13 ms·

Elon Musk's Solution for Dodger Stadium Traffic Is Full of Holes

66 points by apsec112 8y ago

skybrian 8y ago
It seems like this tunnel is better thought of as a tech demo that will be open to the public. If it turns out to be more expensive than they think, they'll find out soon enough, without cost to taxpayers. If it works, it won't carry much traffic, but it's proof of concept and people will have fun trying it. And Boring Company will be able to do something more ambitious with better proof of their claims.
- sundaeofshock 8y ago
  But it’s a horrible POC. It’s not solving any serious mass transit problem. No, the Boring company exists to solve Musk’s “I don’t want to share space with other people” problem. The real problem with The Boring Company is the fact that anyone takes it seriously as a form of mass transit. The damn idea is crowding out real solutions while we indulge Musk’s pipe dream.
  - Skunkleton 8y ago
    I understand the outrage, but what are the "real" solutions, who is pushing them, and why aren't they gaining traction? Maybe tunnels suck, but at least there is something happening.
    - erentz 8y ago
      > but what are the "real" solutions Trains. Lots of trains. Inside tunnels. On the surface. On elevated tracks. That interconnect in a network so you can get from anywhere to anywhere. On trains. > and why aren't they gaining traction? Because everytime someone points out mass transit is a solved problem, has been for over 100 years, everyone responds somehow saying "that's unrealistic!" or "eww gross you want me to sit next to someone else!"
      - piyh 8y ago
        There's a reasonable limit on how high you can build, as well as noise concerns and NIMBY. Building over existing neighborhood is a nogo. Train transfers are a pain in the ass. I live a block away from a rail station and only use it when going to the absolute heart of downtown. Even then I drive as close as I reasonably can and take the train for the last 3 miles. It saves me at least an hour round trip vs taking the train the whole way.
      - Skunkleton 8y ago
        I love trains. Still, other than a few major cities, they aren't a great way to get around in the states. It is a shame there isn't more public support for building more rail.
    - radicalbyte 8y ago
      Bicycles and electric scooters combined with changes to the roads to give them priority over cars. We'd be better off in general if we didn't waste so many resources on making our countries work for cars.
      - favorited 8y ago
        Bicycles and scooters aren't year-round solutions for huge parts of the US. You can't optimize your roads for something that is a non-starter for 1/3 to 1/2 of the year.
        radicalbyte 8y ago
        I doubt that any single solution would work for your entire country. It works fairly well here in The Netherlands. The country is flat but it does have cold winters (two weeks of snow/ice and two-three months of close-to-or-under-freezing temperatures). Whenever I have worked within cycling distance (15km or somewhere with a viable train connection) I've cycled all year round. It would work in a city such as New York (which has a similar climate to here); the metro is already great for the bulk of the journey and bikes/e-bikes would work great for the last part. You'd just have to replace the cars.
        kgermino 8y ago
        Where in the US are bikes not suitable for 1/2 the year? Are you thinking areas like Florida and Texas? I can see biking being tough in the hot/humid summer but wouldn't something like an electric scooter (where you're just standing there) be fine?
        Helloworldboy 8y ago
        Ever try to take an electric scooter through snow?
        favorited 8y ago
        The last time I was in Florida in August, I was sweating in shorts and a t-shirt. I can't imagine trying to commute to a job that requires a suit.
  - _Microft 8y ago
    No, the Boring Company exists to solve Musk's "How do we create habitats and automated mining on Mars" problem.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    We have known about real solutions for decades - but people won't accept them for various selfish NIMBY reasons. Hell look at the sheer irrational hostility Google Bus faced - despite its sole purpose being to get the Googler traffic they were complaining about off the road. The cure is clear but they don't want to take their medicine.
    - discodave 8y ago
      The Google bus actually has something in common with this tunnel nonsense. Both are private enterprises. Google could have given money to expand the city bus network instead of running private buses. Elon could work with the LA public transport companies, but he is choosing not to. The thing about contributing to public goods is that it benefits everybody. The problem with building private solutions is that even-if it has some public good (e.g. replacing many cars with one bus) it still creates an us-vs-them situation where mere mortals cannot take advantage of the Google bus.
      - Nasrudith 8y ago
        Expecting people much less corporation to give away for public infrastructure is unrealistic in itself. That isn't Google's job. The city and its residents need to take responsibility. By definition municipal transportation either is doing things more efficiently than Google to be able to fund others or Google is paying more than they have to. Given that they aren't trying to undercut Google Bus expenses in a "Hey we could operate it cheaper for you and buy up the buses you already have for a long term contract" it is clearly not the previous. I fully support improved public transit and good governance but it isn't Google's job to support it but the transit's job to support everbody and make the additional taxes worth it. Why should Google pay? They already get their share and it is up to the city and its residents to decide to use it that way. The public transit option always has to compete with private regardless of what the delusional gatekeeper attitude. Not to mention flexibility - if Google wants to bus their people to a convention instead of the usual routes they can. Resentment is still an absurd case of sour grapes. Especially given the resistance to public transit infastructure expansion for fear it may bring them in contact with poor and minorities, housing expansion for it may change the facade from when they got their or devalue their absurdly inflated nest egg from artificial property tax stagnation. I bet anything the same people would flip out if they were told they couldn't use their private vehicles on public roads yet they want to do the same thing to Google buses. After they themselves vetoed alternatives. Lets face it - the area's biggest root problem is an entitlement issue. It is one thing to want corporations to pay more taxes, it is another to stop every possible solution and then screech like howler monkeys over solutions that don't harm them. By all means hold corporations accountable for misconduct but this is just irrational. Other areas have been trying anything to replicate their success and failing. As an outsider it is painful to watch an already objectively great area squander their potential for further improvement and act so damn bratty and crazy.