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

Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 332 posts

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#251

Post by tredre3 »

leetharris wrote: post #165
fragmede wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to be pro-progress while being anti-this specific thing. In particular, Elon Musk came out and admitted that he hates trains and busses and admitted that he just made up Boring Co to distract from giving money to them. The Boring Co tunnels in Vegas are a boondoggle and not even well designed (whether that's due to lack of funds or stupidity or corruption, who knows!). The problem is the opportunity cos…

In the last 50 years, well before Elon was involved and supposedly sabotaging all this great subway progress, how many new subway projects in America were started and successfully finished? Maybe Elon's solution is a requirement to make ANY progress because the other ones have stalled out? I would love a subway. Here in Austin, they proposed a bunch of new trains and subways for billions of dollars. We all voted yes…

> Was that Musk too? Or is overregulation destroying our ability to innovate?

Texas isn't known (to outsiders like me, at least) as burdening itself very much with regulations. It's possible that a blue city like Austin might apply extra regulation over state regulation, but still, are you sure that overzealous regulation is what prevents Texas from building transport? I would have tought complacency, nimbyism, corruption. But not regulation.

If you're right then it's pretty much game over for America, isn't it? Because almost all other states have even more regulatory pressure, right?

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#252

Post by araes »

ceejayoz wrote: post #19

> “Given the extraordinary number of violations, NDEP has decided to exercise its discretion to reduce the penalty to two $5,000 violations per permit, which it believes offers a reasonable penalty that will still serve to deter future non-compliance conduct,” regulators wrote in the letter. The fuck? "You were driving so fast we gave you a discount on the speeding fine."

Seems like a lot of parts of America have already learned that idea.

Fat Leonard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal "Lets take the entire United States Seventh Fleet to the South Pacific for prostitutes and classified material handovers."

60 admirals got investigated. One, Admiral Gilbeau, got the first felony on active duty in modern history = 1.5 year prison, and continue collecting your $10,000 monthly pension (while in prison). There were admittedly some punishments, there was also a lot of community service, misdemeanor, $100.

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#253

Post by tim333 »

olelele wrote: post #240
ETH_start wrote: post #69

I think the big picture here is much more important. If tunneling technology is radically improved, we're going to see massive improvements in urban living, including: • Cleaner air at street level because vehicle exhaust stays underground and can be filtered, which would have massive health and environmental benefits • Quieter cities with most traffic noise eliminated • Cooler temperatures since asphalt and vehicle…

There is simply no way to make enough tunnels for personal vehicles. That is basic city planning. Building more roads increases congestion. The only _real_ way to achieve the above goals are building bicycle friendly cities with diverse public transport options and less parking spaces. There are European cities that function more like this. This is anathemic to the US of course.

Any reason you can't make tunnels? I've spent a while in San Pedro, Spain and it's been transformed by a cut and cover tunnel that the cars now go through. Seems to work fine.

https://www.sanpedromarbella.eu/san-pedros-tunnel-a-new-life...

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#254

Post by everforward »

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #194
Moomoomoo309 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tens of thousands of riders in what time period? Please, look up how many people it is capable of moving per hour, and compare that to any light rail or street car service in any city. There is no way the loop makes sense to build.

> Please, look up how many people it is capable of moving per hour, and compare that to any light rail or street car service in any city. I have a hard time understanding this criticism. Why not do both? It seems to me like underground highways make sense as an alternative to above ground highways in urban areas, not that they're an alternative to rail. There's lots of cities with excellent public transport that also…

In urban areas, they're usually an alternative. If you're going past the city, you could build a ground level highway around the city for a lot cheaper. If you're going into the city, it makes more economic sense to leave your car at the periphery of the city and take a rail system in because of the difference in throughput per $ spent building it (as well as the space occupied by parking for people who need to leave their cars in the city). Plus the people leaving the highway will get onto surface streets, and back up the highway.

Being able to make underground tunnels cheaper and faster is cool. Using them for cars is mostly a boondoggle with clearly superior alternatives.

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#255

Post by hn_acc1 »

doawoo wrote: post #84
Seattle3503 wrote: post #35

The tricky thing about environmental regulations is that they are crafted and utilized by NIMBYs to block any infrastructure development. Even if, on balance, the infrastructure is a net positive. It's not clear if these violations actually represent a real environmental hazard or are more reflective of NIMBY degrowth sentiment.

