projects.
Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan
#129Why 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.
I'm pretty sure it's because he lives there. Not only does it make it easy for him to be involved, but it sounds like he really hates LA traffic and really wants to bypass it for his own personal benefit. He announced the company saying "Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging..." and the proposed route happens to be convenient for him: https://www.fastcompany.com/…
But it just parallels the 405.
Re: Boring Co. Drops LA Westside Tunnel Plan
#130It 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…
Tunneling does have deleterious effects. After all, the biggest targets of the environmental movement are those companies who make gigantic interconnected tunnels that most people know by the name of mines. (Granted, it's the ore processing that does develop the most ire, but the handling of spoil has been implicated in several disasters such as the Aberfan disaster). The first major issue of tunnels is that you have…
But unless you’re going to the same destination mass transit isn’t ideal. If there are enough shared routes, and the cost advantage of shared transportation add up to a big enough benefit than it works. But my ideal transport is teleporting, which I think a subterranean hyperloop pod is closer to.