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    I think it might prove something more specific: is the cost as cheap as they claim? If so, it can be scaled up by building more, cheaper tunnels. Even if stations are the main cost, this might change the architecture. As proof it only goes so far because each site is different, but it's a step towards justifying their claims. As for crowding out, I haven't seen any other mass transit projects delayed because of them. Have you?
- mistursinistur 8y ago
  This key graf at the end describes why it's a bad demo that may cost taxpayers a lot of money: "The result is that the tunnel would have negative value to the region. As a transportation service based on how Musk wishes to construct and operate it, it has practically no value. But in the event of upzoning in West Los Angeles, the tunnel would complicate any possibility of rail under Sunset connecting Hollywood with Downtown. Metro may even need to acquire and demolish Musk's tunnel, or else dig under the tunnel, which would complicate intermediate stations in Silver Lake and Echo Park."
  - ng12 8y ago
    > the tunnel would complicate any possibility of rail under Sunset connecting Hollywood with Downtown Which I'm sure is right around the corner, guys.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    I think he's really reaching there. As a tech demo, this tunnel is not that important in the long run (low hours, low traffic, only used for entertainment traffic) and so could easily be shut down if something better is put in later.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- jcranmer 8y ago
  > It seems like this tunnel is better thought of as a tech demo that will be open to the public. Except it sucks as a demo. TBC is basically proposing a variation of Personal Rapid Transit. The main theoretical virtue of PRT is that it provides a point-to-point mass transit system; its main theoretical issue is that it is low capacity for the cost of its infrastructure. Demos should showcase strengths; if you're proposing improvements to technology, you should highlight your ability to overcome previous limitations. This proposal does not highlight its capabilities, and gives ample room to excuse failures. It is planned to be single track: capacity will be utter trash. Point-to-point is pointless when there's only two points. Of course the worst aspect is that the one-way, bursty nature means you need to have someplace to store the cars at each endpoint. It's not bad at a stadium, which is naturally going to be a massive dead space, but the other terminus is supposed to be a metro station. Either you're going to need to build a massive underground cavern (at which point boring a second tunnel and deadheading cars to empty space would be much cheaper [1]), or you're going to have to dedicate surface space to car storage--at a metro station, where logic dictates you should be having high density for commercial/residential purposes. [1] The cost of subway lines is heavily dominated by the stations that need to be dug along the route. I haven't sized out dimensions, but it's not unreasonable to assume the necessary car storage is going to be larger than an underground mezzanine.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    I'm assuming that, unlike when Musk is behaving badly on Twitter, they're not just winging it. He's hired engineers who designed these things and figured out the costs (as well as can be expected) before making the proposal. If not, I guess we'll see. This project isn't big enough to prove what you want, but it'll prove some basic competence if it works.
pokemongoaway 8y ago
A lot of his ideas are full of holes: Hyperloop: See all of the problems here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk Boring company: summary of issues here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBtL3qDvdZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBtL3qDvdZc SpaceX: How will we fund the amount of rocket fuel required to get the stuff to Mars that can produce an atmosphere? If producing an atmosphere isn't required, then how will indoor atmosphere be maintained sustainably (financially)? Matt Damon's math didn't seem to work out in that movie... Tesla: So far so good, but what about battery recycling? “We are at the very beginning in energy storage in general,” says Phil Hermann, chief energy engineer at Panasonic Eco Solutions. “Most of the projects currently going on are either demo projects or learning experiences for the utilities. There is very little direct commercial stuff going on. “Elon Musk is out there saying you can do things now that the rest of us are hearing and going, ‘really?’ We wish we could but it’s not really possible yet.” https://www.theguardian.com/vital-signs/2015/jun/10/tesla-batteries-environment-lithium-elon-musk-powerwall https://www.theguardian.com/vital-signs/2015/jun/10/tesla-ba... SolarCity: Just look at the customer reviews so far: https://news.energysage.com/solarcity-complaints-what-homeowners-think/ https://news.energysage.com/solarcity-complaints-what-homeow... I would urge Mr Musk to focus on Batteries & long-term Tesla ownership. It would be a shame for that not to work out! I hope this comment lasts for 5 years :)
- gok 8y ago
  Please don't link to Phil Mason / Thunderf00t. In addition to being a misogynist (top videos include "Feminism versus FACTS" and "Why feminism poisons everything"), he's also a food scientist posing as a rocket scientist.
  - squirrelicus 8y ago
    Please don't assert that someone's beliefs or advocacy about a political movement make them wrong about facts. Classic ad hominem fallacy. Listening to people making sound arguments about X even though you disagree with them about Y is healthy, and the lack of this health is a major intellectual problem of this century in my humble opinion. Listen more, judge less. Post and watch more things from people with whom you disagree. And don't shut people down just because their views on unrelated topics are not palatable to you.
slg 8y ago
