Frankly after the Las Vegas Loop dramatically underperforming their promises it’s incredible that anyone would ever hire the Boring Company for literally anything. For those who don’t know, the...
Frankly after the Las Vegas Loop dramatically underperforming their promises it’s incredible that anyone would ever hire the Boring Company for literally anything.
For those who don’t know, the Loop isn’t even a real loop. They send traffic both ways on a single lane tunnel, which means having to stop all traffic on a segment until the car inside of it clears. They were supposed to launch with fully autonomous cars to ferry people and instead they use regular teslas with chauffeurs. The loop isn’t even entirely underground; there are one or two places where it surfaces and the cars take surface streets. The end result is a transportation system that is both more expensive and slower than the preexisting bus system. It may actually be worse than getting a taxi, since most of the places often have them waiting around nearby.
You're also probably much less likely to die in a bus or taxi fire above ground than in a narrow tube that surely will have exit hatches and SCBA storage for six people every 100m along with...
You're also probably much less likely to die in a bus or taxi fire above ground than in a narrow tube that surely will have exit hatches and SCBA storage for six people every 100m along with non-toxic fire retardants and a robust ventilation system. Right? ...right?
After years of hype and promises to wipe out the scourge of traffic — but with only a Las Vegas tourist attraction to show for it — Elon Musk’s tunneling startup says it’s set to begin digging its first full-fledged transit corridor underneath Nashville.
There’s just one catch: City officials, as well as people with more experience building tunnels, think it’s a very bad idea.
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The Boring Co. has dug a launch shaft and assembled a machine to begin drilling two roughly 10-mile tunnels running from a spot near the Tennessee capitol building to the airport. The “Music City Loop” will feature a fleet of chauffeured Teslas taking “thousands of people per hour” between downtown and the airport, easing highway congestion. Boring says the system will be safe and operate with the required state and city permits.
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The company says the project will be entirely self-funded, requiring nothing from taxpayers. In documents provided to Nashville officials, Boring says it will spend “a few hundred million dollars” to build a seamless and expandable underground network.
Those claims are baffling to people in the tunneling business, especially because of the terrain Boring will have to navigate: the tricky, sinkhole-prone limestone bedrock of middle Tennessee. The construction risks range from collapsing the ground beneath a heavily traveled state highway, to knocking out utility connections, to flooding the tunnel with groundwater.
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Many Nashville officials share those doubts. Over months, the city has pressed Boring for details on its technical prowess as well as basic information about how the system would operate in emergencies such as fires and floods. The responses, many officials say, have been inadequate.
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But Boring has an advantage in pushing the project: the American partisan divide, as seen in Nashville itself — a city dominated by Democrats like O’Connell in a state where Republicans rule. Musk’s reputation for spouting grandiose ideas that fail to come to fruition and running roughshod over rules, along with his support for Donald Trump, made many Nashville officials skeptical of Boring when the company first approached in 2024. But Musk’s ties to the MAGA movement have been seen as an asset in Boring’s dealings with Lee and the state.
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There is little the city can do to stop the project from getting underway as long as it has the state’s support. The Lee administration is allowing Boring to use a state-owned parking lot as staging grounds to launch its tunneling machine. The route to the airport is almost entirely under state-controlled roads, reducing the need for easements from private landowners or the city.
An ill-concieved idea that will probably have deadly consequences for Nashville for decades to come. Such is life when it turns out the primary cost savings come by way of throwing safety,...
An ill-concieved idea that will probably have deadly consequences for Nashville for decades to come.
Such is life when it turns out the primary cost savings come by way of throwing safety, environmental protections, and other pesky laws that protect people out the window.
Ignoring the realities of tunnel building in this location, which I know nothing about, why this idea of Tesla's ferrying people along it? If you can fit a car you can fit a light-rail system that...
Ignoring the realities of tunnel building in this location, which I know nothing about, why this idea of Tesla's ferrying people along it? If you can fit a car you can fit a light-rail system that would be much better.
