
Boring Co. gets permission to begin digging in Maryland - adwmayer
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/20/elon-musk-gets-permission-to-begin-boring-co-digging-in-maryland
======
fishcolorbrick
More details about the site in this article:
[http://www.govtech.com/fs/infrastructure/Maryland-Issues-
Con...](http://www.govtech.com/fs/infrastructure/Maryland-Issues-Con..).

"Hogan administration officials said Thursday the state has issued a
conditional utility permit to let Musk’s tunneling firm, The Boring Co., dig a
10.3-mile tunnel beneath the state-owned portion of the Baltimore-Washington
Parkway, between the Baltimore city line and Maryland 175 in Hanover."

~~~
pokstad
That link doesn’t work for me but this one does:
[http://www.govtech.com/fs/infrastructure/Maryland-Issues-
Con...](http://www.govtech.com/fs/infrastructure/Maryland-Issues-Conditional-
Permit-for-Hyperloop-Tunnel.html)

------
tedsuo
One of the big arguments against public transit is that it's infeasible to dig
tunnels. If this project succeeds, I wonder what kind of contorted logic will
arise, arguing that digging tunnels for cars is feasible, but digging tunnels
for subways is still infeasible?

~~~
marcell
I thought the reduced diameter needed for cars allows lower cost/faster
tunneling. Also, making it for cars solves the "last mile" problem that makes
public transit unusable in suburban settings.

~~~
yongjik
Not so sure about that. Some subway tunnels are barely wide enough to fit a
single train. I don't think a car tunnel can be much smaller, even if you only
allow sedans and somehow find another way to send an ambulance in case of
emergency.

~~~
wahern
I think all the subway tunnels in the U.S., including those in Boston,
Chicago, and NYC, are >24 feet in width. The London Underground's deep-level
tubes are less than half that at <12 feet in diameter.

That said, I don't think American cities could run subway cars as small as in
the London Underground even if they wanted to because of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA).

Also, it might be difficult to make cars that small that pass muster under
Federal safety regulations. AFAIU, Federal regulations basically require
subway cars to be built like tanks.

EDIT: >24 feet just seems too wide for the old, deep tunnels in the U.S., but
I can't find any references that aren't from books at the turn of the 20th
century, which have very inconsistent numbers. I said >24 because that seem to
be the width of old cut-and-cover tunnels and newer deep tunnels. I'm going to
go out on a limb--based on random sources--and guess that the really old
tunnels still in use might be closer to 16 feet in diameter. Feel free to
correct me.

------
11thEarlOfMar
I recall a debate early on that one of the hurdles to Hyperloop viability was
obtaining right-of-way within city limits. Getting to the outskirts was seen
as probably doable since obtaining right of way involves relatively large
parcels and a fair whack of government owned land (i.e. freeways). But in a
city, there would be too many players to satisfy and the ends of the line
would not be able to get close the the center of the cities, greatly reducing
the value of the system.

Tunneling within city limits may resolve that.

------
tzury
What if hyper loop will turned to be hyper flop?

I mean, electric cars, then autonomous cars, solar roofs, batteries,
hyperloops, boring company, send humans to the space and back.

Isn’t too much to accredit one person?

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
If it flops, so what? We will have gained knowledge on some pitfalls. If
someone dares to try again, we won’t have to start from the beginning.

I also don’t agree with your logic of … A person shouldn’t accomplish too much
in life? Is that what you are saying?

~~~
tzury
I am not saying a person should not. I am simply saying a person could not.
You can’t effectively run more than two companies at a time. And that is a
rare success. Most are struggling running one. And here is a man running 5 or
6 companies each going to revolutionize another area in our life. It’s just
don’t fit.

