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If only New York had a series of underground tubes connecting different parts of the cities. We could put trains in those tubes!
by scoopdewoop 5y ago
If only New York had a series of underground tubes connecting different parts of the cities. We could put trains in those tubes!
- curiousllama 5y agoIt does sound kinda wild when you put it that way. Propose that today and I'd be like "what the HN delusions is this?"
- raldi 5y agoLet's string wires on poles down every street in the nation and use them to put a device in every home that allows anyone in the world to ring a loud bell at any hour, day or night.
- dannyw 5y agoI was thinking about how crazy this is before realising it's true.
- danielbln 5y agoStill sounds partly crazy to me (German). All those lines on poles in the US, I think the only lines here that are above ground are these super high voltage long distance power lines, anything else is underground (and safe from weather etc.)
- AlotOfReading 5y agoGeology is one reason. Many major urban areas in the western US have a layer of caliche under the surface. Digging through 1m+ of natural concrete makes underground lines even more hideously expensive than they would otherwise be.
- ruined 5y agopathetic. the real money is if we blanket the planet in radio from high towers and poles, create thousands of types of mostly-incompatible portable wallet-sized devices that provide this ring-a-loud-bell functionality, make them requisite for daily life so everyone must purchase one to the tune of hundreds of dollars per year and keep it on their person, and then create an automated system that randomly rings every device multiple times per day trying to steal money. oh also they spy on everyone constantly and deliver incredibly volatile cognitohazards if you so much as look at them. and we'll move on from this when we develop cheap brain implants that are even worse
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sidpatil 5y agoNot necessarily. E.g. Hyperloop.
- gambiting 5y agoWhat do you mean not necessarily. Hyperloop sounds like a complete and utter fantasy. Closely followed by tunnels in LA where cars drive themselves actually.
- Retric 5y agoYes, who would get into a vehicle when the outside air pressure is below 5 PSI. I mean if the seals broke you could die, and for what to save on fuel costs. What’s next flying through the air in a flying brick instead of the naturally buoyant dirigible, just imagine what happens if the engine cuts out… It’s madness, madness I say!
- emkoemko 5y agoto save on fuel cost but spend a lot of money running pumps to keep a tube near vacuum ? these people are insane... just like building a tunnel to drive a car back and forth and pretend like its some new innovation, if only they knew of trains and trains that move underground in tunnels.
- Retric 5y agoCommercial jet aircraft fly at 30,000 feet ~4psi to save on fuel which also translates to higher speeds, which was the joke. Hyperloop was supposed to be lower at ~0.1 psi mostly to allow for higher speeds. As to the effort to maintain a low vacuum, that has relatively minimal associated energy costs assuming the track is reasonably air tight.
- emkoemko 5y agodo you know how hard it is so keep vacuum? let alone massive tubes ? imagine just the temperature differences on day to night cycle and the overall length just look at the energy cost and how much a pump can do in a reasonable time period vs the volume of a large distance tube.
- croddin 5y agoYeah stop with this Boring Company crazy talk! /s
- marcosdumay 5y agoDo you have any idea how much that would cost?!
- Johnie 5y agoAre you referring to the steam pipes? What is this? An underground metro for ANTS!?! It needs to be at least twice as large!!
- deegles 5y agoIf we're unlucky we'll get the worst of both worlds and they'll build tons of tunnels for cars only.
- decebalus1 5y agoIf that insanely stupid shit catches on, it will be the moment I decide to buy a missile silo or a lighthouse and become a full blown hermit.
- azth 5y agoCan I find one on Zillow? :P
- jrockway 5y agoI could live with this. Imagine that every street had a car tunnel under it; it means the space that's taken up by streets today could just be a pleasant park. There would be benches. Kids would be playing catch in them. Instead of loud honking because traffic moving slowly, there would be sunflowers and tall grass everywhere. I'll take it! It would basically remove cars from cities, without actually removing cars from cities. Seems like a reasonable compromise to me.
- andylynch 5y agoThey started building this kind of thing around London Walk after the war - rather than more tunnels the cars are at ground level and the walkways above. Best seen at the Barbican and in a newer flavour around JP Morgan’s new office nearby.
- xmprt 5y agoAnd how would people get in and out of the tunnels?
- jrockway 5y agoI think we just repurpose storm drains for that. Always bring a ladder with you in the trunk of the car! (I'm kidding. Chicago has a mildly extensive two level street system, and there are just doors in the "basements" of buildings that open up to the subterranean streets. I always thought it was neat, but was also afraid to walk around on the lower level. Also, the top level wasn't parks, it was just more car lanes.)
- misiti3780 5y agoYou can blame Robert Moses for that. Everyone that lives in NYC or NJ (or LI) should "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro and you will be blown away. He despised public transportation (because he never learned to drive, he always had a driver) .He actively designed bridges (over highways) to be purposely low so that the highways could not have bus lanes. When he was building the highways and bridges, he knew that the solution was to combine them with subway lines to reduce traffic congestion but refused to because he was so arrogant and power hungry. His solution was always to widen existing highways or build more highways, and public transportation ridership went from very high in the 1920s to very low in the 1950s/60s. He did build a lot of stuff, but you could argue that NYC in 2021 is a worse place because of it -- and you really could argue that if you had grandparents (or great-grandparents) that were evicted by his housing policies or construction projects.
- emodendroket 5y agoWhile that's all interesting, unless Robert Moses was directing essentially every American city's development it's more than just his preferences that were at work.
- eslaught 5y agoI'm not all the way through the book, but I believe this is basically the point. Once Moses' "success" in NY became known, everywhere else in the US started to copy his approach. So he really did have a national influence.
- misiti3780 5y agoI think it is a combination of Moses success being copied and then Eisenhower's Highway funding encouraging roads over subways
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wolverine876 5y ago> He actively designed bridges (over highways) to be purposely low so that the highways could not have bus lanes. That was to keep black New Yorkers from a white beach in, I think, Brooklyn, according to the story I saw.