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Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

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Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#121

Post by namlem »

AJ007 wrote: post #117
metafex wrote: post #26

This is just a wild guess, but could there be more to it than just solving traffic problems? I mean, the best solution for a permanent settlement on Mars would be underground, as to shield from radiation etc. It's a funny thought, but it would make sense to aquire experience with large earth-moving operations to improve on the technology and study the feasibility.

It is also possible the tunnels could be privately financed and owned, which could have long term advantages for Tesla.

I doubt it. Public contracts would be the bulk, if not the overwhelming majority of their business. Just like with SpaceX, which relies heavily on NASA and USAF contracts.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#122

Post by nradov »

emodendroket wrote: post #76
monodeldiablo wrote: post #39

I generally find Elon Musk to be an offputting individual, but I struggle to disagree with most of his ideas. In dense urban areas, skyrocketing property costs and the erosion of eminent domain have made mass transit expansion unsustainable in terms of time and money. Tunneling under it all has the potential to sidestep so many costs. To do so, of course, he'll need to reduce the costs of tunnel boring by an order of…

In what sense has eminent domain been eroded? Given that the Supreme Court ruled about ten years ago that eminent domain may even be used to make way for private enterprise it seems to me that it is quite powerful.

Sure eminent domain remains legally powerful. But politically it has become more of a hot button issue in certain conservative circles who actively lobby against its use. And when eminent domain is used the takers have to pay fair market price so with the huge increase in urban real estate values over the past few years it's much harder to just find the money.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#123

Post by mrfusion »

dahart wrote: post #68

We can't afford to maintain the surface roads & bridges we already built, and tunnels are more expensive and require more maintenance by like an order of magnitude. (I made that up, but I'm pretty sure it's right, to within an order of magnitude... but if tunnels are 1000x more expensive, then I'm wrong). I can admire someone who has the resources to exclude himself from the traffic problem instead taking action to t…

I wonder if maintenance would be cheaper. Think about it. A constant temperature. No rain or sun. No freeze thaw cycle. No salt.

Those are all things that damage roads.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#124

Post by ForrestN »

This is a bit odd considering that Musk knows that even a substantial minority of self-driving cars on the road would dramatically reduce traffic. Does he think we can deploy tunnels in every city before we can get to, say 25% self driving cars? I'm not saying there aren't other benefits to reshaping the urban landscape this way, but traffic is a problem he is already in the process of solving in a way that seems much more likely to scale to, well, anywhere, without having to do anything to existing infrastructure. And anyway, once we get to something like 25% autonomous cars, won't the safety revolution put pressure on the government to quickly phase out permits for human-driven cars?

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#126

Post by oftenwrong »

adamjc wrote: post #2

I thought the current thinking was that building more roads means that there will be more roads to use, and therefore more cars on the road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

If a restaurant started giving out free food, you wouldn't be surprised when more people than usual went to eat there.

Induced demand only happens when the road is underpriced. Any road can be made immune to induced demand by tolling at a price that reflects demand. Too much traffic? Raise the price. Looking a bit empty? Lower the price.

Car dependence is only common in the US because drivers do not pay the true cost of driving. Many people could not afford to drive if they had to pay market price to use roads and parking. By disconnecting the cost of transportation from its use, we have evolved a society that is overly dependent on transportation, and that is overly sensitive to increases in transportation costs. This applies to all modes - not just cars.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#127

Post by TulliusCicero »

monodeldiablo wrote: post #39

I generally find Elon Musk to be an offputting individual, but I struggle to disagree with most of his ideas. In dense urban areas, skyrocketing property costs and the erosion of eminent domain have made mass transit expansion unsustainable in terms of time and money. Tunneling under it all has the potential to sidestep so many costs. To do so, of course, he'll need to reduce the costs of tunnel boring by an order of…

> the construction industry has been famously stagnant for decades

My guess is that the construction industry has not actually been stagnant, but rather the market/regulations have emphasized things other than speed/cost, such as:

- Environmental-friendliness (think of those lengthy environmental reviews that have to be done in advance of major projects)

- Labor-friendliness/safety of workers

- Higher quality construction w/r/t earthquake and fire safety

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#128

Post by emodendroket »

monodeldiablo wrote: post #116
emodendroket wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense has eminent domain been eroded? Given that the Supreme Court ruled about ten years ago that eminent domain may even be used to make way for private enterprise it seems to me that it is quite powerful.

A close family member is an urban planner, and he blames a succession of legal challenges that have forced public entities to account for all sorts of value that the property could never actually attain. And, of course, the increase in number and density of holdouts has driven acquisition costs way, way up for large public projects, since time delays incur costs. Lawyers have learned that, even if the city/state make…

I mean, I don't think it would really be ideal for the government to be seizing property for a pittance left and right either.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#129

Post by sschueller »

owenversteeg wrote: post #119

Ok, so one thing I've noticed reading the 120 comments in this thread and the article is that literally nobody knows anything about boring, or tunnels. Musk knows nothing, he put someone in charge who knows nothing, the reporter knows nothing, and the commenters here even admit they are completely guessing and know nothing about boring/tunnels. I definitely don't know anything about tunnels. It's a joke that came to…

There has been a lot of improvements in boring. [1] [2]

[1] http://www.lexpose.ch/2013/02/gotthard-base-tunnel-inside-sw...

[2] https://www.herrenknecht.com/en/products/core-products/tunne...

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#130

Post by TulliusCicero »

XorNot wrote: post #105
dahart wrote: post #68

We can't afford to maintain the surface roads & bridges we already built, and tunnels are more expensive and require more maintenance by like an order of magnitude. (I made that up, but I'm pretty sure it's right, to within an order of magnitude... but if tunnels are 1000x more expensive, then I'm wrong). I can admire someone who has the resources to exclude himself from the traffic problem instead taking action to t…

The US can easily afford to maintain it's infrastructure. It would make money in doing so. Expense is not the reason the US has infrastructure problems.

Yes and no. The US is rich enough to where, yes, we could raise taxes and fund infrastructure better.

At the same time, some forms of infrastructure have been over-built. We've demonstrated a massive preference for (wide) roads over walking/biking/transit, and it turns out supporting mostly single-occupancy vehicles as the default transportation mode is extremely expensive.

For example, take this blog post analyzing why a poor area of town is a better revenue generator than a more affluent area; part of the reason is that the older, poorer area just has narrower roads, which reduced upkeep costs: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborh...

It should go without saying, but having low-density design throughout our country drastically raises infrastructure costs. The roads needs to be longer (and wider), you need more miles of pipes, and electric wire, and fiber, etc.

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