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Yes, it is. With one that caveat that if it's built 10x cheaper than comparable tunnels, it is. Moving our roads underground is a vastly superior transportation

• tdburn 7y ago
  Exactly! They didn't mention cost in the correct way in the article, only saying that it costs less because it's a small tunnel. Instead of addressing the possible cost savings from advances in tunnel digger technology that Musk hopes to achieve. the first tunnels won't make as much financial sense as subsequent tunnels but they're have to start somewhere
• duxup 7y ago
  The Big Dig strikes me as what could be as much a reason not to do that thing.
  • perennate 7y ago
    Why do you say that? Even accounting for the cost, I think many would still argue that it was worth it, replacing a highway system that divided the city with a walkable network of parks that effectively connects different neighborhoods like financial district <-> north end, along with a new series of (underground) highways that provided improved traffic flow. Before and after photos: https://imgur.com/JbgPur6 https://imgur.com/JbgPur6 If the cost issue were solved, what would be the reason not to do it? (I suppose it taking well over a decade to complete construction is an issue, but presumably new technology could improve that as well.)
    • duxup 7y ago
      >If the cost issue were solved I feel like that's a very very heavy lift. Lots of things would be great "If the cost issue were solved".
      • perennate 7y ago
        Ah okay, that makes sense (but parent comment was talking about Boring Company / other new technology potentially reducing cost in the future; though I'm also skeptical).
        • kelnos 7y ago
          I think the issue isn't that the techniques used for tunnel boring are so expensive, but that other issues (mismanagement, corruption) end up costing a lot. I don't think The Boring Company is going to solve those problems. Certainly reducing costs through new technology is a good thing, but it's not the whole picture by a long shot.
      • jlmorton 7y ago
        I agree it's a hard problem, but it's worth noting that the US has dramatically higher construction costs than any other peer. The unit cost of construction in the US is routinely double, or even triple the cost of comparable projects in other Western countries.
    • CobrastanJorji 7y ago
      Oh my God, it actually became parks?! I lived there back in 2007 or so and had no faith whatsoever that the promises that the artery would be replaced with parkland once it was finished. My apologies to the government of Boston.
    • avar 7y ago
      That doesn't look worth it at all. It cost $22 billion and the result is a narrow 1-block park through the center of Boston. Most of those buildings next to what used to be the highway are at most 10-20 stories. A 60 story skyscraper was finished in Boston this year for $700[1]. So to a first approximation they could have had a full 2-3 blocks of parks around 15 new such skyscrapers to get the same building space after demolishing most of the buildings seen in the foreground on that picture, and have come out even on floor area. They'd then have had had $12 billion left over to elevate the highway and put that elevated highway in a tunnel to cancel out the noise before they got to to $22 billion. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Seasons_Hotel_%26_Private_Residences,_One_Dalton_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Seasons_Hotel_%26_Private...
  • SisypheanLife 7y ago
    And Seattle avoided all of these: https://www.king5.com/video/news/local/seattle-tunnel-lessons-learned-from-bostons-big-dig/281-0d9ffc88-9f52-492a-8df3-13d916be9899 https://www.king5.com/video/news/local/seattle-tunnel-lesson...
    • duxup 7y ago
      I think avoided "as much" trouble as the big dig might be more accurate.
• ryantgtg 7y ago
  What's a comparable tunnel? Isn't the Vegas loop a single lane tunnel for personal vehicles? I can't think of other existing/planned tunnels that fit that description, aside from other Boring Co ones. I'm not at all convinced that this design can scale.
  • reaperducer 7y ago
    It's not for personal vehicles. It's for moving conventioneers from one end of the convention center to another. Think of it as one of those people movers they have at some airports.
    • ryantgtg 7y ago
      I meant personal in the sense that they're not mass transit vehicles. They're Tesla vehicles with a capacity of 5. I'll think of it as a people mover once they show us a vehicle that isn't an existing Tesla model.
    • dwighttk 7y ago
      so we are talking about it only because of Elon?