I believe the original concept for Boring was that driverless cars could use a tunnel to bypass a congested area and continue on surface streets, connecting you to a lot more places than a train...
I believe the original concept for Boring was that driverless cars could use a tunnel to bypass a congested area and continue on surface streets, connecting you to a lot more places than a train could without doing a transfer. But a lot got lost going from concept to implementation and I don't see the point of what they're doing now.
Thirty seconds of amused chuckling Yes, of course it will send a car every three seconds, 24/7, with no subsidisation, after they've already tunneled through incredibly difficult geology on their...
The company says the project will be entirely self-funded, requiring nothing from taxpayers. In documents provided to Nashville officials, Boring says it will spend “a few hundred million dollars” to build a seamless and expandable underground network.
Thirty seconds of amused chuckling
Yes, of course it will send a car every three seconds, 24/7, with no subsidisation, after they've already tunneled through incredibly difficult geology on their own dime.
I don't get the point of this thing. It's like you take a highway and a subway, combine them by using the worst parts of each, then make it have new disadvantages that neither of them have. Even...
I don't get the point of this thing. It's like you take a highway and a subway, combine them by using the worst parts of each, then make it have new disadvantages that neither of them have.
Even if you have an irrational hatred of trains, you could literally just build another lane on i-40. It would be cheaper, safer, faster, and move more people.
It's like everyone just becomes laser focused on these projects and immediately get to work thinking up justifications without ever stepping back to ask "what is actually the point of this thing?"
"Just build another lane" isn't cheap or easy, and when there's traffic, it's not actually an independent route. I don't think the Boring Company has had a successful project yet and don't have...
"Just build another lane" isn't cheap or easy, and when there's traffic, it's not actually an independent route.
I don't think the Boring Company has had a successful project yet and don't have much hope for them. But in principle, cheaper tunnels for cars isn't entirely a bad idea. There are situations where more tunnels would be useful.
Building a new lane isn't cheap or easy, and it really isn't a good solution. It's certainly cheaper and easier than tunneling under 40 feet of rock through. This isn't a particularly dense route...
Building a new lane isn't cheap or easy, and it really isn't a good solution.
It's certainly cheaper and easier than tunneling under 40 feet of rock through. This isn't a particularly dense route we're talking about here, so land use issues aren't nearly as much of a problem as the dense urban areas where subways make economic sense.
The whole pitch of the boring company is that you can bore faster if you use smaller tunnels; tunnels that only one car can barely squeeze through. The entire issue there is that having a tunnel that is so narrow that you can't pass is incredibly unsafe and inefficient. All it takes is a single breakdown, and everyone in the tunnel is trapped in one direction.
An accident completely shuts the tunnel down until you can tow the car completely through the other side.
Ignoring that, cars are a really awful way to transport lots of people.
The really frustrating thing about their pitch is that they compare apples to oranges. They say that the Nashville loop route will take 8 minutes to complete versus 15-30 minutes via road.
They're comparing an uncongested loop with zero wait time traveling at maximum speed with real world road conditions.
The thing is, it's an 8 mile drive. If this was a zombie movie situation where absolutely no one was on the road, I could go balls to the wall and get there in 8 minutes too. The loop doesn't somehow break physics and eliminate the time it takes to get somewhere. It's just a road. If you look at the Vegas loop during peak hours, it would have usually have been faster to drive, because the roads in Vegas have way higher capacity than the loop does. You have to wait in line for your own personal Tesla to roll up and then wait in traffic, except this time it's underground.
Throughput is the main thing that matters when talking about high volume transit. The theoretical, traveling only time when the system is operating 100% smoothly and uncongested is so irrelevant that it's not even worth bringing up, but that seems like the main thing this crap gets sold on.
Frankly after the Las Vegas Loop dramatically underperforming their promises it’s incredible that anyone would ever hire the Boring Company for literally anything.