I really don't get the hate this is receiving considering the context of what is going on in Los Angeles. Traffic is a problem city wide, but it is particularly bad for events at Dodgers Stadium. Musk's plan won't fix all of that, but it won't hurt. I also don't see how the plan is any more outlandish than this [1] plan for gondolas to Dodgers Stadium which is closer to actually happening. Either way, both of those projects are using private money. If people want to try to fix traffic themselves and all they need from the public is permission, why should we stop them? That is an infinitely better approach that approving spending hundreds of millions of public dollars on a trolley system a few miles from Dodgers Stadium [2] or an even more massive investments into a subway system that most Angelenos never use and therefore are hesitant to support. [1] - http://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/gondola-proposal/ http://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/gondola-proposal/ [2] - http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-downtown-streetcar-20180818-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-downtown-str...
- x0x0 8y ago
  Elon's plan is very expensive and clearly won't help, if you're even mildly numerate (2400 whole people per hour at full capacity). It's also farcical to pretend this will happen without enormous piles of public money, both implicit in terms of right of way, and explicit via enormous subsidies. The proposed revenues are a dollar per ride! This thing is an enormous cash fire.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    clearly won't help, if you're even mildly numerate (2400 whole people per hour at full capacity) So you're defining "help" == "completely solve." Would you say that a program offering discounts to people who carpool to Dodger's stadium would not help unless it completely solved the problem? Would a gondola going to Dodger's stadium "not help?" It's also farcical to pretend this will happen without enormous piles of public money, both implicit in terms of right of way, and explicit via enormous subsidies. The whole point of the boring company is to get the tunnel boring infrastructure out of the government-laden, subsidy-heavy mode of operation. It's the same overall strategy as was behind SpaceX.
joshuaheard 8y ago
Why don't they build a spur off the LA Metro from Union Station a short distance up to Dodger Stadium? They build a metro but it doesn't go where people want, like the airport, the Rose Bowl, or the new stadium they are building.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  The Gold line almost goes there as well.
  - tomjakubowski 8y ago
    If you're able-bodied, the walk from Chinatown station to Dodger Stadium is pretty easy and very pleasant until you get to the stadium grounds -- where you are shoved aside for cars to climb the hill into the parking lots. I really wish the stadium would improve pedestrian access; at least place a real curbed sidewalk at the downtown gate.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago
  > They build a metro but it doesn't go where people want, like the airport, the Rose Bowl, or the new stadium they are building. Metro rail connects some of the densest residential (South LA, Koreatown/Mid-Wilshire, Mid-City, Palms, Hollywood) and commercial (Long Beach, Pasadena, Koreatown, Hollywood, Downtown, Santa Monica) districts of the region. Prioritizing Metro rail construction to bring people to POIs like LAX or the Rose Bowl for what amounts to a handful of trips a year per person would be a waste. Better to serve trips people make nearly every day, like commuting to work or school and going shopping.
  - Helloworldboy 8y ago
    Why not both?
  - joshuaheard 8y ago
    POIs like the airport and entertainment venues are perfect for the Metro because they cause huge traffic jams, there is very little parking, and the added convenience for occasional riders would increase overall ridership. Metro for commuters is great, but what about everybody else? If you want people to take the Metro, go where they want to go. I don't use the Metro for commuting but would use it to go the the airport or ball game to avoid traffic and parking.
bnycum 8y ago
I'm a huge baseball fan and saw this Twitter thread this morning[0]. Definitely an interesting scroll. There was a meeting yesterday at Dodger stadium to discuss this, that was announced just 12 hours prior. I'll bullet some high points. * Some of the commenters at the meeting were actually SpaceX employees. * It's an idea to boost attendance, meanwhile Dodgers led the majors in average attendance per game. (It's true the Dodgers have a lot of season tickets to companies, who might not actually use them). * Could only transport 3% of fans. [0]: https://twitter.com/erinscafe/status/1034456203890372609 https://twitter.com/erinscafe/status/1034456203890372609
jackconnor 8y ago
The "hole" is that they think construction costs are too high based on "engineering literature". While the literature does undoubtedly say this, Musk's MO with SpaceX is doing things way, way cheaper than competitors, so I'm interested to see how he handles it.
- takk309 8y ago
  Decades of civil engineering differs with you. The cost to move a cubic yard of soil is rather well known for a given area. Labor costs are well established. I don't see how he is going to cut enough corners to make it cheaper by any noticeable amount. Privately funded earthwork projects are nothing new.
  - natosaichek 8y ago
    >The cost to move a cubic yard of soil is rather well known for a given area Given traditional technologies and techniques > Labor costs are well established Primarily for union labor using traditional tools and techniques. When spacex was started, the cost to move a kg of satellite into low earth orbit was well known. The cost of a new rocket development program from an engineering hours / labor cost perspective was also well established. He broke a few assumptions people had, which resulted in dramatically lower costs. I don't see why that strategy wouldn't _fundamentally_ play out similarly for TBC.
    - jcranmer 8y ago
      > I don't see why that strategy wouldn't _fundamentally_ play out similarly for TBC. Because they have given a reason why they expect lower costs. They don't expect to be able to actually reduce the cost of a boring a tunnel at fixed diameter; they want to bore smaller tunnels and assert that's good enough.
    - takk309 8y ago
