Elon Musk unveils traffic-busting underground tunnel

strandroad wrote: »

It doesn't really make much sense there either. Musk's tunnel is an equivalent of one lane of traffic - for the price of many millions (and this is his pet project which has never been commercially costed, did not go through planning or CPOs etc., the real costs would be multiples of this). LA is so huge that you'd have to build thousands of miles of this thing to form a network and what's stopping them to become clogged on day 1, if that's whats happening above?

I am not saying that it is economically viable, or safe, or anything like that.

I am saying that it has a particular logic in LA. It is essentially a form of road pricing. This works very well when done right. I take tolled motorways in France, or the M6 Toll in the UK, because I'm happy to pay for a less congested journey.


Dynamic road pricing can cure pretty much any level of congestion in any system. Simply raise the price to the point where traffic flows smoothly.

The problem is that voters almost everywhere despise this. People prefer to have the right to drive whenever they want, no matter what impact it imposes on everyone else. It is deeply inefficient, but that is human nature I guess.



Going back to Musk's proposal, if it's ever in place it will be used by people who are cash-rich and time-poor. Maybe this is unfair, but it will have the positive effect of leaving more road space for everyone else.

magicbastarder wrote: »

the capacity of his system is going to be severely hampered by getting the cars in and out of the tunnel, but there's *no actual benefit to it being in a tunnel*.

A tunnel has a big benefit, it frees up space on the ground. You could compress sprawling cities into smaller spaces, plus adding additional green areas on the ground. With the growing population om earth, you need ever more space for living, growing food or just relaxing. So the more you can put underground, the more free space you have above ground. And transport is one thing you can easily move underground without it affecting people's lives too much.

mdebets wrote: »

A tunnel has a big benefit, it frees up space on the ground. You could compress sprawling cities into smaller spaces, plus adding additional green areas on the ground. With the growing population om earth, you need ever more space for living, growing food or just relaxing. So the more you can put underground, the more free space you have above ground. And transport is one thing you can easily move underground without it affecting people's lives too much.

You could replace every inch of road in LA with these tunnels and you'd still end up with congestion.

Tunneling under cities should only be for automated mass transit systems rather than single occupancy vehicles.

Dumbest proposal ever.

magicbastarder wrote: »

That reply was in the context of LA being cited as somewhere this might make sense. The battle is already lost in LA, vast swathes of it are given over to roads.

Hot take on LA traffic from someone I presume has gone maybe on a week vacation? :rolleyes:

At 14 feet wide how would it compare in size to the older London underground tunnels, (the ones with the roundy roof trains) or the Glasgow city centre loop underground?
And what'd be the difference in passenger carrying capacity? (assuming most tesla loop cars would have just 1 or 2 occupants)

Now if the boring company has come up with a way to make those smaller tunnels more cheaply than previously then Whoopy do...

And maybe we should be getting Elon to work on a system of mini - metros to connect spread out low density Dublin suburbs to the centre and an orbital metro loop.. Kind of underground Luas light... At 10 to 20 million euro per km(each way)
for built up areas (not including trams or stations/station box's) it'd be cheaper and less hassle than surface Luas in built up areas... 😀

LionelNashe wrote: »

If these tunnels were built, I could see an argument for autonomous cars being shared cars that you pick up or drop off, like the GoCar model or Dublin Bikes. It would be better than lowering cars in and out of the tunnel - they could just have a vehicle of some sort permanently in the tunnel and people could walk down steps or take a lift or escalator down.

Edit: Just to add, these tunnels seem to have zero room for emergency vehicles.

So people could enter the tunnels on foot. They.could even share vehicles to make it more efficient. Or to be even more efficient, the state could build a network of metro lines

fritzelly wrote: »

So only autonomous cars can use it? Fast forward 30 years or so and just make a law that only autonomous cars are allowed on above ground roads and traffic problems are a thing of the past and people don't need to think about which lane to use at a roundabout!
Be Star Trek transporters in place before his idea ever gets any friction

It’s less than 30 years away

Bray Head wrote: »

Elon Musk lives in LA.

It has specific features that are not really relevant in most of Europe and Asia:

• It is relatively low density
• It is very big
• There is no real centre
• It doesn't have lots of office workers going from suburbs to downtown

Almost none of that is true and hasn't been since the early 90s (except the big part). There is a very defined city centre in LA with an area of 11km², a residential population of 60,000 and a daytime/working population of almost 500,000. The city may be well served by freeways but it also has a metro, light rail, BRT and several regular bus systems. Their rail network carries almost 400,000 trips a day and their bus network has 900,000 trips per day. By comparison, Luas carries 80,000 and Dart carries about 45,000.

magicbastarder wrote: »

The battle is already lost in LA, vast swathes of it are given over to roads.

Los Angeles and Dublin are actually great comparisons. Both cities had extensive tram lines which were torn up in the 60s. Both focused on buses and private vehicles for a long time. Then it changed in the 80s/90s. We built the Dart line and they build the Blue line which are actually very similar. Then we stopped for a very long time while they built a metro, a heavy rail line, a light rail line and a BRT line. Eventually we build the two luas lines but then we stopped again for a few redesigns a metro. Meanwhile they were busy building more light rail lines and are still busy today extending their metro and light rail network.

We built Leap while they built Tap although they've had proper integrated ticketing and transfers for a very long time. When we were widening the M50 to add an extra lane, they were doing the same to the 101. Except they built HOV lanes which benefit their buses and use congestion rating to keep them working. Meanwhile the M50 grinds to a standstill for almost six hours every day.

We struggle to convince our politicians to pay for public transport projects, voters in LA have repeatedly voted to increase sales taxes to pay for those projects. The battle for public transport isn't lost in LA, it dropped far below Dublin (even in the 80s) but it's rising a lot faster now. These two animations show the projects under construction in LA right now and those that will open in time for the 2028 Olympics. We don't need an animation for that in Dublin, we've got nothing except the N7 being widened.

Elon's plan is driven entirely by his own dislike for public transport and his desire to build what he thinks is right for his city. Jarrett Walker described this phenomen perfectly: https://humantransit.org/2017/07/the-dangers-of-elite-projection.html. I have serious reservations about what he's building but hopefully something will come from the investment into tunnelling which might bring improvements into future metro construction.