
Elon Musk is boring a tunnel to skirt gridlock - davidiach
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-02-16/elon-musk-is-really-boring
======
adamjc
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.

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

~~~
jessriedel
Induced demand often happens, but certainly not always. It just depends on
latent demand and network effects.

More importantly, the appearance of induced demand is not a general argument
against building roads! People get value out of getting to places. If we build
road B intending to relieve congestion on road A, but road A stays just as
congested, we nevertheless have enabled people to get places with road B that
they would not otherwise have been able to reach. That increases utility.

All of this applies to mass transit as well. The BART is currently at capacity
during rush hour; if a parallel transit line was built, this would probably
fill up with people without reducing congestion on BART, but it would still be
creating value!

~~~
elbigbad
Do you happen to have any examples of where induced demand has not happened?
My understanding is that it is pretty much guaranteed, especially in larger
cities. I think New York's bridges and tunnels are the canonical examples of
this. I say pretty much because I assume there must be cases where it didn't
happen, but I am unaware of them.

~~~
tgb
Maybe induced demand has always happened, in the sense of demand increasing
when the product is more available. But it's plenty common for the amount that
demand increases to be less than the amount of extra capacity available.
Furthermore, is induced demand that bad? If you double the capacity and it
again gets filled to the point of gridlock, well then at least twice as many
people are now able to be in gridlock, which they apparently prefer to the
alternatives.

~~~
mnw21cam
The example of when induced demand is bad is when it causes increased
pollution. In many parts of the world, there is a deliberate movement towards
avoiding building too many roads, in order to decrease road use and therefore
pollution levels.

However, a car sitting in traffic will produce much more pollution per mile
than one travelling at 70mph on a clear road, so the thinking behind this may
be flawed.

------
shabble
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.

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.

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.

I wonder if there are any currently underused means of sensing some distance
ahead get advanced warning of nasty transitions?

~~~
erikpukinskis
> 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.

Would you say, they are expensive powerful machines built for a single use to
be thrown away? Where much of the expense is due to the lack of re-usability?

I wonder if Elon Musk has any experience with anything like that.

~~~
shabble
I'm sure there are various ways the work spaceX has done on reuse could apply,
perhaps in reliability engineering the most.

I recall a statement along the lines of 'we could reuse it, but if X, Y, or Z
seriously fails in-situ, we'd spend at least as much as a new machine in
trying to extricate and repair it. So we don't.'

No doubt bits of the machines are modular and can be salvaged and reused, but
especially in urban tunneling, the initial bore access can be very tight, and
machines are often assembled in-situ and could never be removed in one piece.
That, and the sheer punishment they receive during operation makes an easy-to-
dismantle design either more expensive or less performant.

Finally, my understanding is that the bulk of the cost (especially in
overruns) has little to do with the TBM itself, but rather the delays incurred
when the territory doesn't match the map.

So the solution would be to make a boring system capable of rapid
reconfiguration to handle as many expected and unexpected regions as routinely
as possible, rather than going for flat-out speed or ultimate machine reuse.

~~~
erikpukinskis
What I'm imagining is Elon creating a long skinny Tesla-style robot machine
shop that takes in sensor data and sends progressively more useful robots in a
queue down to the end of the mine. They take a turn and then head back in the
other direction for refurbishment.

Over time generically flexible robots will tend to take up residence near the
tip. Powerful motors probably stay there with a couple robots to bolt things
in place and cycle through a supply of drill bits.

Eventually you can snip off a robust robot, and when it comes out the other
end you can use it to seed a dig with a similar geological survey.

There's never a "product line" per se, just a fleet of tunneling robots with
their own personalities.

------
dahart
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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

~~~
grey-area
Cars and public transport are vastly different in capacity. A tunnel for cars
is obviously a crazy idea but what if it carried some sort of pods that
carried lots of people at once, maybe in a vacuum, at fast speeds?

~~~
lmm
You couldn't make efficient pods while complying with US railroad regulations
(the US high speed trains are the heaviest in the world because the laws
basically require trains to be armoured. Comparison to the US love of SUVs
left as an exercise to the reader). If you can find a way around those
regulations that would work, but seems overcomplicated compared to just
applying your way around those regulations to ordinary high-speed rail.