      Traditional technologies and techniques for earth moving are rather simple and well refined. Moving soil still requires one to excavate the soil and transport the soil. I can't see any way around that. There are only so many ways to improve on this model. In rural environments it is possible to use larger haul trucks to move the materials. The urban nature of the construction site will limit the size of vehicles that can be used to transport the materials. As for the excavation equipment, a tunnel boring machine (TBM) is obviously the tool of choice. Maybe some efficiencies can be gained with the TBM through some sort of re-usability. The space analogy, in mind, is not a great one. Prior to SpaceX, launches were generally a rare and expensive thing. Musk has changed that by making the process more efficient. Earth work, on the other hand, is done every day. There is likely a large dirt moving operation somewhere near every person that will see this thread. Be it excavation for the foundation of a large building or the construction of a roadway, moving earth is extremely common. [edit] Clarity in the last sentence of the first paragraph.
mixmastamyk 8y ago
Another super-negative article. Let them try and pay for it I say. As a fellow nobody, I'd never think to stand in the way of folks attempting to improve things. The route is good. I've often thought the Red line itself should go a more direct route down Sunset. The Vermont leg could be reused as a north/south from Exposition to Griffith Park where traffic is also horrendous. The Purple line uses the rest. Unlikely in my lifetime, however. There are a few errors in the article as well. The red line turn where the map shows it connecting is an open plaza in the middle of a three road intersection: Hollywood-Prospect/Vermont/Sunset.
mcguire 8y ago
From http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/June-2018/Theres-Reason-to-Be-Skeptical-About-Elon-Musks-OHare-Express/ http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/June-2018/Theres-Reason-...: "[According to the Boring Company FAQ,] The current standard for a one-lane tunnel is approximately 28 feet. By placing vehicles on a stabilized electric skate, the diameter can be reduced to less than 14 feet. Reducing the diameter in half reduces tunneling costs by 3-4 times. "This claim is contradicted in professional literature. Studies of particle accelerator tunnels as well as rail tunnels that look at different diameters find that reducing the diameter in half reduces costs by a factor of two and not three or four." That's actually quite surprising. I would have thought that changing the diameter would have no effect whatsoever on the price of boring a tunnel, to a first order of approximation. Almost none of the variables involved are dependent on the diameter of the tunnel.
- infogulch 8y ago
  Well the area of a circular tunnel is proportial to the square of the diameter. Perhaps a lower area allows the bore to tunnel faster? That kinda makes sense, but I have no idea how much the area of a circle relates to tunnel boring in reality, if at all.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    The tunnel boring machine would likely cost much more, for a larger tunnel, but it's fixed relative to the length and a capital expenditure, much of which can be recovered or re-used. The amount of material moved would be proportional to the area of the tunnel, but I can't see that as a major cost factor. A larger machine would need more lining material, and more workers... And it still doesn't address the terminals.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  Musk seems to think that costs for tunneling are proportional to the square of the diameter (i.e., proportional to cross-section). If you assume that the cost is dominated by the amount of spoil you need to excavate, that makes sense. But that's not the domination of the cost. A tunnel bore is relatively cheap. Musk cites the costs of $1 billion/mi. subways, but that is a very malicious bait-and-switch. The tunneling cost for those subways come out to around $100-150M per track-mile of tunnel, and I suspect that includes the standard tunnel accoutrements: drainage, airflow, lighting, etc. Much of those accoutrements are invariant to the tunnel diameter, to a first approximation. Tunnel-boring itself has some costs, but most of those don't scale as fast as cross-sectional area. Cutting head replacements and the ultimate spoil disposal are the only things I can think of that do. The TBM itself, and the tunnel shielding are going to scale linearly with circumference. Things like the power systems, spoil recovery, or manpower costs for manning the TBM are going to pretty much be invariant with size (assuming the size is generally the same magnitude). All totaled, you'd expect the costs to scale somewhere around linearly with diameter/radius.
JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
It seems most of his ideas lately are like this. Was he always so...wrong? Or is something personally going on in his life? Rumors that he tweeted about the privatization of Tesla while on LSD seem to make a lot of sense when you watch his recent erratic behavior.
JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
It seems most of his ideas lately are like this. Was he always so...wrong? Or is something personally going on in his life? Rumors that he tweeted about the privatization while on LSD seem to make a lot of sense when you watch his recent erratic behavior. https://jalopnik.com/was-elon-musk-tweeting-on-acid-azealia-banks-says-yes-1828307241 https://jalopnik.com/was-elon-musk-tweeting-on-acid-azealia-...
slivym 8y ago
What I don't understand about the Boring company is that Musk's vision seems to be: Cheap tunnels so that we can throw lots and lots of cars down them thus alleviating congestion. Everyone gets mad and points out that cars driving down tunnels do nothing to alleviate congestion, because cars driving down tunnels result in tiny tiny capacity (2800 people per day in this case?) and that if you want to solve congestion just build more train tracks and run more trains on them. Here's my question: Why is no one talking about the idea of using what Musk is pushing as a new incredible cheap way of building tunnels to build tunnels with trains in them?
- brewdad 8y ago
  Because Elon Musk doesn't build trains?
- rohit2412 8y ago
  Ask yourself this, if Tesla is so good at making autonomous driving software, and can make the cheapest batteries, and can automate manufacturing more than anyone deemed possible, why do they not sell these. Why do they target only half a million cars a year while they could completely take over multiple industries by becoming tier-1 supplier to various manufacturers? It is to maintain hype, the real truth is somewhat humbling. The same applies to boring company, if they can dig tunnels so cheaply, they would become tbm suppliers or contractors, not an end to end solution.
d3sandoval 8y ago
I mean... There's at least two holes, right? One at each end of the tunnel?

