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Elon Musk Outlines His 'Boring' Vision For Traffic-Avoiding Tunnels (axios.com)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed new details about his futuristic tunnel-boring project during his TED talk on Friday. Ina Fried, writing for Axios: In an appearance at the TED conference in Vancouver, Musk showed off a new video visualization of electric skates transporting cars in a narrow tunnel, then raising them back to street level in a space as small as two parking spaces. Inside the tunnels, Musk said cars could travel as fast as 200 kilometers per hour (roughly 130 MPH). "You should be able to go from say Westwood to LAX in 5-6 minutes," the Tesla and SpaceX founder said, adding he is spending only 2-3 percent on the tunnel effort. The Boring Company is currently building a demo tunnel in SpaceX's parking lot, but will need permits from the city of Los Angeles to extend beyond the property line. Musk added, "I'm not trying to be anyone's savior. I'm just trying to think about the future and not be sad." You can watch the video here.
Ok, so you get in a train that drops you off in the middle of LA. Now, how do you get to where you're going from there? LA is hundreds of square miles of urban area, all spread out so there's no way any train will take you to all parts of it. You'll need a car to drive yourself to your destination. Now you're looking at spending a bunch of time and money dealing with a rental car agency, instead of just using your own car to get you there.
Trains are just like planes, only a lot slower. Planes are great for getting a medium number of people between two points all at once, in a short amount of time (except for TSA groping). But they don't help you much in getting from the airport to your final destination. Trains are worse because they're so slow, it ends up not being sensible to use them too much because if the distance is short, you might as well drive, and if it's longer, you're better off flying. If you happen to live in an urban downtown and want to travel to another urban downtown not too far away, trains make a lot of sense. That's about it though.
What would make a lot more sense is if they'd build SkyTran, but no one believes that'll possibly work so we can't have it.
Why am I obsessed with cars? Because my crappy 35 minute commute by car becomes a 2 hour 20 commute by BART + Bus + walking (according to Google Maps). And trains can't take me to the hikes or parks I like, aren't really a practical way to bring around my kid and all the random shit he needs, etc.
I suppose we could bulldoze the entire Bay Area to organize it around a train system, but that's not going to happen.
Good username/comment synergism, though. I will say that even in NYC, taking the subway to go between my brother in North Brooklyn to my friend in South Brooklyn is like an hour, even though they're just about 4 miles away. Even NYC needs cars, although it makes more sense to use Uber/taxi for many people.
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It also has an absurdly high cost of living. ......., and (not being a Londoner or UKer I'm speculating) many people who work there probably don't live near a public transit station.
Yes, you are speculating.
The cost of living in the London suburbs is not greatly different from elsewhere in the UK. Of course, there is huge variation between desirable areas and grotty areas - both in London and the UK generally. And the vast majority of people who live in the Greater London area do in fact live "near a public transit station"; say 10 minutes walk from a railway station or less to a bus stop.