urbanMSP

You mean there's better use of tunneling than this?
https://goo.gl/maps/yJjM548j5nz

Elon Musk's tunnel plan is surprisingly outdated—and bad
The latest “traffic solution” from Musk is detrimental to those hard at work solving real problems
https://www.curbed.com/2017/5/1/1550071 ... raffic-ted

KSTP is doing a story Wednesday at 10pm about the Lowry Tunnel. Called it the worst bottleneck in the metro and said they wanted to understand everything about the project. Anyone think they will have anything interesting?

What project?

I think "project" refers to the tile repair in this 94 project. http://www.dot.state.mn.us/metro/projec ... oklyncntr/

Found the KSTP promo: http://kstp.com/traffic/rebuilding-minn ... ?cat=12546

It's the biggest bottleneck in the state and a huge overhaul will soon make your commute even worse. We wanted to ask every question we could about the Lowry Hill Tunnel project. To dig deeper, KSTP’s Josh Rosenthal:

• Went up in Chopper 5 with engineers
• Questioned the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Transportation
• Tracked down the original designer
• Went deep inside the tunnel to show you what's being done

WATCH it live or set your DVR - this story is only on TV and it's only on 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Wednesday, May 17 at 10 p.m.

So yeah, no useful information. Par for the course, but it'll probably get ratings.

Magic 8 ball says "Outlook not so good"

Video of sled going throught Elon Musk small tunnel.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/12/1562 ... t-route-la

using tunnel for single car on sled makes no sense to me. Sure, may be a bit like ferries that carry peds and cars, but doesn't it make more sense to put people in pods and send them to transit stations.

What would make sense is putting retractable trolleys on cars and sending them through this tunnel to get 1.21 gigawatts of power into them.

I am not sure why so many are complaining about Musk's boring idea. The machine is used to dig the tunnel. He is a car company owner, so would use it for cars. But that doesn't mean it has to be used for cars. At the end of the day, it is still a tunnel that can be used for subways or LRT. A car company owner isn't going to build a mass transit system. But if his technology makes building out mass transit systems cheaper, we should all be applauding his efforts!

He should make airplanes that you just drive your car onto. You could save so much time not having to rent a car.

Elon teases with the Boring Company underground buses?

http://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/1070 ... ctric-sled

Soooo... actual subways, now?

A second tunnel linking Denmark and Sweden is proposed.

http://www.poandpo.com/news_business/ne ... 862017330/

Maybe we could do that with I-80 or I-90..

The Boring Company was selected by the City of Chicago to build an underground transit link between the Loop and O'Hare.

http://www.startribune.com/chicago-taps ... 485485031/

From a different article its stated it will only cost $1 billion to build and require no taxpayer money. Departures every 30 seconds and a fare of $1, and assumes people will buy products while on board using touch screens.

At 500-2,000 people per hour per direction Musk's technology has the capacity of between 0.5 and 2 blue line trains per hour.

Yeah. As long as there's no taxpayer money involved, then it's fine, but there's no way this gets built for less than $10B, or can be operated for $1 a ride.

Wouldn't it be far cheaper to simply take out the two inner lanes of the Kennedy Expressway and convert that space into express tracks?

It's hard not to just roll your eyes at this. Boring a 17 mile tunnel for $1B has the feel of fantasy. Allowing a completely untested company to drill underneath your downtown and significant infrastructure is reckless. The Boring Company may yet develop some innovations that make tunneling faster and cheaper, and if they do so, it'll be a significant accomplishment. But the costs of major infrastructure projects are not just engineering costs or labor costs, there are massive regulatory costs and many (though not all) are in place for good reasons, and if Musk's attempt to end-around CEQA in Los Angeles is any indication, his strategy is simply to ignore the regulatory framework, which is a risk not just to him, or elected leaders, but also to the general public.

Then there's the issue of capacity. If this Chicago loop is at maximum capacity and carrying 2,000 passengers an hour, that's the equivalent of a single freeway lane. You could run normal express buses at two minute headways and achieve the same throughput comfortably. Or add eight more cars (not trains, cars) total to your existing blue line service. There are so many cheaper ways to achieve the same result using existing technology.

But above all, the biggest issue is that operating a transit service is not a engineering problem, it's an economics problem. Just a few years ago, Toronto opened the Union Pearson Express, a brand-new rapid rail service to their airport. They needed around 7,000 weekday riders at fares around CAD$25 to be sustainable. Instead, ridership peaked just around 3,000 weekday riders, and feel down to about 2,000. Eventually, fares were slashed, and weekday ridership is now around 10,000, but the system is still nowhere near paying for itself. Airport express trains are a great example of the disconnect between the type of transit service that business people and mayors want and the type of transit service that ordinary people want. Especially if the fare is high and a cheaper alternative is readily available, it's hard to see the ridership on this loop working out, even if it's perfectly safe and comfortable and works exactly as promised.