      • reaperducer 7y ago
        It feels that way. As much as I want Mr. Musk to succeed, this doesn't feel any better than the dozens of other small people movers that have been around for half a century or more. The only point of difference I can see is that it's going to be more on-demand (though that's been done before), and it's going to be cheap.
  • noer 7y ago
    From the description, it seems comparable to the subway system underneath the US Capitol building, House & Senate office buildings
• pdq 7y ago
  This Boring Tunnel is all hype so far. The demo tunnel doesn't look to have sufficient ventilation or emergency exits in case of fire, car crash, etc. They haven't addressed the ingress and egress congestion problems into and out of the tunnel. How can a single elevator go up/down to handle 1000+ cars per hour (4400 passengers per hour)? Basic math gives you 3.6 seconds for the elevator to go down, wait for the car to offramp, go back up, and wait for the next car to onramp. These are some of the many reasons tunnels and subways get expensive. You can't just build a basic tunnel rigged with cars and say "problem solved" at 1/10th the cost.
  • WhompingWindows 7y ago
    It's mostly hype yes, what do you expect from a startup? The strongest premise is the tunnel diameter is smaller, therefore quicker and cheaper to build. There may be efficiencies to be gained through improved engineering of tunneling machines as well, given SpaceX and Tesla's innovations. Yes, there are many problems left, however every start-up faces a number of problems. They're basically just lining up to build an MVP, or perhaps that was the previous tunnel and LVCC is the beta version. In either case, they have a CEO famous for his marketing and overly optimistic promises. If this wasn't an Elon Musk venture, I doubt it'd be getting over-hyped and blasted as much as it is.
    • HillRat 7y ago
      The price tag for the tunnel is pretty much what you’d expect at the low end of civil engineering costs, so there’s no room in the pricing if things start to go south. Musk’s entire premise is that there are magical inefficiencies in the commercial tunnel boring machines he’s purchased, and he assumes that spacecraft and automotive engineering expertise is sufficiently transferable to uncover those opportunities and redesign a considerably more efficient and cheaper machine. Oh, and using commercial automobiles will be faster, cheaper, and more pax-intensive than light rail solutions. I’m … skeptical. Let’s go with “skeptical” on this one.
      • jcranmer 7y ago
• dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >I grew up near Boston during the big dig and the city is a drastically different place before and after the Central Artery. What did the Big Dig do that a better central artery with more decks wouldn't? The whole "highways are ugly" argument really is mostly from/for upscale people who don't want their view ruined. Very few people who actually has to use or live/work near the infrastructure really cares all that much about it's presence. It's just a fact of life. Heck, if you painted it like something interesting everyone would stop caring in a couple years (i.e. same thing that happened to the rainbow natural gas tank on the side of I93). Putting stuff underground is expensive and complicated compare to building above ground.
  • brlewis 7y ago
    Hi. I work near the infrastructure and I care about its presence or lack thereof. Fortunately the oppressively loud, reverberating steel structure is no longer a fact of life. When I walk through that area I am literally no longer in its shadow. https://ourdoings.com/brlewis/2008-05-14 https://ourdoings.com/brlewis/2008-05-14
  • untog 7y ago
    > The whole "highways are ugly" argument really is mostly from/for upscale people who don't want their view ruined. That's really, really not true. And "it's ugly" isn't the argument usually presented, either - it's that it's a tremendous waste of space. Move all the roads underground and you can reuse that land. Maybe for a park, but also maybe for high-density housing that will make things more affordable for everyone.
  • bryanlarsen 7y ago
    The big dig is way more pedestrian friendly than multiple decks and pedestrian overpasses. And pedestrians are a huge positive for cities in so many ways.
• bluGill 7y ago
  I disagree. Cars should be at surface levels. Going below ground or above ground is too expensive: cars (and more importantly trucks which this tunnel doesn't cover at all) are heavy and so they need expensive infrastructure. We can have tunnels and overpass in places where required, but in general cars belong at surface level. What we should be doing is moving humans up: we should be building sky ways between buildings. Someone on foot (I'll allow wheelchairs) is not very heavy and doesn't take much space: the amount of infrastructure needed to support them is not nearly as expensive as moving cars to a different level. The skyway also allows for heating and air conditioning, something humans like. When the distances get long we can put in a moving sidewalk if we want. However, for the most part when distances get long humans should move back to ground level and catch a bus/train.