~~~
criddell
Musk isn't doing this by himself anymore than Trump is personally running the
Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marines (or are the Marines part of the Navy?).

~~~
KGIII
They are a part of the Navy, yes.

------
mozumder
I don't know why they're doing this, except out of pure tech-broism. It's
obviously not financially viable.

Let's say it realistically costs $150 million a mile for the project (about
average for tunnel boring - it'll actually be a lot more on the east coast due
to it being solid rock and expensive labor, but let's be realistically
optimistic). At 250 miles, that's $37.5 Billion right there. Let's be
ridiculously generous and finance this over 50 years. Over 50 years, that's
$750 million/year. Or, $2million/day. At $60/ticket, you need 34k daily
riders.

And that's only for building the tunnel. I haven't even factored in operating
or finance costs, nevermind the millions of other expenses that this needs.
Stations are normally the most expensive part of a system, for example, and a
station in NYC might cost $1 billion by itself.

Is this going to get 34,000 daily riders paying $60/ticket to NYC? I can see
that happening with $10/ticket, but not at $60/ticket. For comparison, the
entire DC Metro system itself has about 800k daily riders with about $5/trip.

And then you have the stupid HyperLoop concept itself, which hasn't even been
invented yet. It's based on small single-car vehicles, which may carry a
couple dozen people at most. Already you can see capacity issues: To get
34,000 people a day 24-7, you need 1400 fully-packed rides a day, or one every
6 seconds. You're not going to get single-vehicles to share a track every six
seconds. You're already capacity limited. How do you even slow down?
Ingress/egress?

And the concept itself is horrific:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk)

Like WTF people? How are there adults that believe any of this garbage?

If you know anyone in your company that believes in this, just fire them on
the spot. Make examples out of them. There's no excuse for this.

Stick with what works: high-speed rail, which can transport a thousand people
or more in one trip and doesn't need some dumb vacuum tube. This is the real
competition for this.

Larry Hogan has failed Maryland.

And Elon Musk is the worst thing to happen to tech.

~~~
apeace
I liked your analysis, but it hinges on the $150 million per mile figure. Is
there any data to back that up, or any reason you chose that figure? Is there
any reason to believe that Boring Co's technology could lower the cost?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
OP's method [1] works better backwards. Assuming 250 miles (l) financed
interest-free for 50 years, we find an implied ticket price (p) of the cost
per mile (c) divided by the quantity 73 times daily ridership (c / 73 r).
Generalised, we get (l c) / (18250 r) = p.

New York City and Washington, D.C. are 229 miles apart [2]. The Acela has
ridership of 3.47 million per year [3], or about 951 on average per day. Acela
tickets cost no less than $99 [4]. Plugging in we find the cost per mile can
be no more than $7.5 million.

That is 30% the cost per mile of the cheapest tunnel, the Shanghai River
Crossing, and 5% the cost per mile of the median tunnel in Figure 5 [5]. On
the other hand, the Falcon 9's list price [6] per pound to low-earth orbit is
about $1,230. That's approximately 70% to 85% cheaper than the competition
[7].

Naturally, you'd charge less than $99 and hope for more than a thousand daily
riders. The trick is finding routes for which the price elasticity of demand
is high, _i.e._ where reducing the ticket price by 1/2 generates more than a
2x demand boost.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15519733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15519733)

[2] [https://www.travelmath.com/drive-
distance/from/New+York,+NY/...](https://www.travelmath.com/drive-
distance/from/New+York,+NY/to/Washington,+DC)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela_Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela_Express)

[4] [http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Amtrak-Lowers-
Acela-...](http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Amtrak-Lowers-Acela-
Express-Fares.html)

[5] [https://tunneltalk.com/TunnelTECH-Apr2015-Arup-large-
diamete...](https://tunneltalk.com/TunnelTECH-Apr2015-Arup-large-diameter-
soft-ground-bored-tunnel-review.php)

[6]
[http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities](http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities)

[7]
[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VyTCyizqrHs/S9IabKEr1nI/AAAAAAAAHb...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_VyTCyizqrHs/S9IabKEr1nI/AAAAAAAAHbc/2qXZ169gNgE/s1600/space1.jpg)