66 points by apsec112 8y ago

It seems like this tunnel is better thought of as a tech demo that will be open to the public. If it turns out to be more expensive than they think, they'll find out soon enough, without cost to taxpayers. If it works, it won't carry much traffic, but it's proof of concept and people will have fun trying it. And Boring Company will be able to do something more ambitious with better proof of their claims.

sundaeofshock 8y ago
But it’s a horrible POC. It’s not solving any serious mass transit problem. No, the Boring company exists to solve Musk’s “I don’t want to share space with other people” problem. The real problem with The Boring Company is the fact that anyone takes it seriously as a form of mass transit. The damn idea is crowding out real solutions while we indulge Musk’s pipe dream.
- Skunkleton 8y ago
  I understand the outrage, but what are the "real" solutions, who is pushing them, and why aren't they gaining traction? Maybe tunnels suck, but at least there is something happening.
  - erentz 8y ago
    > but what are the "real" solutions Trains. Lots of trains. Inside tunnels. On the surface. On elevated tracks. That interconnect in a network so you can get from anywhere to anywhere. On trains. > and why aren't they gaining traction? Because everytime someone points out mass transit is a solved problem, has been for over 100 years, everyone responds somehow saying "that's unrealistic!" or "eww gross you want me to sit next to someone else!"
    - piyh 8y ago
      There's a reasonable limit on how high you can build, as well as noise concerns and NIMBY. Building over existing neighborhood is a nogo. Train transfers are a pain in the ass. I live a block away from a rail station and only use it when going to the absolute heart of downtown. Even then I drive as close as I reasonably can and take the train for the last 3 miles. It saves me at least an hour round trip vs taking the train the whole way.
    - Skunkleton 8y ago
      I love trains. Still, other than a few major cities, they aren't a great way to get around in the states. It is a shame there isn't more public support for building more rail.
  - radicalbyte 8y ago
    Bicycles and electric scooters combined with changes to the roads to give them priority over cars. We'd be better off in general if we didn't waste so many resources on making our countries work for cars.
    - favorited 8y ago
      Bicycles and scooters aren't year-round solutions for huge parts of the US. You can't optimize your roads for something that is a non-starter for 1/3 to 1/2 of the year.
      - radicalbyte 8y ago
        I doubt that any single solution would work for your entire country. It works fairly well here in The Netherlands. The country is flat but it does have cold winters (two weeks of snow/ice and two-three months of close-to-or-under-freezing temperatures). Whenever I have worked within cycling distance (15km or somewhere with a viable train connection) I've cycled all year round. It would work in a city such as New York (which has a similar climate to here); the metro is already great for the bulk of the journey and bikes/e-bikes would work great for the last part. You'd just have to replace the cars.
      - kgermino 8y ago
        Where in the US are bikes not suitable for 1/2 the year? Are you thinking areas like Florida and Texas? I can see biking being tough in the hot/humid summer but wouldn't something like an electric scooter (where you're just standing there) be fine?
        Helloworldboy 8y ago
        Ever try to take an electric scooter through snow?
        favorited 8y ago
        The last time I was in Florida in August, I was sweating in shorts and a t-shirt. I can't imagine trying to commute to a job that requires a suit.
- _Microft 8y ago
  No, the Boring Company exists to solve Musk's "How do we create habitats and automated mining on Mars" problem.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  We have known about real solutions for decades - but people won't accept them for various selfish NIMBY reasons. Hell look at the sheer irrational hostility Google Bus faced - despite its sole purpose being to get the Googler traffic they were complaining about off the road. The cure is clear but they don't want to take their medicine.
  - discodave 8y ago
    The Google bus actually has something in common with this tunnel nonsense. Both are private enterprises. Google could have given money to expand the city bus network instead of running private buses. Elon could work with the LA public transport companies, but he is choosing not to. The thing about contributing to public goods is that it benefits everybody. The problem with building private solutions is that even-if it has some public good (e.g. replacing many cars with one bus) it still creates an us-vs-them situation where mere mortals cannot take advantage of the Google bus.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      Expecting people much less corporation to give away for public infrastructure is unrealistic in itself. That isn't Google's job. The city and its residents need to take responsibility. By definition municipal transportation either is doing things more efficiently than Google to be able to fund others or Google is paying more than they have to. Given that they aren't trying to undercut Google Bus expenses in a "Hey we could operate it cheaper for you and buy up the buses you already have for a long term contract" it is clearly not the previous. I fully support improved public transit and good governance but it isn't Google's job to support it but the transit's job to support everbody and make the additional taxes worth it. Why should Google pay? They already get their share and it is up to the city and its residents to decide to use it that way. The public transit option always has to compete with private regardless of what the delusional gatekeeper attitude. Not to mention flexibility - if Google wants to bus their people to a convention instead of the usual routes they can. Resentment is still an absurd case of sour grapes. Especially given the resistance to public transit infastructure expansion for fear it may bring them in contact with poor and minorities, housing expansion for it may change the facade from when they got their or devalue their absurdly inflated nest egg from artificial property tax stagnation. I bet anything the same people would flip out if they were told they couldn't use their private vehicles on public roads yet they want to do the same thing to Google buses. After they themselves vetoed alternatives. Lets face it - the area's biggest root problem is an entitlement issue. It is one thing to want corporations to pay more taxes, it is another to stop every possible solution and then screech like howler monkeys over solutions that don't harm them. By all means hold corporations accountable for misconduct but this is just irrational. Other areas have been trying anything to replicate their success and failing. As an outsider it is painful to watch an already objectively great area squander their potential for further improvement and act so damn bratty and crazy.
- skybrian 8y ago
  I think it might prove something more specific: is the cost as cheap as they claim? If so, it can be scaled up by building more, cheaper tunnels. Even if stations are the main cost, this might change the architecture. As proof it only goes so far because each site is different, but it's a step towards justifying their claims. As for crowding out, I haven't seen any other mass transit projects delayed because of them. Have you?
mistursinistur 8y ago
This key graf at the end describes why it's a bad demo that may cost taxpayers a lot of money: "The result is that the tunnel would have negative value to the region. As a transportation service based on how Musk wishes to construct and operate it, it has practically no value. But in the event of upzoning in West Los Angeles, the tunnel would complicate any possibility of rail under Sunset connecting Hollywood with Downtown. Metro may even need to acquire and demolish Musk's tunnel, or else dig under the tunnel, which would complicate intermediate stations in Silver Lake and Echo Park."
- ng12 8y ago
  > the tunnel would complicate any possibility of rail under Sunset connecting Hollywood with Downtown Which I'm sure is right around the corner, guys.
- skybrian 8y ago
  I think he's really reaching there. As a tech demo, this tunnel is not that important in the long run (low hours, low traffic, only used for entertainment traffic) and so could easily be shut down if something better is put in later.
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jcranmer 8y ago
> It seems like this tunnel is better thought of as a tech demo that will be open to the public. Except it sucks as a demo. TBC is basically proposing a variation of Personal Rapid Transit. The main theoretical virtue of PRT is that it provides a point-to-point mass transit system; its main theoretical issue is that it is low capacity for the cost of its infrastructure. Demos should showcase strengths; if you're proposing improvements to technology, you should highlight your ability to overcome previous limitations. This proposal does not highlight its capabilities, and gives ample room to excuse failures. It is planned to be single track: capacity will be utter trash. Point-to-point is pointless when there's only two points. Of course the worst aspect is that the one-way, bursty nature means you need to have someplace to store the cars at each endpoint. It's not bad at a stadium, which is naturally going to be a massive dead space, but the other terminus is supposed to be a metro station. Either you're going to need to build a massive underground cavern (at which point boring a second tunnel and deadheading cars to empty space would be much cheaper [1]), or you're going to have to dedicate surface space to car storage--at a metro station, where logic dictates you should be having high density for commercial/residential purposes. [1] The cost of subway lines is heavily dominated by the stations that need to be dug along the route. I haven't sized out dimensions, but it's not unreasonable to assume the necessary car storage is going to be larger than an underground mezzanine.
- skybrian 8y ago
  I'm assuming that, unlike when Musk is behaving badly on Twitter, they're not just winging it. He's hired engineers who designed these things and figured out the costs (as well as can be expected) before making the proposal. If not, I guess we'll see. This project isn't big enough to prove what you want, but it'll prove some basic competence if it works.

