Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 278 posts

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#131

Post by arprocter »

ericd wrote: post #72
throwanem wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He must've been writing before the Acela Express made its debut. But Boston and New York are close enough that I'd argue true high-speed rail isn't all that much needed. Which is good, because there's no way in hell our government-supported passenger rail monopoly could ever implement it. That's half the problem right there - nobody can compete with Amtrak because Amtrak can undercut everyone, so Amtrak's service can…

Acela Express is barely faster than the existing trains, because most of the track isn't high-speed capable. And I certainly wouldn't mind 1 hour service between northeastern cities... NYC to Boston is a bit shorter than the TGV main high speed trunk in France (Paris-Lyon, 300 km vs ~450), and DC to Boston is longer (630 km). Currently, Acela takes 3.5 hours NYC-BOS. TGV best case (300 km/hr) would shave a lot of tim…

>Currently, Acela takes 3.5 hours NYC-BOS

Which is the same time it takes by car, and only an hour less than it takes by bus, plus the train costs a lot more.

Pretty embarrassing situation, IMO.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#132

Post by monodeldiablo »

joshmarlow wrote: post #54
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…

Pure curiosity - what do you find offputting?

SUBJECTIVITY WARNING!

I struggle to trust the motives of anybody who is so certain of so many things. Especially one who acts so impulsively. He's clearly very bright, probably brighter than most smart people, but he's not brighter than all smart people. Yet he frequently presumes to be, even boasting of being a "nano-manager". He has definitely bought into his own hype.

But when you have billions in the bank, I guess you can get away with that.

Bonus round: He's also surprisingly thin-skinned and petty. Oh, and he stuffs his boards with family members and cronies.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#133

Post by nradov »

shabble wrote: post #93

My laymen's understanding (from various documentaries & articles) is that the expensive part of tunnel construction is managing the transitions between different materials. Boring through hard rock might be slow, but hitting pockets of mud, loose rock and other things (especially when unexpected) can seriously mess up the works, and cause massive delays due to machine damage or reassessment and reinforcement/collapse…

Often the TBM is just left behind in a spur tunnel after finishing the main excavation. It would be too expensive to disassemble and remove.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#134

Post by monodeldiablo »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #127
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 constru…

You make a very fair point. Shame on me for taking such a one-dimensional view of the matter. Cheers!

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#135

Post by owenversteeg »

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…

Answering my own question, bit by bit: It looks like there have in fact been improvements in tunnel creation in the last 50 years. Examples:

- NYC Third Water Tunnel, under construction since 1970. 24 deaths, the vast majority of which were decades ago as safety improved. In fact, the first tunnels were blasted and drilled; the newer ones are made with a boring machine.

- St. Gotthard Road Tunnel, 1969-1980, just one lane in each direction and 2 deaths per mile. A comparable transportation tunnel today in the area is the Gotthard Base Tunnel, 0.2 deaths per mile.

- Older tunnels apparently caused thousands of workers to die due to silica exposure.

It also seems that tunnels are more dangerous than roads per mile by many orders of magnitude. For example, the aforementioned Gotthard Road Tunnel had over 875 accidents and 30 deaths in a span of just 24 years.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#136

Post by epa »

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…

Big, if true.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#137

Post by HUSSTECH »

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…

I can speak somewhat for the UK, but I assume the same can be said for most of Continental Europe, Japan and China where (deep) underground tunnels for have been around for a long time.

The deeper tunnels of the London Underground are "bored", that is a full circular profile is cut for the tunnel path. This is contrasted with the "cut and cover" method, which just digs a pit, builds a support structure, and covers it back up [1]. Cut an cover is not feasible for deeper tunnels, too much structure is required to hold up the weight of earth above you. Some of the older lines on the underground were dug this way; fun fact: You'll notice in NYC or Boston for example, that the subway stations are all square in their tunnel shape profile, and you can visibly see the support structures, that's because they are mostly not very deep, and used the cut and cover method. I'd be interested to know if any US cities have deeper tunnels? (Despite not being very deep, cut and cover is a very good way to quickly build mass transport for growing cities.)

