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If this works I'll be surprised... but happy. But realistically, I'll probably still take the blue line to O'Hare unless Musk's toy accepts my monthly CTA pass.

by cozzyd 8y ago

aerovistae 8y ago
I would pay extra to skip that endless ride any day.
JackCh 8y ago
I'd be very surprised if they attempted to build anything other than an electric train. If they're trying some sort of "hyperloop" I would share your skepticism, but as I understand it the Boring Company is about boring tunnels more than anything else (at this stage anyway.) Is an Elon Musk company capable of boring a regular tunnel and putting a regular train in it? I don't know the current state of their boring machines, but it seems like it should be feasible.
- timb07 8y ago
  The point of The Boring Company is to reduce the cost of tunnelling by digging narrower tunnels (designed for custom vehicles, not regular trains or cars) and using an electric tunnel boring machine.
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    Does this mean Chicago's current trains won't fit inside the new tunnels?
    - cozzyd 8y ago
      CTA trains are 9.3 ft wide and 12 ft tall, so they won't fit in the 14 ft diameter tunnels. Also, the "Loop" won't provide electricity preferring instead to haul a battery with each car.
  - dashundchen 8y ago
    It's apparent through a lot of boring company press releases the tunnels are intended for essentially cars temporarily put onto skates in tunnels. So then why not a high speed train instead of individual vehicles? You would think the capital cost of a tunnel over it's lifetime (100+ years going by the NYC subways) is not substantial compared with magnitudes more in individual vehicle operating costs. Not to mention trains have much higher throughput, energy efficiency, less worry over spacing via stopping distance etc over individual propulsion methods, and airports are pretty bursty in terms of traffic volume. The answer seems pretty clear with the disdain Musk expresses of sharing public space with the average person. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-transit/ https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-t... (which for me, also explains the obsession with Mars as some sort of refuge from disaster on Earth) He's clearly focused on more cars as the solution to the urban issues that cars are causing.
    - cozzyd 8y ago
      Yeah, why not tether the "skates" together into a train? Boarding individual 8-16 person vehicles seems like a major chokepoint.
      - rory096 8y ago
        The intent is the opposite - having individual cars allows you to parallelize ingress/egress, as long as you have pulloffs at stations (and sufficient elevator capacity). The decrease in trip time from making every trip express (instead of stopping at every station for the fraction of passengers who want to get off) offsets the smaller car/train capacity.
    - JackCh 8y ago
      Maybe Musk having some agoraphobic bias is the root cause. Or maybe it's because Tesla doesn't sell trains.
    - agildehaus 8y ago
      > So then why not a high speed train instead of individual vehicles? This is meant to evolve into a citywide transportation system where you choose your destination at the outset. Each pod can navigate itself, switch tunnels, and wind up closer to your destination than a subway could ever hope to as there will be far more stops (multiple thousands across the city instead of < 500). Clearly the airport express route is meant to be the beginning of something much larger. Trains would not make sense for such a system.
  - JackCh 8y ago
    I see. I was under the impression their major objective was reusable machines. I didn't know a smaller bore size factored into that.
  - shanghaiaway 8y ago
    Sounds like he's optimizing for the wrong thing. Lower set up cost but significantly lower throughput. These tunnels would over time become an enormous type of infrastructural debt.
  - jakecopp 8y ago
    Is making smaller trains feasible?!
    - kps 8y ago
      Yes, London tube trains use 12′ tunnels so they'd fit comfortably in Boring 14′ holes.
- annerajb 8y ago
  They are modified model x chassis no rails been mentioned so far.
  - JackCh 8y ago
    The article has Musk saying "maybe" to rails: > "It is unclear exactly what the Boring Co. high-speed airport link would involve, but last year Musk tweeted about his ideas for Chicago. "Electric pods for sure," he wrote. "Rails maybe, maybe not."
wenc 8y ago
When I was younger, I'd always be looking for ways to do things cheap. The CTA Blue Line: $2.25 to the airport and $5.00 back to the loop? What a deal! But now that I'm older, I'd rather pay more to reduce the agony if I could. It's just me. The CTA Blue Line to O'Hare for me is an uncomfortable 40 minutes. Uncomfortable because there's no room for a suitcase and you feel like a douche if you put on the seat next to you. It's a boring 40 minutes. You can't sleep because it's never a good idea to nap on the CTA. I guess you can do stuff on your phone (cell signals are good) but I'm not big on that. That said, I still take the Blue Line to the airport. Because during rush hour, it's the only game in town.
- tcbawo 8y ago
  From their project page, the trip will take about 12 minutes and cost half that of a tax. So, that probably means ~$20.
  - cozzyd 8y ago
    The Tribune article claims $20-25: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-ohare-high-speed-transit-elon-musk-boring-company-20180613-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-oha...
- nwatson 8y ago
  A tale about "saving money" on transportation (and parking) ... I used to live in San Mateo, CA near 92 / Hillsdale (up in the hills between US-101 and I-280). My wife, daughter, and I would fly out of SFO Airport to Arizona or North Carolina frequently. Rather than paying for a taxi or for on- or near-airport parking (Uber/Lyft wasn't a thing yet) we'd opt to take the SamTrans bus from Belmont -- the service was good, on-time per schedule, and cost $2 per adult each way, meaning we could be away for a week or two and pay just $8 round-trip to/from airport. The minor catch was where to park our car in Belmont while we were away. There was plenty of parking about two or three blocks away from the bus stop (Belmont Caltrain) in places not directly in front of any houses or condos. We took seven or eight such trips ... no problem! ... till it was a problem. After one almost-three-week trip we got back to the airport and then went on to Belmont -- CAR WAS MISSING. So we figured the car had been stolen or towed. I called the police to see which, and they confirmed the car had been reported as "abandoned" and impounded. Apparently Belmont (and perhaps other municipalities) have a 72-hour law for cars parked on public roads. You must "move your car" every 72 hours, or else risk somebody reporting your vehicle as abandoned. We must have taken somebody's favorite parking spot. Total monetary damage, with city fees, towing fees, storage fees, our cut of the towing-and-storage-company's side-kickback to a city government official ... all came out to about $800. I figure across all our trips we probably ended up with a net loss compared to taxi-or-airport-parking.
Larrikin 8y ago
The blue line is desperately in need of an express track and the CTA needs a loop that that isn't just a few city blocks. Living in the northern part of Chicago always means traveling into the loop on the red line and then taking an endless amount of time on the blue line as it stops at a ton of stations. The bus isn't an option with luggage and Lyft is just an unpleasant extra expense on top of paying for my luggage.
- cozzyd 8y ago
  You know CTA buses (unlike the trains) have a place where you can put (a limited amount of) luggage in the front, right? But it's probably still faster to take the red line to the loop...
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    On average the bus is probably faster if you include the time at the hospital after getting stabbed, mugged or pushed on to the tracks on the red line.
    - cozzyd 8y ago
      2/5. Next time link to http://wgntv.com/2018/02/09/cta-releases-video-of-man-setting-fire-inside-red-line-train/ http://wgntv.com/2018/02/09/cta-releases-video-of-man-settin... when attempting L scaremongering.
      - paulie_a 8y ago
        The top three links on Google news about the red line: "shots fired", "man shot", "person stabbed". Those are all incidents in the last three days. The L can be nice/mediocre but the red line has a reputation that is well justified.
        cozzyd 8y ago
        If by 3 days you mean 3 weeks, then sure.