pokemongoaway 8y ago

A lot of his ideas are full of holes: Hyperloop: See all of the problems here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk Boring company: summary of issues here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBtL3qDvdZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBtL3qDvdZc SpaceX: How will we fund the amount of rocket fuel required to get the stuff to Mars that can produce an atmosphere? If producing an atmosphere isn't required, then how will indoor atmosphere be maintained sustainably (financially)? Matt Damon's math didn't seem to work out in that movie... Tesla: So far so good, but what about battery recycling? “We are at the very beginning in energy storage in general,” says Phil Hermann, chief energy engineer at Panasonic Eco Solutions. “Most of the projects currently going on are either demo projects or learning experiences for the utilities. There is very little direct commercial stuff going on. “Elon Musk is out there saying you can do things now that the rest of us are hearing and going, ‘really?’ We wish we could but it’s not really possible yet.” https://www.theguardian.com/vital-signs/2015/jun/10/tesla-batteries-environment-lithium-elon-musk-powerwall https://www.theguardian.com/vital-signs/2015/jun/10/tesla-ba... SolarCity: Just look at the customer reviews so far: https://news.energysage.com/solarcity-complaints-what-homeowners-think/ https://news.energysage.com/solarcity-complaints-what-homeow... I would urge Mr Musk to focus on Batteries & long-term Tesla ownership. It would be a shame for that not to work out! I hope this comment lasts for 5 years :)

gok 8y ago
Please don't link to Phil Mason / Thunderf00t. In addition to being a misogynist (top videos include "Feminism versus FACTS" and "Why feminism poisons everything"), he's also a food scientist posing as a rocket scientist.
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  Please don't assert that someone's beliefs or advocacy about a political movement make them wrong about facts. Classic ad hominem fallacy. Listening to people making sound arguments about X even though you disagree with them about Y is healthy, and the lack of this health is a major intellectual problem of this century in my humble opinion. Listen more, judge less. Post and watch more things from people with whom you disagree. And don't shut people down just because their views on unrelated topics are not palatable to you.

