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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

#51

Post by syberspace »

RichardHeart wrote: post #27
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 you move into a bigger house, your hallways will not fill up with more traffic. Currently humans are required at least 1 per car. Thus the housing and employment of those humans is more of a limiting factor on road demand, or perhaps car ownership or desire to drive somewhere, more so than availability of roads.

Your hallways may not fill up with people, but all your new closets, cupboards, wardrobes, drawers and whatnot will fill up with "stuff"

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#52

Post by wyldfire »

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.

s/earth/dirt/

;)

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#53

Post by foobarrio »

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

Then why build roads at all? If N + 1 means more traffic than surely N - 1 means less? So 0 roads, no traffic! Seriously though isn't this a related rates problem? Adding roads adds capacity and also induces demand. Are the two in lockstep? Can the capacity added be greater than the demand induced?

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#54

Post by joshmarlow »

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?

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#55

Post by ericd »

RichardHeart wrote: post #27
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 you move into a bigger house, your hallways will not fill up with more traffic. Currently humans are required at least 1 per car. Thus the housing and employment of those humans is more of a limiting factor on road demand, or perhaps car ownership or desire to drive somewhere, more so than availability of roads.

If roads are clearer, then people tend to move farther from work, which increases the number of cars on the road at any given time. Then the roads clog up again. Increased highway construction has been enabling people to move farther and farther out into exurbs (which people think will be nice places to live, and cheaper, but that turn out create rather shabby quality of life compared to walkable cities).

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#56

Post by mikeash »

jessriedel wrote: post #31
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

Induced demand often happens, but certainly not always. It just depends on latent demand and network effects. More importantly, the appearance of induced demand is not a general argument against building roads! People get value out of getting to places. If we build road B intending to relieve congestion on road A, but road A stays just as congested, we nevertheless have enabled people to get places with road B that t…

Spot on with the "still creating value" stuff. With most things, creating more so more people can have it is seen as good. With roads, it's somehow seen as bad.

It makes sense if the roads have negative externalities, like noise, or ugliness, or pollution, or destroying pedestrian access. But none of that applies to tunnels used by cars running on clean energy.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#57

Post by dx034 »

elbigbad wrote: post #34
jessriedel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Induced demand often happens, but certainly not always. It just depends on latent demand and network effects. More importantly, the appearance of induced demand is not a general argument against building roads! People get value out of getting to places. If we build road B intending to relieve congestion on road A, but road A stays just as congested, we nevertheless have enabled people to get places with road B that t…

Do you happen to have any examples of where induced demand has not happened? My understanding is that it is pretty much guaranteed, especially in larger cities. I think New York's bridges and tunnels are the canonical examples of this. I say pretty much because I assume there must be cases where it didn't happen, but I am unaware of them.

Airports. Especially in Europe, many small cities built their own airports, hoping they'd get passenger traffic. Many of those are now closed or have to be sold off for a nominal amount, as flights concentrated on major airports instead of spreading out.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#58

Post by aedron »

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…

Same. Don't much like the guy but he does admittedly good stuff, kinda like Steve Jobs.

Actually a lot like Jobs: Think big (he even has Steve beat there), hire great people then push them to the brink to achieve the impossible.

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#59

Post by hxegon »

pitt1980 wrote: post #38
wolfram74 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note though that solar panels are half as effective on mars given it's distance to the sun, nuclear is even more important on Mars than on Earth.

is that true? how much effectiveness are you gaining with the thinner atmosphere?

Definitely not as much as you are losing to the inverse square law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law#Light_and_o...

Re: Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock

#60

Post by mikeash »

throwanem wrote: post #23
Synaesthesia wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chomsky complains that catching a train from Boston to New York is not any faster than it was for him in the 50's; I'm not expert on US rail but it does seem to be behind if you compare to Europe and Asia's high speed rail networks.

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 is pathetic. For Boston to New York, it saves 30 minutes over the regular train, reducing the 4 hour journey to 3:30. I'd say that's close enough to casually describe as "not any faster," especially when many other civilized countries' trains cover that sort of distance in an hour or so.
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