If this works I'll be surprised... but happy. But realistically, I'll probably still take the blue line to O'Hare unless Musk's toy accepts my monthly CTA pass.

by cozzyd 8y ago

If this works I'll be surprised... but happy. But realistically, I'll probably still take the blue line to O'Hare unless Musk's toy accepts my monthly CTA pass.

aerovistae 8y ago

I would pay extra to skip that endless ride any day.

JackCh 8y ago

I'd be very surprised if they attempted to build anything other than an electric train. If they're trying some sort of "hyperloop" I would share your skepticism, but as I understand it the Boring Company is about boring tunnels more than anything else (at this stage anyway.) Is an Elon Musk company capable of boring a regular tunnel and putting a regular train in it? I don't know the current state of their boring machines, but it seems like it should be feasible.

timb07 8y ago
The point of The Boring Company is to reduce the cost of tunnelling by digging narrower tunnels (designed for custom vehicles, not regular trains or cars) and using an electric tunnel boring machine.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  Does this mean Chicago's current trains won't fit inside the new tunnels?
  - cozzyd 8y ago
    CTA trains are 9.3 ft wide and 12 ft tall, so they won't fit in the 14 ft diameter tunnels. Also, the "Loop" won't provide electricity preferring instead to haul a battery with each car.
- dashundchen 8y ago
  It's apparent through a lot of boring company press releases the tunnels are intended for essentially cars temporarily put onto skates in tunnels. So then why not a high speed train instead of individual vehicles? You would think the capital cost of a tunnel over it's lifetime (100+ years going by the NYC subways) is not substantial compared with magnitudes more in individual vehicle operating costs. Not to mention trains have much higher throughput, energy efficiency, less worry over spacing via stopping distance etc over individual propulsion methods, and airports are pretty bursty in terms of traffic volume. The answer seems pretty clear with the disdain Musk expresses of sharing public space with the average person. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-transit/ https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-t... (which for me, also explains the obsession with Mars as some sort of refuge from disaster on Earth) He's clearly focused on more cars as the solution to the urban issues that cars are causing.
  - cozzyd 8y ago
    Yeah, why not tether the "skates" together into a train? Boarding individual 8-16 person vehicles seems like a major chokepoint.
    - rory096 8y ago
      The intent is the opposite - having individual cars allows you to parallelize ingress/egress, as long as you have pulloffs at stations (and sufficient elevator capacity). The decrease in trip time from making every trip express (instead of stopping at every station for the fraction of passengers who want to get off) offsets the smaller car/train capacity.
  - JackCh 8y ago
    Maybe Musk having some agoraphobic bias is the root cause. Or maybe it's because Tesla doesn't sell trains.
  - agildehaus 8y ago
    > So then why not a high speed train instead of individual vehicles? This is meant to evolve into a citywide transportation system where you choose your destination at the outset. Each pod can navigate itself, switch tunnels, and wind up closer to your destination than a subway could ever hope to as there will be far more stops (multiple thousands across the city instead of < 500). Clearly the airport express route is meant to be the beginning of something much larger. Trains would not make sense for such a system.
- JackCh 8y ago
  I see. I was under the impression their major objective was reusable machines. I didn't know a smaller bore size factored into that.
- shanghaiaway 8y ago
  Sounds like he's optimizing for the wrong thing. Lower set up cost but significantly lower throughput. These tunnels would over time become an enormous type of infrastructural debt.
- jakecopp 8y ago
  Is making smaller trains feasible?!
  - kps 8y ago
    Yes, London tube trains use 12′ tunnels so they'd fit comfortably in Boring 14′ holes.
annerajb 8y ago
They are modified model x chassis no rails been mentioned so far.
- JackCh 8y ago
  The article has Musk saying "maybe" to rails: > "It is unclear exactly what the Boring Co. high-speed airport link would involve, but last year Musk tweeted about his ideas for Chicago. "Electric pods for sure," he wrote. "Rails maybe, maybe not."