~~~
hx87
US railroad regulations don't apply to rail systems that don't carry freight
and don't share rails with freight.

~~~
lmm
Interesting. Does that mean California HSR won't have the problems of Acela
and will be able to use a more sensible train design?

------
throwanem
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.

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" _means_. Easier not to
have to work around that, if you can.

~~~
antihero
I think light rail is fantastic - in London we have the DLR which is fully
automated (there is an assistant onboard who can override), and it's a
thoroughly pleasant experience. We fondly call it the smallest rollercoaster
:)

~~~
dx034
But it lowers property values close by, the noise is quite significant. So
putting light rail in a tunnel would be the better option.

If Musk can really lower costs, London would be a good client. I'm sure that
if he could reduce construction costs for new tube lines by 80% (costs are
mostly tunnels), there would be at least 4 new lines that could be approved
quickly. After that, they'd still have money left over from what they now plan
to spend on Crossrail 2.

~~~
chadgeidel
* lowers property values close by in some areas.

Here in Denver, property (and rents) near the light rail are very high value
and expensive. I live in an apartment that is ideally located and let me tell
you I could afford a very nice house out in the suburbs for the rent I pay.

edit: Additionally, the light rail here (very modern Siemens units) is orders
of magnitude quieter than the major 6-lane streets and Interstate 25 running
nearly parallel to rail.

~~~
throwanem
Same in Baltimore, and our carsets are going on thirty years old. I live
alongside both the light rail track and the interstate, which run mostly
parallel here, and the latter is _much_ noisier, especially when the crazy
people on motorcycles use it for a racetrack.

There are relatively few residential areas very near our light rail, and those
that are tend on the pricey side, although that may be more for other reasons
than transit access. Where I live now is one of the few places you can live in
easy walking distance of a station and pay less than $1k/mo in rent; on the
other hand, my community has a poor reputation, mostly undeserved, for being a
hive of drug dealers and "not our kind of people", by which is meant working-
class black and white folks. A mile or so down in Clipper Mill, which is very
much "our kind of people", one may confidently expect to pay $1600 or more a
month to rent a tiny rowhouse, even if it's no closer to the Woodberry station
than my current abode is to Cold Spring Lane.

------
metafex
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.

~~~
AJ007
It is also possible the tunnels could be privately financed and owned, which
could have long term advantages for Tesla.

~~~
namlem
I doubt it. Public contracts would be the bulk, if not the overwhelming
majority of their business. Just like with SpaceX, which relies heavily on
NASA and USAF contracts.

------
thecolorblue
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.

You are spending your time getting things into space and your CEO is literally
heading in the opposite direction.

~~~
Robotbeat
Not at all. The reason for wanting a tunnel at SpaceX headquarters
specifically is to help the employees access their parking structures without
being run over crossing the street:
[http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/12/30/video-3-spacex-
employ...](http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/12/30/video-3-spacex-employees-
struck-car-headquarters/)

"A news report about three SpaceX employees who were hit by a car on Dec. 17
after leaving work. The incident occurred at 2:15 a.m. About three hours
later, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted the following Tweets:

@elonmusk Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring
machine and just start digging..."

~~~
vidanay
Meh. He probably could have had a pedestrian bridge approved and installed by
now for the same cost as the exploratory hole.

Or even built over a weekend, then deal with the consequences and approval
process after. You can get a way with a lot when it comes to personal safety.

~~~
mikeash
They've been trying to get a pedestrian bridge built for ages. They keep
having trouble getting permission for it. The tunnel is basically Elon saying,
"screw you, I'll find a way around your stupid NIMBY nonsense."

------
_ph_
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.

------
RodericDay
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.

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.

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!