For those who don’t know, the Loop isn’t even a real loop. They send traffic both ways on a single lane tunnel, which means having to stop all traffic on a segment until the car inside of it clears. They were supposed to launch with fully autonomous cars to ferry people and instead they use regular teslas with chauffeurs. The loop isn’t even entirely underground; there are one or two places where it surfaces and the cars take surface streets. The end result is a transportation system that is both more expensive and slower than the preexisting bus system. It may actually be worse than getting a taxi, since most of the places often have them waiting around nearby.
You're also probably much less likely to die in a bus or taxi fire above ground than in a narrow tube that surely will have exit hatches and SCBA storage for six people every 100m along with non-toxic fire retardants and a robust ventilation system. Right? ...right?
https://archive.is/k9MQx
From the article:
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An ill-concieved idea that will probably have deadly consequences for Nashville for decades to come.
Such is life when it turns out the primary cost savings come by way of throwing safety, environmental protections, and other pesky laws that protect people out the window.
Ignoring the realities of tunnel building in this location, which I know nothing about, why this idea of Tesla's ferrying people along it? If you can fit a car you can fit a light-rail system that would be much better.
The man in charge is not very bright, for one. I also think this is just another (mind-bogglingly stupid) way for him to pump up tesla sale numbers.
I believe the original concept for Boring was that driverless cars could use a tunnel to bypass a congested area and continue on surface streets, connecting you to a lot more places than a train could without doing a transfer. But a lot got lost going from concept to implementation and I don't see the point of what they're doing now.
Seems to sum up Elon's businesses well.
Thirty seconds of amused chuckling
Yes, of course it will send a car every three seconds, 24/7, with no subsidisation, after they've already tunneled through incredibly difficult geology on their own dime.
I don't get the point of this thing. It's like you take a highway and a subway, combine them by using the worst parts of each, then make it have new disadvantages that neither of them have.
Even if you have an irrational hatred of trains, you could literally just build another lane on i-40. It would be cheaper, safer, faster, and move more people.
It's like everyone just becomes laser focused on these projects and immediately get to work thinking up justifications without ever stepping back to ask "what is actually the point of this thing?"
"Just build another lane" isn't cheap or easy, and when there's traffic, it's not actually an independent route.
I don't think the Boring Company has had a successful project yet and don't have much hope for them. But in principle, cheaper tunnels for cars isn't entirely a bad idea. There are situations where more tunnels would be useful.
Building a new lane isn't cheap or easy, and it really isn't a good solution.
It's certainly cheaper and easier than tunneling under 40 feet of rock through. This isn't a particularly dense route we're talking about here, so land use issues aren't nearly as much of a problem as the dense urban areas where subways make economic sense.
The whole pitch of the boring company is that you can bore faster if you use smaller tunnels; tunnels that only one car can barely squeeze through. The entire issue there is that having a tunnel that is so narrow that you can't pass is incredibly unsafe and inefficient. All it takes is a single breakdown, and everyone in the tunnel is trapped in one direction.
An accident completely shuts the tunnel down until you can tow the car completely through the other side.
Ignoring that, cars are a really awful way to transport lots of people.
The really frustrating thing about their pitch is that they compare apples to oranges. They say that the Nashville loop route will take 8 minutes to complete versus 15-30 minutes via road.
They're comparing an uncongested loop with zero wait time traveling at maximum speed with real world road conditions.
The thing is, it's an 8 mile drive. If this was a zombie movie situation where absolutely no one was on the road, I could go balls to the wall and get there in 8 minutes too. The loop doesn't somehow break physics and eliminate the time it takes to get somewhere. It's just a road. If you look at the Vegas loop during peak hours, it would have usually have been faster to drive, because the roads in Vegas have way higher capacity than the loop does. You have to wait in line for your own personal Tesla to roll up and then wait in traffic, except this time it's underground.
Throughput is the main thing that matters when talking about high volume transit. The theoretical, traveling only time when the system is operating 100% smoothly and uncongested is so irrelevant that it's not even worth bringing up, but that seems like the main thing this crap gets sold on.