  • untog 7y ago
    I'm not sure I get your logic here. Why does the fact that trucks are heavy mean that they don't belong below ground and must be at surface level?
    • bluGill 7y ago
      Trucks are large: they need bigger more expensive tunnels. It isn't that we cannot do it, it is just that tunnels are expensive, and the larger you make them the more expensive they become. While a car/truck less city sounds like a great idea, it isn't practical. There are a lot of goods that need to move around somehow for a city to work. While trains or horses could be used instead, both have issues as we get to the "last mile". Thus I'm proposing get humans off the ground level - we have the technology to make this convenient today. The cost is not very high and it solves a lot of congestion problems on the street.
• deleted 7y ago
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• AlexandrB 7y ago
  > Moving our roads underground is a vastly superior transportation system than we have today. When I read stuff like this I'm flabbergasted. The cost of maintenance for tunnels is almost certainly higher than that for surface roads. That's not to mention additional considerations like always-on lighting (no free light from the sun) and poor access to businesses (so the roads still have to exist in some form). Tunnels only make sense in a few high-density urban centres, where the alternative would be elevated highways. Otherwise they're a great way to create a municipal budget time bomb when big repairs have to take place.
  • froindt 7y ago
    >The cost of maintenance for tunnels is almost certainly higher than that for surface roads. Pros would include avoiding the freeze thaw cycle that destroys roads in much of the country. Tunnels could also allow pollution mitigation to take place if internal combustion engines were used, which is simply impossible on open highways. Cons include an obviously higher initial capital expenditure. I suppose we need to get down to a cost per person moved metric over something like 30 years to more objectively compare.
• clairity 7y ago
  i really appreciate what elon musk is doing, but to be clear, he's not strictly trying to make tunneling cheaper for mass transit. as i understand it, the high costs of transportation projects are a political problem not an engineering one. well-run subway projects have been completed at $50-100 million per mile, while most such projects in the US are 5 to 10 times that. that's attributable not to sticter safety standards or excessive land costs or public agencies being inefficient, even if those things do contribute at the margins. it's because so many constituencies laden these projects with deadweight costs (lawsuits, foot-dragging, overcharging, kickbacks, etc.). while his engineering leadership is exceptional and that contributes to lowering costs, elon adeptly sidesteps much of those constituent ladenings, perhaps through careful choice of goals and projects and sheer force of will. for all his faults, he seems to have the right blend of vision, skill, money, charisma, and motivation to bring these projects to completion without a lot of deadweight loss. so the boring company's technological advances just won't translate to cost reductions generally in underground transportation projects. even if a project uses the boring company for the tunneling, the large infrastructure contractors will find ways to extract their generous slice of pie. we need political/social/economic solutions to reduce these costs, not technological ones.
  • breck 7y ago
    Sometimes technological solutions solve political problems. Won’t let me build a wire across your property—-no problem, I’ll go wireless...as an example
    • clairity 7y ago
      > "Sometimes technological solutions solve political problems." sure, but what technology could be applied in this case? for instance, projects are often underbid and then overcharged over time, whether it's fixed bid or time and materials. fixed bid incentivizes subcontractors to cut corners. time and materials billing incentivizes subcontractors to be inefficient. and subcontractors find ways to cheat. people have tried complicated incentive systems to fix this issue (a kind of technological solution), but they seem to have mixed results (that is, not much better, for a lot more complexity in tracking and apportioning compensation). even if you could build a machine to monitor all the workers and perfectly pay them based on quality and efficiency, such dystopian conditions would most certainly meet heavy resistance. i mean, i love tech, but who'd want a machine controlling their lives?
• audiometry 7y ago
  It’s not built 10x cheaper than others’ construction price. https://youtu.be/0ezF7NmwQZs https://youtu.be/0ezF7NmwQZs
• baroffoos 7y ago
  How would tunnels be any better for air quality? You either vent all the toxic fumes to the surface or you kill everyone in the tunnel. Underground trains make far more sense than underground roads.