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You can scale with tunnels. I also suggested congestion pricing in my last paragraph. Having congestion pricing on highways is also a good idea because it can r

You can scale with tunnels. I also suggested congestion pricing in my last paragraph. Having congestion pricing on highways is also a good idea because it can reveal the price people are willing to pay for uncongested travel. That gives people an idea on how much a tunnel could make and motivate spending money on building it.

bobthepanda 8y ago
Tunnels right now are way too expensive per lane mile. And you also need interchanges to connect surface with tunnels, which runs into the same space issues that exist above ground. Yes, the Boring Company is suggesting we can somehow solve this expensive tunnel problem with sleds for cars and vertical elevators, but those are all proof of concepts, and in any case they would probably be less reliable than current infrastructure due to the addition of more moving parts.
- njarboe 8y ago
  I guess my point is that point to point, user initiated transportation is a great idea. It is what makes cities great places to live in. All the millions of possible people to interact with and become friends with, etc. I think we should try to enhance the transportation options of people, not force them to certain train stops or times of day. You could just do this by walking and elevators, but more extensive transportation would give even more options. There should be 10 or 100 or a 1000 Boring Companies working on the problem with transportation in cities. It is one of the 5 or 10 biggest problems of our age.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    Train stops are hardly 'forcing.' Is Lyft, Uber, et. al asking people to walk a few tens of meters and clump up at stops along a route 'forcing'? Because this seems to be the conclusion that even the market-oriented, point-to-point rideshares have come to for efficient transportation after burning through lots of VC money [1]. And if you're feeling social you can interact on the train or bus. The scope of interaction while you're in your own personal aluminum bubble barreling along is much lower. If it were significantly easier to build tunnels, someone would've done it already. Unlike space, or solar energy, or batteries, or cars, tunnels have consistent market demand, and existing technologies are not meeting that demand very well. There is already a very lightweight, space efficient transportation point-to-point option; the bicycle. Today with current battery technology, even the crappiest bikeshare e-bikes hit 20-30mph and have a 50+ mile range. If you really need a car, just get a Zipcar or a Reachnow or a Car2Go, etc. But by no means should we continue to favor the car at great expense. [1] - http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/06/lyft-reinvents-the-bus.html http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/06/lyft-reinvents-the-bus.ht...
adrianN 8y ago
You can scale a lot better if you put trains in those tunnels.
- njarboe 8y ago
  How about trains of vehicles that are automatically driven, can spit apart and only pieces with people in that that want to stop, stop, and the rest of the train just keeps moving? You could even let people pay extra to have a train car just to themselves and their friends. It would never have to stop for other people and go directly to where the group of people wanted to go. These train cars could even be designed to run on public streets and you could take it from the train tracks onto the road system. People could maybe, if they thought it was worth it, even own their individual train cars. They might like to carry around lots of stuff or pick up some furniture or a pile of groceries. Who knows. With such flexible train cars, most people might like using the train.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    That's a nice idea. However, it requires a lot of technology that we currently don't have. Given that building new underground lines in cities is already a project that takes more at least a decade from planning to finishing, I don't think waiting for a) self driving technology to mature (this includes regulatory approval!), and b) self driving technology becoming cheap enough to compete with rail, is a good idea if you want to prevent total traffic breakdown in the face of continuing urbanization.
    - njarboe 8y ago
      Self-driving vehicles already work really great in a controlled environment like a well marked single lane tunnel. The tech to do this is already here. The Boring Company has recently announced a Dodger Stadium to Red line tunnel project. Construction time estimated at 14 months. If it is running two years from now, that might get people think about new time frames for tunnel projects. Hope it works.

bobthepanda 8y ago

Tunnels right now are way too expensive per lane mile. And you also need interchanges to connect surface with tunnels, which runs into the same space issues that exist above ground. Yes, the Boring Company is suggesting we can somehow solve this expensive tunnel problem with sleds for cars and vertical elevators, but those are all proof of concepts, and in any case they would probably be less reliable than current infrastructure due to the addition of more moving parts.

njarboe 8y ago
I guess my point is that point to point, user initiated transportation is a great idea. It is what makes cities great places to live in. All the millions of possible people to interact with and become friends with, etc. I think we should try to enhance the transportation options of people, not force them to certain train stops or times of day. You could just do this by walking and elevators, but more extensive transportation would give even more options. There should be 10 or 100 or a 1000 Boring Companies working on the problem with transportation in cities. It is one of the 5 or 10 biggest problems of our age.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  Train stops are hardly 'forcing.' Is Lyft, Uber, et. al asking people to walk a few tens of meters and clump up at stops along a route 'forcing'? Because this seems to be the conclusion that even the market-oriented, point-to-point rideshares have come to for efficient transportation after burning through lots of VC money [1]. And if you're feeling social you can interact on the train or bus. The scope of interaction while you're in your own personal aluminum bubble barreling along is much lower. If it were significantly easier to build tunnels, someone would've done it already. Unlike space, or solar energy, or batteries, or cars, tunnels have consistent market demand, and existing technologies are not meeting that demand very well. There is already a very lightweight, space efficient transportation point-to-point option; the bicycle. Today with current battery technology, even the crappiest bikeshare e-bikes hit 20-30mph and have a 50+ mile range. If you really need a car, just get a Zipcar or a Reachnow or a Car2Go, etc. But by no means should we continue to favor the car at great expense. [1] - http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/06/lyft-reinvents-the-bus.html http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/06/lyft-reinvents-the-bus.ht...

adrianN 8y ago

You can scale a lot better if you put trains in those tunnels.

njarboe 8y ago
How about trains of vehicles that are automatically driven, can spit apart and only pieces with people in that that want to stop, stop, and the rest of the train just keeps moving? You could even let people pay extra to have a train car just to themselves and their friends. It would never have to stop for other people and go directly to where the group of people wanted to go. These train cars could even be designed to run on public streets and you could take it from the train tracks onto the road system. People could maybe, if they thought it was worth it, even own their individual train cars. They might like to carry around lots of stuff or pick up some furniture or a pile of groceries. Who knows. With such flexible train cars, most people might like using the train.
- adrianN 8y ago
  That's a nice idea. However, it requires a lot of technology that we currently don't have. Given that building new underground lines in cities is already a project that takes more at least a decade from planning to finishing, I don't think waiting for a) self driving technology to mature (this includes regulatory approval!), and b) self driving technology becoming cheap enough to compete with rail, is a good idea if you want to prevent total traffic breakdown in the face of continuing urbanization.
  - njarboe 8y ago
    Self-driving vehicles already work really great in a controlled environment like a well marked single lane tunnel. The tech to do this is already here. The Boring Company has recently announced a Dodger Stadium to Red line tunnel project. Construction time estimated at 14 months. If it is running two years from now, that might get people think about new time frames for tunnel projects. Hope it works.