This is a company owned by the same guy whose other company is dumping huge amounts of pollution into the air around Memphis, TN. And when asked they basically said “no we aren’t.” Something tells me it’s not NIMBYism.

It's not like it's new - the Fremont Tesla plant has a long list of violations, including illegal dumping of toxic waste.

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#256

Post by hn_acc1 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #248
Seattle3503 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are falling prey to the myth of the cynical genius > A further three studies based on the data of about 200,000 individuals from 30 countries debunked these lay beliefs as illusionary by revealing that cynical (vs. less cynical) individuals generally do worse on cognitive ability and academic competency tasks. Cross-cultural analyses showed that competent individuals held contingent attitudes and endorsed cynicis…

only if it was warranted in a given sociocultural environment GP explicitly specified such an environment. Musk is the epitome of a hypercapitalist - an outlier in terms of wealth, fame, ambition, and micromanagement.

This 1000x. I can't believe Musk is still fooling people..

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#257

Post by Veserv »

testing22321 wrote: post #71
leakycap wrote: post #3

All this so a handful of passengers a week can wait for the extremely small pool of vehicles in a dusty hole

Have you ridden the existing Vegas tunnel? Tens of thousands of riders when I was there and not a spec of dirt. Very far from perfect, but a long way from useless.

In 2023-03, they did passenger 1,000,000 [1].

In 2024-05, they did passenger 2,000,000 [2].

So 1,000,000 passengers in 14 months or ~420 days. That is a average throughput of ~2,400 passengers per day.

In comparison, the Tokyo Marunouchi line averages ~1,100,000 passengers per day [3]. That is ~420x the rate. Every single day, they do what the Las Vegas Loop does in a year.

The peak capacity that they claim without evidence is ~32,000 in a day [4]. The Maruonouchi line does in a day what the Las Vegas Loop at maximum capacity could theoretically do in a entire month.

[1] https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-boring-co-vegas-loop-1-m...

[2] https://www.teslarati.com/boring-company-2-million-passenger...

[3] https://www.japan-experience.com/plan-your-trip/travel-by-tr...

[4] https://www.boringcompany.com/lvcc

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#258

Post by testing22321 »

AgentK20 wrote: post #87
testing22321 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ridden the existing Vegas tunnel? Tens of thousands of riders when I was there and not a spec of dirt. Very far from perfect, but a long way from useless.

There were tens of thousands of riders _when you were there?_ Or there were tens of thousands of riders over the lifetime of the system? Most videos I've seen recently show a system that, while functional, typically only has a handful of vehicles running simultaneously, each with carrying capacity for one party of up to 3 people.

When I was there. During SEMA, the worlds biggest automotive show.

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#259

Post by testing22321 »

Veserv wrote: post #257
testing22321 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ridden the existing Vegas tunnel? Tens of thousands of riders when I was there and not a spec of dirt. Very far from perfect, but a long way from useless.

In 2023-03, they did passenger 1,000,000 [1]. In 2024-05, they did passenger 2,000,000 [2]. So 1,000,000 passengers in 14 months or ~420 days. That is a average throughput of ~2,400 passengers per day. In comparison, the Tokyo Marunouchi line averages ~1,100,000 passengers per day [3]. That is ~420x the rate. Every single day, they do what the Las Vegas Loop does in a year. The peak capacity that they claim without e…

You are 100% correct. It’s small fry right now.

You might be shocked to learn the first airplane couldn’t take passengers.

Things improve, or at least attempt to. Even if it fails, I’d rather live in a world where new ideas are being tried and tested and not always talking about how good my horse and cart is.

Re: Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

#260

Post by testing22321 »

dagmx wrote: post #104
testing22321 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ridden the existing Vegas tunnel? Tens of thousands of riders when I was there and not a spec of dirt. Very far from perfect, but a long way from useless.

The LVCC Loop has demonstrated a peak capacity of ~4,400–4,500 passengers per hour in testing. How did you arrive at tens of thousands of riders?

I was at the world’s biggest automotive show. It was packed.
Post reply on HN