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.

~~~
AYBABTME
You've managed to let cynicism overcome the actual good his companies do. We
now have good electric cars, we now can launch stuff to space at a fraction of
the price.

Assume that you're right and he's not that nice a person: still because of him
we're now somewhere we would not be otherwise. I think what he brings to the
table far outweight any thing like "doesn't like unions" or "is an
opportunistic campaign donor".

~~~
maxerickson
Decent electric cars are a natural product of basic research on batteries.

That was driven more by the consumer electronics business than by Tesla.

Telsa is likely a quite smart option on the future demand for batteries
though.

------
blizkreeg
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.

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.

As compared to flying cars and tunnels, why wouldn't this be more cost-
economical and speedier?

------
6d6b73
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.

What we need is smaller, more efficient, better designed cities.

~~~
chadgeidel
And before the nay-sayers come in - no one is proposing destroying entire
cities and rebuilding from the ground up. Now that we have that straw man out
of the way we can start talking about transit (rail, bus, bike, walk) and the
immense amount of space dedicated solely to single passenger cars and trucks.

~~~
Nav_Panel
I think we'll be seeing LA's subway development as a model for the future of
infrastructure.

The big problem with urban highways is that if you build the highway first and
do not include higher-density transit, the neighborhood develops in a suburb-
esque highway fashion, as distance of the house/apartment from the highway
exit doesn't make a huge difference in commute time, whereas a train commute
requires you to walk that last leg.

The issue I imagine many planners are facing is "how do we build useful,
medium to high density public transit that actually serves a decent amount of
people?" And it's a hard problem, because the neighborhood layouts are
designed for highways. New transit projects other than highways face
opposition because they don't appear useful to most of the residents.

I went to LA recently and rode the subway a bunch, into Downtown LA and back
out to my friend's more suburban apartment near Universal City. Once, I took
an Uber and the driver pointed out to me all of the new higher-density
residential development taking place around the edges of the urban core (and
noted it improved the safety of the area dramatically, "people are walking
around now! no more gangs!").

Basically, the neighborhood was reshaping toward a more transit-friendly
environment after some useful public transit was implemented.

The current problem is convincing cities to fund transit lines when they seem
to "go to nowhere useful". If LA continues to be successful at building
subways, they'll provide a great piece of evidence and support for building
new higher-density transit in other cities throughout the country.

~~~
chadgeidel
Absolutely - LA is probably the primary example of "car driven development"
and will be more difficult to re architect than eastern cities that predate
high adoption of cars. I don't think there will ever be a hard transition from
"everyone driving a car" to "everyone taking mass transit" \- I see it as more
of a gradual process. Part of that process is people demanding to drive less
to do more of their day-to-day activities (which is difficult in extensively
suburban areas).

------
uranian
I consider this as one of his least bright thoughts.

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.

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.

Imagine: Los Angeles -> San Fransisco in less than 1 hour, in your own car!

I think Elon is one of the single few people in the world capable to make a
start with this.

~~~
anonu
The premise of what hes doing is "lets do it faster and cheaper"... If you
could improve the boring process 10x, maybe people would look at digging
tunnels in a completely new light!!!

For example, the real problem with rail is getting right-of-way. With a cheap
boring machine - your plans wouldn't be as difficult. As Musk put it, you got
to think in 3D....

~~~
AlexandrB
Actually you should think in 4D. In the future all those tunnels require
maintenance that is much more complex and expensive than maintenance for
surface roads. If the US is not able to keep its roads in good condition (and
in many places it's not), how is building _more expensive_ roads underground
going to solve the problem long term?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Roads need maintenance almost exclusively because of the weather - sun and
rain, heat and cold. Underground, none of those things. We have tunnels today
that are a century old with only minimal maintenance, right?

~~~
jcranmer
We have tunnels that are a century old which are in danger of complete
failure. Underground structures tends to exacerbate issues with water
intrusion and drainage, not to mention persistent problems with air quality
(air can only diffuse effectively in 1 dimension, not 3).

------
owenversteeg
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.

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.

I assume someone here knows something about this, or at least can find out, so
here's my wishlist:

\- 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.

