I thought the current thinking was that building more roads means that there will be more roads to use, and therefore more cars on the road.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand</a>
My laymen's understanding (from various documentaries & articles) is that the expensive part of tunnel construction is managing the transitions between different materials. Boring through hard rock might be slow, but hitting pockets of mud, loose rock and other things (especially when unexpected) can seriously mess up the works, and cause massive delays due to machine damage or reassessment and reinforcement/collapse mitigation.<p>AIUI many (most?) big TBMs are heavily bespoke systems specifically built for their planned route, and it's not unusual to just scrap them after the job is done.<p>So, it's not immediately clear that speeding up the 'easy' part will have a huge impact on the overall outcome, if the bulk of the time & uncertainty is in the hard bits.<p>I wonder if there are any currently underused means of sensing some distance ahead get advanced warning of nasty transitions?
We can't afford to maintain the surface roads & bridges we already built, and tunnels are more expensive and require more maintenance by like an order of magnitude. (I made that up, but I'm pretty sure it's right, to within an order of magnitude... but if tunnels are 1000x more expensive, then I'm wrong).<p>I can admire someone who has the resources to exclude himself from the traffic problem instead taking action to try and solve the whole problem for everyone. He could do what other billionaires do and buy a helicopter.<p>Still, the only way that tunnels can "obviously" solve the traffic problem is if they're so cheap that we can easily build more of them than we ever need -- and we can't currently do that with roads, even if we have the space. New York and Boston and other places have some tunnels, and also terrible traffic.<p>If we really do have the resources to take on an infrastructure project of this magnitude, wouldn't it be worth re-evaluating why we're driving, and reducing that instead? The problem with traffic is the traffic. If there wasn't all the traffic, there wouldn't be congestion, we wouldn't need more roads & tunnels.<p>The contractor end of a tunnel building project might be a good deal though. Convince enough people it's a good idea, and you've got big business for decades to come.
Light rail solves urban congestion, too, and a city that doesn't already have a subway isn't all that likely also to be so densely involute that rights of way can't be secured for the trackage. Elevated electric trams are a thing, too, and require a much smaller ground footprint.<p>Not that I don't get what he's saying, and I do get that existing and well proven systems aren't sexy, but I feel like either of those is going to be an easier sell, and a much faster implementation, than an underground system. There's infrastructure down there! That's what "infra" <i>means</i>. Easier not to have to work around that, if you can.
This is just a wild guess, but could there be more to it than just solving traffic problems? I mean, the best solution for a permanent settlement on Mars would be underground, as to shield from radiation etc. It's a funny thought, but it would make sense to aquire experience with large earth-moving operations to improve on the technology and study the feasibility.
This is a good idea, and I like to watch Elon be ambitious, but it's probably pretty annoying to work at SpaceX right now. One day you show up to work and, where you used to park your car, there is a giant hole in the ground. It's there because the CEO of the company you work for, who is already splitting his time between two companies, wants to put some of his energy towards a third unrelated company.<p>You are spending your time getting things into space and your CEO is literally heading in the opposite direction.
Here in Munich, Germany, public transport in the city center is based on a very small number of tunnels for underground trains. There is one main tunnel for city traversal, and about 5 or so underground tunnels. Together they bear a large part of the commuters traffic. Currently, the construction for another large train tunnel is about to begin. From that perspective, one wouldn't need an extremely large number of tunnels to vastly enhance traffic across a dense populated area. So when Musk is building tunnels, they aren't direct replacements for highways. They are either train tunnels, or hyperloop tunnels, or if they are car tunnels, they are for autonomous electric cars, which are driving literally bumper to bumper across the tunnels. So they would carry much more traffic in a more organized way than the normal highway. So it all comes down to whether he manages to improve the boring process to a point where people would want to digg more tunnels as with current methods.
I've become completely disenchanted with Elon Musk over time. I used to be a huge fan and cheerleader, and enthusiastically pointed to him as inspiration.<p>But slowly I started to realize that I was buying a lot into carefully crafted propaganda. The way SpaceX used lawyers to keep PSLV at bay, all the while Musk gassed on about free markets and competition made me a bit mad. Then he had that quip where he said he was "nauseatingly pro American" and that America was the biggest force for good the world had ever seen. Then he said he was a proud centrist and donated money to anti-environment republicans. And so on and so on. Accusing employees of shilling for unions. Misleading people about his level of technical expertise. Calling lane-assist "auto-pilot" for profit.<p>At some point I realized that his "brilliant" approach to tech was essentially promising elite people that they could be ultra-green, better than vegetarians and hippies, while keeping the luxuries of sports cars, mansions with solar shingles, and rockets to mars. You don't have to do anything other than express support for him, and you're already better than people making personal sacrifices for the environment. Amazing!<p>I now think of his "luxury-first" approach as "trickle-down environmentalism". And I think it will be about as successful as its economic counterpart.
