To those interested in arguably the most ambitious boring operation in progress, behold, Bertha in Seattle: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct/About/FollowBertha
Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock
191–200 of 278 posts
Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock
#192I don't understand how he gets away with digging that big of a hole in the ground in Los Angeles County without some serious assessment and permit filing being done first. The rock is very soft and we have earthquakes here. It took decades to approve the subway line down Wilshire Blvd. I'm assuming SpaceX gets special permission to do anything it wants, but it's still very surprising that they can just start digging…
According to the article, you don't need a permit to dig on your own property. He's going through the process you describe for when he hits the property line.
Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock
#193Two synergistic factors with Musk's other interests, that I'm surprised BW's deep-dive doesn't mention:
* zero-emission cars may make tunnel ventilation a much easier problem
* autonomous cars may far better utilize narrow tunnels (with clearances that'd be too accident-prone for human drivers)
Taken together, tunnels-for-autonomous-fully-electric-vehicles could be far more practical, for longer distances, than they've been for traditional cars.
Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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].…
DC's certainly seems bored—and some are extremely deep and therefore must be. Stations might be cut and cover but are arched to match.
The Washington Post has a good graphic [1] on which stations were cut-and-cover and which stations were bored.
You will find that most stations were actually cut-and-cover, with only the Red Line having bored segments: one starting from after Farragut North [2] and running until shortly after the Medical Center [3], and another starting as soon as it leaves the CSX Metropolitan Sub northwest of Silver Spring and continues until the terminus at Glenmont, although that station itself was built from the surface [4].
Also highly recommend the book 'The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro' [5]
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/local/wmata-metro-de... [2] http://www.johnreilly.us/washington-metro-transit-design-and... [3] http://www.roadstothefuture.com/Metro_Glenmont_Route.html [4] http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C. [5] https://books.google.com/books?id=beDoAwAAQBAJ
Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock
#195Ok, 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…
> 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.
Musk didn't know much about rockets, electric cars and batteries but still managed to found and run the first private rocketry company, the first mass-market electric car and is responsible for the creation of the world's biggest battery factory. Not to mention Hyperloop, but there's no real product yet.
What Musk touches that eventually becomes gold, I believe - especially because his name and fame attracts talent that is willing to work extremely intense for his goals.
Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock
#196Serious question - keep aside flying cars and underground tunnels. We know materials science has advanced significantly over the past few decades. Why can't we figure out a way to suspend/elevate (using strong cables or beams) large tubes 40-50 feet above us -- at least along major arteries that are free and clear of buildings and other overhead structures.
Dedicated vehicles or conveyer belts or some such mode of transportation would ply in these tubes transporting people, with elevators to get people up and back down.
As compared to flying cars and tunnels, why wouldn't this be more cost-economical and speedier?
Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock
#197I 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…
> To do so, of course, he'll need to reduce the costs of tunnel boring by an order of magnitude.
That's easy. Construction projects these days are horribly expensive because the entrenched companies usually overcharge the state (and in some cases even private customers) and redirect that money into the coffers of corrupt officials (e.g. Odebrecht, http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/odebrecht-gigantischer...). Also, in most state founded projects there is no risk control or project management so companies end up fleecing the state - just look at the Berlin Airport for what happens when oversight, competences and reports are lacking. Not to mention that "pay by work hour" contracts almost automatically lead to slow work, overtime and delays because the state pays the losses of inefficiency compared to a contract "here's 20B €, build this tunnel, there won't be any additional money except in case of unforeseeable stuff like geological issues".
Musk on the other hand does not have these problems because he does not (neccessarily) need profit, or at least not illegal profits. Also, his companies are massively vertically integrated, which means that he won't get fleeced by suppliers, as well as horizontally integrated - I highly believe that the knowledge present in SpaceX can also be used for creating drilling rigs.
Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock
#198Ok, 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…
> - Has there been any improvement in boring in the last 50 years? The frequently-repeated statement that it hasn't improved would be quite shocking to me since at the very least I'd expect safety to improve. New Austrian tunnelling method, although that's on the very edge of 50 years ago. Since then, I imagine there's been incremental improvements that aren't easily understood by people who don't work on TBMs (just…
The Bloomberg article confirms he bought a used TBM, probably for not a whole lot more than scrap.
Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
And before the nay-sayers come in - no one is proposing destroying entire cities and rebuilding from the ground up. Now that we have that straw man out of the way we can start talking about transit (rail, bus, bike, walk) and the immense amount of space dedicated solely to single passenger cars and trucks.
I think we'll be seeing LA's subway development as a model for the future of infrastructure. The big problem with urban highways is that if you build the highway first and do not include higher-density transit, the neighborhood develops in a suburb-esque highway fashion, as distance of the house/apartment from the highway exit doesn't make a huge difference in commute time, whereas a train commute requires you to wal…
Absolutely - LA is probably the primary example of "car driven development" and will be more difficult to re architect than eastern cities that predate high adoption of cars. I don't think there will ever be a hard transition from "everyone driving a car" to "everyone taking mass transit" - I see it as more of a gradual process. Part of that process is people demanding to drive less to do more of their day-to-day activities (which is difficult in extensively suburban areas).
Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock
#200I 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…
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,…
You don't need a new tunnel and highway to fix neighbourhoods and improve walkability. There are plenty examples of cities that simply removed highways and didn't replace them with anything, instead relying on increased public transit options to continue to move people around the city.