\- What are the maintenance costs of tunnels like as compared to surface
roads?

\- 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.

\- 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.

~~~
HUSSTECH
I can speak somewhat for the UK, but I assume the same can be said for most of
Continental Europe, Japan and China where (deep) underground tunnels for have
been around for a long time.

The deeper tunnels of the London Underground are "bored", that is a full
circular profile is cut for the tunnel path. This is contrasted with the "cut
and cover" method, which just digs a pit, builds a support structure, and
covers it back up [1]. Cut an cover is not feasible for deeper tunnels, too
much structure is required to hold up the weight of earth above you. Some of
the older lines on the underground were dug this way; fun fact: You'll notice
in NYC or Boston for example, that the subway stations are all square in their
tunnel shape profile, and you can visibly see the support structures, that's
because they are mostly not very deep, and used the cut and cover method. I'd
be interested to know if any US cities have deeper tunnels? (Despite not being
very deep, cut and cover is a very good way to quickly build mass transport
for growing cities.)

The BBC has been doing programmes on the Underground for years, so there has
been a steady steam of documentaries on this topic! I apologise if you can't
get to any of these links:

\- A 1969 BBC documentary on the Victoria line (hopefully answers your
question 1)^:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00sc29t](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00sc29t)

\- A 2014 documentary on Crossrail, London's latest new underground line^^:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04bwkj1](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04bwkj1)

^currently streaming in the UK

^^ looks like this one is no longer available, except on Amazon. The Crossrail
project website has some info on the show [2], and in general the Crossrail
site tires to put educational info on there for the curious [3]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel#Cut-and-
cover](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel#Cut-and-cover) [2]
[http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/crossrail-documentary-the-
fi...](http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/crossrail-documentary-the-fifteen-
billion-pound-railway/) [3]
[http://www.crossrail.co.uk/construction/tunnelling/meet-
our-...](http://www.crossrail.co.uk/construction/tunnelling/meet-our-giant-
tunnelling-machines/)

~~~
Nav_Panel
_> I'd be interested to know if any US cities have deeper tunnels_

Some NYC subway stations and lines were built with boring as opposed to cut
and cover. 90% of the new 2nd Avenue line, for example, is planned to be
bored[1]. Here[2] is an article with more details about the tunnel boring
machine used -- the comments also have a lot of good discussion. Also, Los
Angeles has done some boring for its new subway lines[3].

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway#Construct...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway#Construction_methods)

2: [http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/05/14/down-the-rabbit-
hole...](http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/05/14/down-the-rabbit-hole-a-
tunnel-boring-machine-comes-alive/)

3: [https://www.metro.net/projects/tunnel-boring-machine-
tbm/](https://www.metro.net/projects/tunnel-boring-machine-tbm/)

~~~
HUSSTECH
That 2nd Avenue line looks awesome! Also, one BIG thing the NYC subway has
over on the London Underground...extensive Air Conditioning! hat-tip

~~~
sethhochberg
Only in the handful of most recently constructed stations (like the 2nd Ave
line, or the new Hudson Yards extension of the 7 line). The overwhelming
majority of the station network is 80+ years old and has no climate control.