Serious question - keep aside flying cars and underground tunnels. We know materials science has advanced significantly over the past few decades. Why can't we figure out a way to suspend/elevate (using strong cables or beams) large tubes 40-50 feet above us -- at least along major arteries that are free and clear of buildings and other overhead structures.<p>Dedicated vehicles or conveyer belts or some such mode of transportation would ply in these tubes transporting people, with elevators to get people up and back down.<p>As compared to flying cars and tunnels, why wouldn't this be more cost-economical and speedier?
Tunnels are not a way to fix traffic - redesigning cities is.
Our cities, and the society in general is so inefficient that it borders on crimes against humanity.<p>What we need is smaller, more efficient, better designed cities.
I consider this as one of his least bright thoughts.<p>I really hoped he would come with a light rail with shuttles carrying (electrical) cars, containers etc.. This is a thought I had some 16 years ago in an attempt to solve traffic jams. I truly believe cars shouldn't drive on highroads. Unfortunately I don't have the contacts and financial power to even get close to the people who can accomplish this.<p>If we have a world wide network of light rail, carrying electrical cars etc.. at a speed of about 500 mph it would really be more environmental friendly, as it would be a serious competition for polluting aircrafts.<p>Imagine: Los Angeles -> San Fransisco in less than 1 hour, in your own car!<p>I think Elon is one of the single few people in the world capable to make a start with this.
Ok, so one thing I've noticed reading the 120 comments in this thread and the article is that literally nobody knows anything about boring, or tunnels. Musk knows nothing, he put someone in charge who knows nothing, the reporter knows nothing, and the commenters here even admit they are completely guessing and know nothing about boring/tunnels. I definitely don't know anything about tunnels.<p>It's a joke that came to life, and it's a pretty funny one, and I'm fairly confident Musk can make improvements, but I'd still like to know something about the whole process.<p>I assume someone here knows something about this, or at least can find out, so here's my wishlist:<p>- Has there been any improvement in boring in the last 50 years? The frequently-repeated statement that it hasn't improved would be quite shocking to me since at the very least I'd expect safety to improve.<p>- What are the maintenance costs of tunnels like as compared to surface roads?<p>- What are the big costs in the industry? The article hinted that Musk picked up a boring machine for 90% off $15MM, or $1.5MM, which seems extremely cheap given that even small size tunnels in urban areas can cost more than one -billion- US dollars per mile.<p>- Is there enough boreable space under our cities that this is doable? I know Musk says he wants to go deep, but even at very deep depths you run into problems of sand, boulders, geography, etc, etc.
I talked a little about this last week. I think he wants the tech to bore a hole close to the core of Mars and set off a nuke. This would restart natural lava flow in Mars which would then create self sustaining magnetic field.
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13598876" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13598876</a>
This is a bit odd considering that Musk knows that even a substantial minority of self-driving cars on the road would dramatically reduce traffic. Does he think we can deploy tunnels in every city before we can get to, say 25% self driving cars? I'm not saying there aren't other benefits to reshaping the urban landscape this way, but traffic is a problem he is already in the process of solving in a way that seems much more likely to scale to, well, anywhere, without having to do anything to existing infrastructure. And anyway, once we get to something like 25% autonomous cars, won't the safety revolution put pressure on the government to quickly phase out permits for human-driven cars?
I have to wonder how effective he will be at advancing tunnel boring using existing technology. From the article, it sounds like he has no figures of the cost breakdown on a standard tunnel boring project such as the fixed costs like moving and assembling the machine, or the variable costs like how much is spent on materials, labor, etc. Given that, I'm skeptical that he can bring down the cost of tunneling since this approach seems to eschew a first principals based approach to the problem. I'm guessing that he really just wants to be able to build a federally subsidized tunnel from LAX to the SpaceX office so he doesn't have to sit in traffic.