wenc 8y ago

When I was younger, I'd always be looking for ways to do things cheap. The CTA Blue Line: $2.25 to the airport and $5.00 back to the loop? What a deal! But now that I'm older, I'd rather pay more to reduce the agony if I could. It's just me. The CTA Blue Line to O'Hare for me is an uncomfortable 40 minutes. Uncomfortable because there's no room for a suitcase and you feel like a douche if you put on the seat next to you. It's a boring 40 minutes. You can't sleep because it's never a good idea to nap on the CTA. I guess you can do stuff on your phone (cell signals are good) but I'm not big on that. That said, I still take the Blue Line to the airport. Because during rush hour, it's the only game in town.

tcbawo 8y ago
From their project page, the trip will take about 12 minutes and cost half that of a tax. So, that probably means ~$20.
- cozzyd 8y ago
  The Tribune article claims $20-25: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-ohare-high-speed-transit-elon-musk-boring-company-20180613-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-oha...
nwatson 8y ago
A tale about "saving money" on transportation (and parking) ... I used to live in San Mateo, CA near 92 / Hillsdale (up in the hills between US-101 and I-280). My wife, daughter, and I would fly out of SFO Airport to Arizona or North Carolina frequently. Rather than paying for a taxi or for on- or near-airport parking (Uber/Lyft wasn't a thing yet) we'd opt to take the SamTrans bus from Belmont -- the service was good, on-time per schedule, and cost $2 per adult each way, meaning we could be away for a week or two and pay just $8 round-trip to/from airport. The minor catch was where to park our car in Belmont while we were away. There was plenty of parking about two or three blocks away from the bus stop (Belmont Caltrain) in places not directly in front of any houses or condos. We took seven or eight such trips ... no problem! ... till it was a problem. After one almost-three-week trip we got back to the airport and then went on to Belmont -- CAR WAS MISSING. So we figured the car had been stolen or towed. I called the police to see which, and they confirmed the car had been reported as "abandoned" and impounded. Apparently Belmont (and perhaps other municipalities) have a 72-hour law for cars parked on public roads. You must "move your car" every 72 hours, or else risk somebody reporting your vehicle as abandoned. We must have taken somebody's favorite parking spot. Total monetary damage, with city fees, towing fees, storage fees, our cut of the towing-and-storage-company's side-kickback to a city government official ... all came out to about $800. I figure across all our trips we probably ended up with a net loss compared to taxi-or-airport-parking.

Larrikin 8y ago

The blue line is desperately in need of an express track and the CTA needs a loop that that isn't just a few city blocks. Living in the northern part of Chicago always means traveling into the loop on the red line and then taking an endless amount of time on the blue line as it stops at a ton of stations. The bus isn't an option with luggage and Lyft is just an unpleasant extra expense on top of paying for my luggage.

cozzyd 8y ago
You know CTA buses (unlike the trains) have a place where you can put (a limited amount of) luggage in the front, right? But it's probably still faster to take the red line to the loop...
- paulie_a 8y ago
  On average the bus is probably faster if you include the time at the hospital after getting stabbed, mugged or pushed on to the tracks on the red line.
  - cozzyd 8y ago
    2/5. Next time link to http://wgntv.com/2018/02/09/cta-releases-video-of-man-setting-fire-inside-red-line-train/ http://wgntv.com/2018/02/09/cta-releases-video-of-man-settin... when attempting L scaremongering.
    - paulie_a 8y ago
      The top three links on Google news about the red line: "shots fired", "man shot", "person stabbed". Those are all incidents in the last three days. The L can be nice/mediocre but the red line has a reputation that is well justified.
      - cozzyd 8y ago
        If by 3 days you mean 3 weeks, then sure.