The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas
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Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas
#2Yes, it is. With one that caveat that if it's built 10x cheaper than comparable tunnels, it is. Moving our roads underground is a vastly superior transportation system than we have today. It can be safer, better for the air, better for light and noise pollution, unlock vast amounts of land in our urban areas for parks, etc. I grew up near Boston during the big dig and the city is a drastically different place before and after the Central Artery. The same is happening in Seattle now. The problem is the cost. If Boring Company can solve that (and he already has a history of doing comparable things in the rocket and battery industries) it very much is the future of public (and private) transportation.
Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas
#3Yes, it is. With one that caveat that if it's built 10x cheaper than comparable tunnels, it is. Moving our roads underground is a vastly superior transportation system than we have today. It can be safer, better for the air, better for light and noise pollution, unlock vast amounts of land in our urban areas for parks, etc. I grew up near Boston during the big dig and the city is a drastically different place before…
Exactly! They didn't mention cost in the correct way in the article, only saying that it costs less because it's a small tunnel. Instead of addressing the possible cost savings from advances in tunnel digger technology that Musk hopes to achieve.
the first tunnels won't make as much financial sense as subsequent tunnels but they're have to start somewhere
Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas
#4If they aren’t going to finish the Vegas monorail, maybe they can build a tunnel from the airport to the Strip?
Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas
#5If they aren’t going to finish the Vegas monorail, maybe they can build a tunnel from the airport to the Strip?
Minneapolis did the right thing with its light rail: Going from the Airport, to downtown, to the Mall of America. When I was consulting in Minneapolis, getting from the Airport to the apartment I'd rented downtown was just a typical jaunt on public transit.
Here's how to win with public transit: Build it where people want to go. Amazing how difficult that is.
Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas
#6So what’s this fascination with tunnels? In Chicago, there are overhead elevated train tracks, and they work just fine. They seem a lot cheaper to build and maintain than tunnels. You can even build them over existing avenues. Why don’t we have more of that?
Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas
#7Where did this title come from? I usually can't stand HN's fussing over titles but this one really seems tendentious.
Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas
#8The car itself may not be the future, but cheap tunnels and multi-car (let's call them trains) will be the future.
Asian cities already have amazing subway systems that just work so much better than surface streets. The biggest improvement would be to have express lines that only visit every ~10th stop. Financial viability due to massive ridership make these possible in Asia, lower tunneling costs could make them viable elsewhere.
Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas
#9So what’s this fascination with tunnels? In Chicago, there are overhead elevated train tracks, and they work just fine. They seem a lot cheaper to build and maintain than tunnels. You can even build them over existing avenues. Why don’t we have more of that?
Not an expert, but often with big costly new things the main issue is that nobody dares. Or rather, nobody has the belief in the idea, resources and power to decide (think city officials).
Re: The Boring Company will develop an underground “people mover” for Las Vegas
#10So what’s this fascination with tunnels? In Chicago, there are overhead elevated train tracks, and they work just fine. They seem a lot cheaper to build and maintain than tunnels. You can even build them over existing avenues. Why don’t we have more of that?
Apartments with windows opening directly onto El tracks are discounted in line with the unpleasantness. If you’ll put up a fight over an apartment building 2 blocks away casting a few hours of shade, you’ll definitely put up a fight over frequent clattering metal 2 feet from your bedroom window forming a permanent roof over the street.