------
DonnyV
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.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13598876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13598876)

~~~
Robotbeat
That is not possible. At some point, your tunnel starts collapsing under the
pressure and the great heat makes tunneling incredibly difficult. The deepest
we've ever gotten on Earth is the Kola Superdeep Borehole (a Soviet project)
that got 12km deep. On Mars, with the lower gravity and cooler center, we may
get about triple that before reaching similar constraints in pressure and
temperature. But no way you can get all the way to the core. Also, in order to
melt the core, it'd take an insane amount of energy.

Mars' core is 6-21% of the mass of the planet. Mars has a mass of 6 * 10^23kg.
Heat capacity of iron is 450J/(kg * degree C). To heat up the iron by 1000
degrees C (rough estimate of what'd be required, though even if this is off by
an order of magnitude, it won't change the conclusion), you'd need to provide
at least:

1000 * .06 * 6E23kg * 450J/kg = 1.62 * 10E28 Joules. That's equivalent to 3.9
* 10^12 Megatons of TNT. In other words, it'd take about a trillion H-bombs to
do what you say. Not feasible, clearly!!!

Luckily, that's not required. You can simply build a superconducting cable
around the planet. The ambient temperature is already near the critical
temperature of some of our highest performing superconductors, but because the
cable (or, likely, a series of large cables in parallel to keep the local
field at the surface of the superconductor below the critical field strength)
will be large, insulating it very well should not be a problem, and the energy
needed to run the cryocoolers could be provided by solar panels installed on
top of the cable. (Superconductors also can carry more current if you keep
them colder, so it's usually a good idea to operate well below the critical
temperature anyway.)

This would be pretty easy to do, easier than the initial terraforming steps
(i.e. raising the surface pressure by melting/subliming the ice caps and
heating the regolith via albedo modification, super greenhouse gases, giant
space mirrors, or Musk's favorite pulsed fusion over the poles). The amount of
material required isn't that high, either. And the cable can also provide a
planet-circling electrical grid and can provide vast amounts of seasonal
storage capacity (actually, multi-decade storage capacity), thus negating the
need for grid-level storage on Mars (or actually, the grid would literally be
its own storage mechanism!).

But all this is kind of besides the point: planetary atmospheres tend to do
the actual heavy lifting of radiation shielding. Earth's atmosphere is far
more important than our magnetic field in lowering the radiation dose on the
Earth's surface. And while in absence of a magnetic field the atmosphere is
slowly stripped, that process takes hundreds of millions of years.

~~~
ziedaniel1
Wow, can I read more about the circum-planetary superconductor idea somewhere?
I thought this sort of thing wouldn't work because superconductors lose
superconductivity once currents get too high, as you mention.

~~~
Robotbeat
I'm working on a blog post.

------
ForrestN
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?

------
decker
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.

------
alex_duf
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.

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.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_4_ways_to_make_a_city_mo...](http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_4_ways_to_make_a_city_more_walkable)

~~~
paulddraper
Bicycles and walking are slower, more subject to weather conditions, and work
for a smaller portion of the population.

~~~
alex_duf
that means changing the design of our cities, and ensure that people who can't
use cycling or walking can make use of public transport and / or individual
cars if necessary.

The vast majority of people could live in a situation where individual
transportation isn't necessary. In fact, cities like London are showing it's
possible, simply by making cars unaffordable.

------
rwhitman
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

~~~
criddell
According to the article, you don't need a permit to dig on your own property.
He's going through the process you describe for when he hits the property
line.

~~~
rwhitman
So, I talked to an engineer for a neighboring SoCal city...

He said there's typically a grading and demolition permit needed, structural
engineer needs to sign off on the integrity of the pit, earthquake assessment,
Dig Alert for utilities etc. But because he's Musk, SpaceX likely gets fast
tracked for permits from the city of Hawthorne.

Found some details on the nitty gritty of it:
[http://www.dailynews.com/business/20170130/elon-musks-
tunnel...](http://www.dailynews.com/business/20170130/elon-musks-tunnel-goals-
may-be-too-lofty-even-for-the-eccentric-billionaire)

------
viggity
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?

------
monodeldiablo
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.

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.

It might be his least crazy idea, honestly.

~~~
jandrese
One thing that isn't as obvious at first is how tunneling traffic under a city
can greatly increase the walkability of the city. Look at Boston after the Big
Dig. Neighborhoods that were previously cut in half are coming back together.
Downtown is seen as a desirable place to be. It's a big QoL improvement for a
city.

I'm not sure if he will be able to bring the costs of tunnel boring down as
much as you would like, but I'll hold out hope. At the very least he does have
a flair for picking company names, "The Boring Company".

~~~
IpV8
Not sure if the Big Dig is a great project to reference here, it went over
budget by some 200% and many years. It was seen as one of the greatest civil
engineering mistakes by the end. Sure it improved the QoL, but what other
projects that take less than some 15 billion dollars can improve QoL just as
much?