If I can agree that building tunnels for public transport may be a good idea, building tunnels to encourage people to use their car doesn't sounds like it's taking humanity in the right direction.<p>I'd rather see disruption to encourage people to use their bicycle and walking. Granted American cities aren't build for that but it's never too late.<p><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_4_ways_to_make_a_city_more_walkable" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_4_ways_to_make_a_city_mo...</a>
I don't understand how he gets away with digging that big of a hole in the ground in Los Angeles County without some serious assessment and permit filing being done first. The rock is very soft and we have earthquakes here. It took decades to approve the subway line down Wilshire Blvd. I'm assuming SpaceX gets special permission to do anything it wants, but it's still very surprising that they can just start digging a giant hole in the parking lot without some opposition
By the time he could actually drill all of these tunnels, won't traffic/gridlock be a moot point. By the time it takes him to dig all these tunnels (10-15 years?) everyone will have self driving cars, ones that can network and move around trouble spots, that don't have to wait for stoplights, that don't randomly slam on the brakes causing an aberration of slow traffic in the middle of an otherwise steady stream?
I generally find Elon Musk to be an offputting individual, but I struggle to disagree with most of his ideas. In dense urban areas, skyrocketing property costs and the erosion of eminent domain have made mass transit expansion unsustainable in terms of time and money. Tunneling under it all has the potential to sidestep so many costs.<p>To do so, of course, he'll need to reduce the costs of tunnel boring by an order of magnitude. As the economist quoted in the article noted, though, the construction industry has been famously stagnant for decades. Commoditizing boring machines would bring down costs substantially. Speeding them up would also reduce costs. And if he gets costs down by a factor of two or more, he could be the preferred vendor for a truly massive market worldwide.<p>It might be his least crazy idea, honestly.
This is stupid. LA roads are jammed so Musk's big idea is to build even more expensive roads underground. The cult of personality around him is comical...
Two synergistic factors with Musk's other interests, that I'm surprised BW's deep-dive doesn't mention:<p>* zero-emission cars may make tunnel ventilation a much easier problem<p>* autonomous cars may far better utilize narrow tunnels (with clearances that'd be too accident-prone for human drivers)<p>Taken together, tunnels-for-autonomous-fully-electric-vehicles could be far more practical, for longer distances, than they've been for traditional cars.
I see this as a way he can easily skirt current road regulations. He can build these roads more suitable for self driving cars which would be a win for him.
Can somebody who is an engineer or is familiar with the tunneling process explain why boring machines are used for tunneling rather than explosives? It seems to me the primary energy costs of tunneling are associated with converting hard earth/boulders/bedrock into rubble and then transporting that rubble out of the tunnel. Thus explosives (if properly and efficiently delivered) could deliver far more energy than a boring machine in the same time period.<p>What I am proposing is that instead of using a boring machine to use some kind of mobile gun platform instead. The platform would analyze with GPR the best place to fire an explosive round (through the partially cleared rubble) into the untouched earth behind it. It would then analyze the placement of the round and (depending on the ability of the round to adjust the direction of the explosive charge) detonate to increase the tunnel size. The rubble would act as a buffer to lessen the effects of the explosion inside the tunnel. Rubble could be cleared by conventional means, although electric trucks would be superior from a toxic fumes perspective. Tunnel stability would have to be handled separately.<p>Appreciate any feedback on where I am going wrong. I am guessing there may be cost issues with the explosive, inability for rounds from the gun to penetrate very far or accurately into the earth or safety issues with explosives that would slow things down. The latter could be dealt with though if the gun platform and trucks were self-driving.
To those interested in arguably the most ambitious boring operation in progress, behold, Bertha in Seattle: <a href="http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct/About/FollowBertha" rel="nofollow">http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct/About/FollowBertha</a>
Isn't this the same principle that subway/bart trains in some cities use? He is right, it is time to increase apaption of this 50+ yr old idea and apply it to other modes of transportation. Not only you operate in 3D, there is less disruption to existing inhabitants and roads.
This is a good investment. Cities spend a lot of their budget on roads. A lot of cities are gridlocked with no room to widen existing roads. All he has to do is find a way to tunnel a little bit cheaper and he will find work for his tunnel machine.
Cool. With tunnels we could have a fresh start and build the network with electric, automatic vehicles supported as first class (or the only) citizens.
The article says, "Musk thinks flying cars are a dumb idea"<p>So we're not going to get a flying version of the Tesla? Darn.<p>It also says, "We have skyscrapers with all these levels, and we have a flat, two-dimensional road system,” he says. “When everyone decides to go into these structures and then exits them at the same time, you’re going to get jammed.” Tunnels, on the other hand, would represent a 3D transportation network."<p>Now that makes some sense.