slg 8y ago

I really don't get the hate this is receiving considering the context of what is going on in Los Angeles. Traffic is a problem city wide, but it is particularly bad for events at Dodgers Stadium. Musk's plan won't fix all of that, but it won't hurt. I also don't see how the plan is any more outlandish than this [1] plan for gondolas to Dodgers Stadium which is closer to actually happening. Either way, both of those projects are using private money. If people want to try to fix traffic themselves and all they need from the public is permission, why should we stop them? That is an infinitely better approach that approving spending hundreds of millions of public dollars on a trolley system a few miles from Dodgers Stadium [2] or an even more massive investments into a subway system that most Angelenos never use and therefore are hesitant to support. [1] - http://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/gondola-proposal/ http://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/gondola-proposal/ [2] - http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-downtown-streetcar-20180818-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-downtown-str...

x0x0 8y ago
Elon's plan is very expensive and clearly won't help, if you're even mildly numerate (2400 whole people per hour at full capacity). It's also farcical to pretend this will happen without enormous piles of public money, both implicit in terms of right of way, and explicit via enormous subsidies. The proposed revenues are a dollar per ride! This thing is an enormous cash fire.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  clearly won't help, if you're even mildly numerate (2400 whole people per hour at full capacity) So you're defining "help" == "completely solve." Would you say that a program offering discounts to people who carpool to Dodger's stadium would not help unless it completely solved the problem? Would a gondola going to Dodger's stadium "not help?" It's also farcical to pretend this will happen without enormous piles of public money, both implicit in terms of right of way, and explicit via enormous subsidies. The whole point of the boring company is to get the tunnel boring infrastructure out of the government-laden, subsidy-heavy mode of operation. It's the same overall strategy as was behind SpaceX.

joshuaheard 8y ago

Why don't they build a spur off the LA Metro from Union Station a short distance up to Dodger Stadium? They build a metro but it doesn't go where people want, like the airport, the Rose Bowl, or the new stadium they are building.

mixmastamyk 8y ago
The Gold line almost goes there as well.
- tomjakubowski 8y ago
  If you're able-bodied, the walk from Chinatown station to Dodger Stadium is pretty easy and very pleasant until you get to the stadium grounds -- where you are shoved aside for cars to climb the hill into the parking lots. I really wish the stadium would improve pedestrian access; at least place a real curbed sidewalk at the downtown gate.
tomjakubowski 8y ago
> They build a metro but it doesn't go where people want, like the airport, the Rose Bowl, or the new stadium they are building. Metro rail connects some of the densest residential (South LA, Koreatown/Mid-Wilshire, Mid-City, Palms, Hollywood) and commercial (Long Beach, Pasadena, Koreatown, Hollywood, Downtown, Santa Monica) districts of the region. Prioritizing Metro rail construction to bring people to POIs like LAX or the Rose Bowl for what amounts to a handful of trips a year per person would be a waste. Better to serve trips people make nearly every day, like commuting to work or school and going shopping.
- Helloworldboy 8y ago
  Why not both?
- joshuaheard 8y ago
  POIs like the airport and entertainment venues are perfect for the Metro because they cause huge traffic jams, there is very little parking, and the added convenience for occasional riders would increase overall ridership. Metro for commuters is great, but what about everybody else? If you want people to take the Metro, go where they want to go. I don't use the Metro for commuting but would use it to go the the airport or ball game to avoid traffic and parking.

bnycum 8y ago

I'm a huge baseball fan and saw this Twitter thread this morning[0]. Definitely an interesting scroll. There was a meeting yesterday at Dodger stadium to discuss this, that was announced just 12 hours prior. I'll bullet some high points. * Some of the commenters at the meeting were actually SpaceX employees. * It's an idea to boost attendance, meanwhile Dodgers led the majors in average attendance per game. (It's true the Dodgers have a lot of season tickets to companies, who might not actually use them). * Could only transport 3% of fans. [0]: https://twitter.com/erinscafe/status/1034456203890372609 https://twitter.com/erinscafe/status/1034456203890372609

jackconnor 8y ago

The "hole" is that they think construction costs are too high based on "engineering literature". While the literature does undoubtedly say this, Musk's MO with SpaceX is doing things way, way cheaper than competitors, so I'm interested to see how he handles it.

takk309 8y ago
Decades of civil engineering differs with you. The cost to move a cubic yard of soil is rather well known for a given area. Labor costs are well established. I don't see how he is going to cut enough corners to make it cheaper by any noticeable amount. Privately funded earthwork projects are nothing new.
- natosaichek 8y ago
  >The cost to move a cubic yard of soil is rather well known for a given area Given traditional technologies and techniques > Labor costs are well established Primarily for union labor using traditional tools and techniques. When spacex was started, the cost to move a kg of satellite into low earth orbit was well known. The cost of a new rocket development program from an engineering hours / labor cost perspective was also well established. He broke a few assumptions people had, which resulted in dramatically lower costs. I don't see why that strategy wouldn't _fundamentally_ play out similarly for TBC.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    > I don't see why that strategy wouldn't _fundamentally_ play out similarly for TBC. Because they have given a reason why they expect lower costs. They don't expect to be able to actually reduce the cost of a boring a tunnel at fixed diameter; they want to bore smaller tunnels and assert that's good enough.
  - takk309 8y ago
    Traditional technologies and techniques for earth moving are rather simple and well refined. Moving soil still requires one to excavate the soil and transport the soil. I can't see any way around that. There are only so many ways to improve on this model. In rural environments it is possible to use larger haul trucks to move the materials. The urban nature of the construction site will limit the size of vehicles that can be used to transport the materials. As for the excavation equipment, a tunnel boring machine (TBM) is obviously the tool of choice. Maybe some efficiencies can be gained with the TBM through some sort of re-usability. The space analogy, in mind, is not a great one. Prior to SpaceX, launches were generally a rare and expensive thing. Musk has changed that by making the process more efficient. Earth work, on the other hand, is done every day. There is likely a large dirt moving operation somewhere near every person that will see this thread. Be it excavation for the foundation of a large building or the construction of a roadway, moving earth is extremely common. [edit] Clarity in the last sentence of the first paragraph.