~~~
Rezo
The Big Dig was one of the "cost-plus" projects mentioned in the article. The
contract was for a guaranteed 7% profit on top of costs for design and
construction. Is it any wonder that the construction company has zero
incentive to do it efficiently or reduce costs! Overruns only bring benefits
(more work, paid for by the state), and no downsides.

Another industry that loves their cost-plus projects is interestingly the
traditional rocket launching business. Boeing and friends has for decades
gotten used to massive cost-plus project contracts from the government for
their launches, and is now feeling the pain of having to start to compete with
Space X that operates at a magnitude or more efficiently and continues to
drive down the price despite already being the cheapest.

------
alexmingoia
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...

------
gojomo
Two synergistic factors with Musk's other interests, that I'm surprised BW's
deep-dive doesn't mention:

* zero-emission cars may make tunnel ventilation a much easier problem

* autonomous cars may far better utilize narrow tunnels (with clearances that'd be too accident-prone for human drivers)

Taken together, tunnels-for-autonomous-fully-electric-vehicles could be far
more practical, for longer distances, than they've been for traditional cars.

------
thecrumb
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.

------
ozborn
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.

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.

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.

~~~
jerven
Mud, most of the tunnel boring machines dig through mud. Mud does not need any
more fracturing, its quite easy to dig through as is. Its really hard to dig
tunnels in it because it likes to collapse on top of you.

It's like why do you use a drill and screws to hang a picture instead of a
handgun some 9mm's and a nail.

------
jsat
To those interested in arguably the most ambitious boring operation in
progress, behold, Bertha in Seattle:
[http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct/About/FollowBertha](http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct/About/FollowBertha)

------
sunjain
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.

------
redsummer
The Boring Company's leader is called Steve Davis. Musk is obviously a keen
student of Snooker lore.

------
robotjosh
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.

------
aedron
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.

------
Paul-ish
Interesting idea. If we move transit infrastructure underground, we could
reclaim a lot of surface space for pedestrians and green spaces.

------
woodandsteel
The article says, "Musk thinks flying cars are a dumb idea"

So we're not going to get a flying version of the Tesla? Darn.

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."

Now that makes some sense.

~~~
astrodust
He might be a smart guy but this tunnel idea is completely idiotic.

Digging tunnels is easy. Digging tunnels that can carry vehicular traffic,
that meet safety standards, that don't disrupt the buildings above them, that
don't shift or collapse due to seismic faults, that don't interfere with or
collide into other infrastructure is hard.

If tunnels were easy, if tunnels were the future, the clusterfuck of crazy
that is the Seattle tunnel wouldn't have happened:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Way_Viaduct_replacemen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Way_Viaduct_replacement_tunnel)

------
thrillgore
So how is he planning on paying for all the TBM work involved? Make it a
private toll road?

That will totally work.

------
jankotek
In US the administrative cost makes boring very expensive. Technology is
already solved problem.

------
angry_napkin
I get the feeling we're supposed to be breaking up with Elon Musk. Slowly of
course.

------
rhinoceraptor
What happens when there is an earthquake?

------
emodendroket
Uh-huh. I'm kind of tired of credulous reporters puffing up every idea that
comes into this guy's head.

------
fiatjaf
I bet all Elon Musk admirers will start hating him because he is getting along
with Trump.

~~~
jkelsey
Hating? No. But certainly disappointed and disillusioned.

With ethno-supremacist folks like Bannon and Miller having such high-level
spots in the administration, and their executive orders targeting legal
residents and immigrants based on nothing other than xenophobic and racist
world-vews, folks like Elon can't expect not to get mud on their reputation
when they help legitimatize the Trump administration's actions.

------
boznz
Sorry Elon, you can't get away from Trump this way.. Now if you could get to
Mars :-)

------
jonstewart
Hi, my name is Bruno Tesch and I've developed this great new pesticide. Would
the government be interested in sponsoring my research?

