5 ms·

I still don't understand why people (or cities) are excited about the Boring Company when subways and other forms of public transportation have existed for hund

by eiiot 4y ago

I still don't understand why people (or cities) are excited about the Boring Company when subways and other forms of public transportation have existed for hundreds of years, and are much more efficient at their job (solving traffic).

asdff 4y ago
Because the people who are excited about the boring company clearly do not understand anything about how a typical subway functions. For the cities, they do know better, they often compared these projects against the cost of rail transit, they just got fleeced by Boring company that straight up made up numbers apparently about project costs with no intention to deliver. Like it would be a comparison of a 1 billion dollar light rail or a supposedly 48 million dollar underground right of way, that's damn attractive for cities.
cuteboy19 4y ago
It was very cathartic to see the traffic jam in the LA boring loop. "He Fixed Traffic" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p8NiM_p8n5A https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p8NiM_p8n5A
- beezle 4y ago
  man that would make me totally claustrophobic trapped in the car
- mindracer 4y ago
  That tunnel is way to narrow, what happens in the event of an emergency or breakdown?
  - cuteboy19 4y ago
    That's probably going to be a very rare scenario. It is not as if Teslas spontaneously catch on fire out of nowhere
vwoolf 4y ago
Then you are evidently not paying attention: https://www.vice.com/en/article/884kvk/why-the-us-sucks-at-building-public-transit https://www.vice.com/en/article/884kvk/why-the-us-sucks-at-b... or https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgym5j/heres-how-the-us-can-stop-wasting-billions-of-dollars-on-each-transit-project https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgym5j/heres-how-the-us-can-.... Costs are currently prohibitive and we're suffering terrible, self-inflicted wounds in the form of costs.
- eiiot 4y ago
  So the solution is to build a system with all the same flaws, but loses every benefit offered by traditional public transit systems? The US is obviously bad at public transit, but the solution isn't to build tunnels for cars.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    You say that like it's obvious, but to Americans who can't imagine life without cars, it just isn't.
    - WeylandYutani 4y ago
      I think that is not entirely true. I'm sure everyone in Chicago, Boston or New York understands how many cars it would take to replace public transit.
      - tomjakubowski 4y ago
        And how much space they'd need to clear in their cities to make room for those cars.
      - runarberg 4y ago
        Even in San Francisco. The amount of people the Bay Bridge serves in congested rush hour traffic (14,000 people one direction) is just half the people the Transbay tube serves inside BART trains (27,000 one direction). Without the Transbay tube you’d need 2 more bay bridges to accommodate the additional traffic, and there is no way you could fit all those cars on the San Francisco streets, not even if they rebuilt the waterfront highway. https://youtu.be/HbZXtSnabWc?t=226 https://youtu.be/HbZXtSnabWc?t=226
acdha 4y ago
The United States spent a century with the heavily promoted ideal being a world where each adult drives everywhere. The concept of induced demand ensuring congestion was understood for almost that long but the image was popular, especially starting in the 1950s when de jure segregation in cities had to be replaced with de facto segregation in suburbs. Boring tunnels, like self-driving cars, offers the appealing vision of saying you can remove a lot of daily misery with this one relatively cheap technology and won’t have to make any deeper changes.

by eiiot 4y ago

asdff 4y ago

Because the people who are excited about the boring company clearly do not understand anything about how a typical subway functions. For the cities, they do know better, they often compared these projects against the cost of rail transit, they just got fleeced by Boring company that straight up made up numbers apparently about project costs with no intention to deliver. Like it would be a comparison of a 1 billion dollar light rail or a supposedly 48 million dollar underground right of way, that's damn attractive for cities.

cuteboy19 4y ago

It was very cathartic to see the traffic jam in the LA boring loop. "He Fixed Traffic" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p8NiM_p8n5A https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p8NiM_p8n5A

beezle 4y ago
man that would make me totally claustrophobic trapped in the car
mindracer 4y ago
That tunnel is way to narrow, what happens in the event of an emergency or breakdown?
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  That's probably going to be a very rare scenario. It is not as if Teslas spontaneously catch on fire out of nowhere

vwoolf 4y ago

Then you are evidently not paying attention: https://www.vice.com/en/article/884kvk/why-the-us-sucks-at-building-public-transit https://www.vice.com/en/article/884kvk/why-the-us-sucks-at-b... or https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgym5j/heres-how-the-us-can-stop-wasting-billions-of-dollars-on-each-transit-project https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgym5j/heres-how-the-us-can-.... Costs are currently prohibitive and we're suffering terrible, self-inflicted wounds in the form of costs.

eiiot 4y ago
So the solution is to build a system with all the same flaws, but loses every benefit offered by traditional public transit systems? The US is obviously bad at public transit, but the solution isn't to build tunnels for cars.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  You say that like it's obvious, but to Americans who can't imagine life without cars, it just isn't.
  - WeylandYutani 4y ago
    I think that is not entirely true. I'm sure everyone in Chicago, Boston or New York understands how many cars it would take to replace public transit.
    - tomjakubowski 4y ago
      And how much space they'd need to clear in their cities to make room for those cars.
    - runarberg 4y ago
      Even in San Francisco. The amount of people the Bay Bridge serves in congested rush hour traffic (14,000 people one direction) is just half the people the Transbay tube serves inside BART trains (27,000 one direction). Without the Transbay tube you’d need 2 more bay bridges to accommodate the additional traffic, and there is no way you could fit all those cars on the San Francisco streets, not even if they rebuilt the waterfront highway. https://youtu.be/HbZXtSnabWc?t=226 https://youtu.be/HbZXtSnabWc?t=226

acdha 4y ago

The United States spent a century with the heavily promoted ideal being a world where each adult drives everywhere. The concept of induced demand ensuring congestion was understood for almost that long but the image was popular, especially starting in the 1950s when de jure segregation in cities had to be replaced with de facto segregation in suburbs. Boring tunnels, like self-driving cars, offers the appealing vision of saying you can remove a lot of daily misery with this one relatively cheap technology and won’t have to make any deeper changes.