mixmastamyk 8y ago

Another super-negative article. Let them try and pay for it I say. As a fellow nobody, I'd never think to stand in the way of folks attempting to improve things. The route is good. I've often thought the Red line itself should go a more direct route down Sunset. The Vermont leg could be reused as a north/south from Exposition to Griffith Park where traffic is also horrendous. The Purple line uses the rest. Unlikely in my lifetime, however. There are a few errors in the article as well. The red line turn where the map shows it connecting is an open plaza in the middle of a three road intersection: Hollywood-Prospect/Vermont/Sunset.

mcguire 8y ago

From http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/June-2018/Theres-Reason-to-Be-Skeptical-About-Elon-Musks-OHare-Express/ http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/June-2018/Theres-Reason-...: "[According to the Boring Company FAQ,] The current standard for a one-lane tunnel is approximately 28 feet. By placing vehicles on a stabilized electric skate, the diameter can be reduced to less than 14 feet. Reducing the diameter in half reduces tunneling costs by 3-4 times. "This claim is contradicted in professional literature. Studies of particle accelerator tunnels as well as rail tunnels that look at different diameters find that reducing the diameter in half reduces costs by a factor of two and not three or four." That's actually quite surprising. I would have thought that changing the diameter would have no effect whatsoever on the price of boring a tunnel, to a first order of approximation. Almost none of the variables involved are dependent on the diameter of the tunnel.

infogulch 8y ago
Well the area of a circular tunnel is proportial to the square of the diameter. Perhaps a lower area allows the bore to tunnel faster? That kinda makes sense, but I have no idea how much the area of a circle relates to tunnel boring in reality, if at all.
- mcguire 8y ago
  The tunnel boring machine would likely cost much more, for a larger tunnel, but it's fixed relative to the length and a capital expenditure, much of which can be recovered or re-used. The amount of material moved would be proportional to the area of the tunnel, but I can't see that as a major cost factor. A larger machine would need more lining material, and more workers... And it still doesn't address the terminals.
jcranmer 8y ago
Musk seems to think that costs for tunneling are proportional to the square of the diameter (i.e., proportional to cross-section). If you assume that the cost is dominated by the amount of spoil you need to excavate, that makes sense. But that's not the domination of the cost. A tunnel bore is relatively cheap. Musk cites the costs of $1 billion/mi. subways, but that is a very malicious bait-and-switch. The tunneling cost for those subways come out to around $100-150M per track-mile of tunnel, and I suspect that includes the standard tunnel accoutrements: drainage, airflow, lighting, etc. Much of those accoutrements are invariant to the tunnel diameter, to a first approximation. Tunnel-boring itself has some costs, but most of those don't scale as fast as cross-sectional area. Cutting head replacements and the ultimate spoil disposal are the only things I can think of that do. The TBM itself, and the tunnel shielding are going to scale linearly with circumference. Things like the power systems, spoil recovery, or manpower costs for manning the TBM are going to pretty much be invariant with size (assuming the size is generally the same magnitude). All totaled, you'd expect the costs to scale somewhere around linearly with diameter/radius.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

It seems most of his ideas lately are like this. Was he always so...wrong? Or is something personally going on in his life? Rumors that he tweeted about the privatization of Tesla while on LSD seem to make a lot of sense when you watch his recent erratic behavior.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

It seems most of his ideas lately are like this. Was he always so...wrong? Or is something personally going on in his life? Rumors that he tweeted about the privatization while on LSD seem to make a lot of sense when you watch his recent erratic behavior. https://jalopnik.com/was-elon-musk-tweeting-on-acid-azealia-banks-says-yes-1828307241 https://jalopnik.com/was-elon-musk-tweeting-on-acid-azealia-...

slivym 8y ago

What I don't understand about the Boring company is that Musk's vision seems to be: Cheap tunnels so that we can throw lots and lots of cars down them thus alleviating congestion. Everyone gets mad and points out that cars driving down tunnels do nothing to alleviate congestion, because cars driving down tunnels result in tiny tiny capacity (2800 people per day in this case?) and that if you want to solve congestion just build more train tracks and run more trains on them. Here's my question: Why is no one talking about the idea of using what Musk is pushing as a new incredible cheap way of building tunnels to build tunnels with trains in them?

brewdad 8y ago
Because Elon Musk doesn't build trains?
rohit2412 8y ago
Ask yourself this, if Tesla is so good at making autonomous driving software, and can make the cheapest batteries, and can automate manufacturing more than anyone deemed possible, why do they not sell these. Why do they target only half a million cars a year while they could completely take over multiple industries by becoming tier-1 supplier to various manufacturers? It is to maintain hype, the real truth is somewhat humbling. The same applies to boring company, if they can dig tunnels so cheaply, they would become tbm suppliers or contractors, not an end to end solution.

d3sandoval 8y ago

I mean... There's at least two holes, right? One at each end of the tunnel?