The BBC has been doing programmes on the Underground for years, so there has been a steady steam of documentaries on this topic! I apologise if you can't get to any of these links:

- A 1969 BBC documentary on the Victoria line (hopefully answers your question 1)^: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00sc29t

- A 2014 documentary on Crossrail, London's latest new underground line^^: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04bwkj1

^currently streaming in the UK

^^ looks like this one is no longer available, except on Amazon. The Crossrail project website has some info on the show [2], and in general the Crossrail site tires to put educational info on there for the curious [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel#Cut-and-cover [2] http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/crossrail-documentary-the-fi... [3] http://www.crossrail.co.uk/construction/tunnelling/meet-our-...

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#138

Post by Rezo »

IpV8 wrote: post #115
jandrese wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that isn't as obvious at first is how tunneling traffic under a city can greatly increase the walkability of the city. Look at Boston after the Big Dig. Neighborhoods that were previously cut in half are coming back together. Downtown is seen as a desirable place to be. It's a big QoL improvement for a city. I'm not sure if he will be able to bring the costs of tunnel boring down as much as you would like,…

Not sure if the Big Dig is a great project to reference here, it went over budget by some 200% and many years. It was seen as one of the greatest civil engineering mistakes by the end. Sure it improved the QoL, but what other projects that take less than some 15 billion dollars can improve QoL just as much?

The Big Dig was one of the "cost-plus" projects mentioned in the article. The contract was for a guaranteed 7% profit on top of costs for design and construction. Is it any wonder that the construction company has zero incentive to do it efficiently or reduce costs! Overruns only bring benefits (more work, paid for by the state), and no downsides.

Another industry that loves their cost-plus projects is interestingly the traditional rocket launching business. Boeing and friends has for decades gotten used to massive cost-plus project contracts from the government for their launches, and is now feeling the pain of having to start to compete with Space X that operates at a magnitude or more efficiently and continues to drive down the price despite already being the cheapest.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#139

Post by joshmarlow »

monodeldiablo wrote: post #132
joshmarlow wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pure curiosity - what do you find offputting?

SUBJECTIVITY WARNING! I struggle to trust the motives of anybody who is so certain of so many things. Especially one who acts so impulsively. He's clearly very bright, probably brighter than most smart people, but he's not brighter than all smart people. Yet he frequently presumes to be, even boasting of being a "nano-manager". He has definitely bought into his own hype. But when you have billions in the bank, I gues…

Thanks for the reply (and the subjectivity warning). I agree that the hype, nano-managing, etc is offputting and all else being equal I probably would be very skeptical of such a person. That being said, he does seem to generate results, which makes me think of him as an anomaly that I can't categorize.

I have mixed feelings about the shades of nepotism. Hiring cousin Bob because he's your cousin irrespective of qualifications is definitely a bad idea; hiring cousin Stephanie who is qualified and you know you have a good relationship with where you can communicate and you can rely on them, is quite another. Disclosure: I've not read enough to have an opinion on if his family hires are Bobs or Stephanies - just playing devil's advocate.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#140

Post by Nav_Panel »

HUSSTECH wrote: post #137
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…

I can speak somewhat for the UK, but I assume the same can be said for most of Continental Europe, Japan and China where (deep) underground tunnels for have been around for a long time. The deeper tunnels of the London Underground are "bored", that is a full circular profile is cut for the tunnel path. This is contrasted with the "cut and cover" method, which just digs a pit, builds a support structure, and covers it…

> I'd be interested to know if any US cities have deeper tunnels

Some NYC subway stations and lines were built with boring as opposed to cut and cover. 90% of the new 2nd Avenue line, for example, is planned to be bored[1]. Here[2] is an article with more details about the tunnel boring machine used -- the comments also have a lot of good discussion. Also, Los Angeles has done some boring for its new subway lines[3].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway#Construct...

2: http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/05/14/down-the-rabbit-hole...

3: https://www.metro.net/projects/tunnel-boring-machine-tbm/

Post reply on HN