6 ms·
That's only a valid comparison if you take massive infrastructure projects head-on. There is no law of physics stating that these tunnels can't be used for othe
by maxharris 7y ago
That's only a valid comparison if you take massive infrastructure projects head-on. There is no law of physics stating that these tunnels can't be used for other situations and purposes.
Several things come to mind:
1. There are lots of places with lower density than city centers, but higher density than suburbs that would benefit massively from underground transportation.
2. Smaller tunnels running everywhere will be very useful for package delivery! John McCarthy (the man that gave us LISP) explains it in detail here: http://jmc.stanford.edu/commentary/future/delivery.html http://jmc.stanford.edu/commentary/future/delivery.html
3. Let's not discount the strong likelihood of further cost reductions. The Boring Company has made huge strides already, with further cost and speed gains to be had from a TBM they are designing and building from scratch: https://www.teslarati.com/boring-company-line-storm-tunneling-machine-active/ https://www.teslarati.com/boring-company-line-storm-tunnelin...
- reitzensteinm 7y agoDo you have any citation for the "huge strides" TBC has made already? The only concrete numbers I've seen have been apples to oranges, either not normalizing for cross section area, or comparing just the cost of TBC digging to complete projects.
- microtherion 7y agoIt appears that The Boring Company uses both off-the-shelf TBMs and their own designs (and, I think, also a customized off-the-shelf TBM). It would be interesting to learn which one they used here.