
The Boring Company will prioritize pedestrians and cyclists - maelito
https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/972233079342297088
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burger_moon
non-mobile link twitter.com/elonmusk/status/972233079342297088

and to comment on this, I wonder how long it will take before these pods will
be completely vandalized. Regular buses with a driver who can boot off unruly
people can't prevent the buses from getting trashed so an autonomous pod is
going to face some real challenges in that regard. That being said, I'm glad
they are prioritizing mass transit even if this is just a PR stunt or what
have you.

~~~
jdlshore
Most airport inter-terminal transit systems I've seen are driverless. More
relevantly, the Vancouver Skytrain is driverless (it's a proper city-scale
system equivalent to other urban light rail). I haven't noticed a
vandalization problem on any of them.

~~~
redspectre
Generally, airports are out of the way from the usual populations that commit
these crimes and don't see a lot of traffic from them.

~~~
mc32
Exactly. You generally don't have too many unsupervised youngsters bored with
time to kill and bad ideas to pursue. The drinks there are adults with
responsibilities who generally aren't looking to make trouble or get fired
form their jobs for being delinquents.

~~~
ttepasse
I studied at a university which is connected with a driverless suspension
railway [1].

Students aren't unsupervised youngsters with bad ideas as such but not far
removed from the concept. The H-Bahn never really looked bad.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-Bahn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-Bahn)

~~~
mc32
Different societies and cultures. Japan would also _not_ have this problem
--while Brazil probably would.

Our society is new and in flux. It hasn't yet converged and congealed with a
semi monolithic identity (even if from disparate parts). Who knows if it will
ever happen. Maybe one day.

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njarboe
This a great way of framing what his tunnels can do. There is only so much
capacity in a tunnel, but unlike current train systems, with automatic
vehicles you can mix high density people movers (buses) with lower density
(cars). If the the tunnel gets close to full then the high density vehicle get
priority. Or maybe who ever pays most gets to go. That way you can get more
resources to build more tunnels more quickly. A bus full of people should be
able to out spend a single vehicle almost all the time.

Since supporting individual transport options over a certain size and speed
seem to be politically impossible in urban America at the moment, promoting
his system as mass transit instead of a brand new concept of mixed transit is
a great idea. Cargo can/will also go in these tunnels, but I guess at the
moment politicians can't/won't support transportation improvement for trucks.

~~~
hammock
What makes you say current train systems can't mix high and low density
vehicles?

~~~
njarboe
Some trains have different classes of travel but not many urban subways
systems do (I don't know of any. India?). Also, current train systems are not
usually designed for individual vehicles to exit and enter the track system.
And I don't think any train systems allow vehicles that can also run on the
road system.

~~~
hammock
His "tunnel" is a train, the cars/vehicles are modules on it. In that sense,
it's no different than multimodal transportation widely is use here in the US.
A so-called multimodal container can be taken off of a container ship in port,
put into a train, delivered to another station where it is put of to an 18
wheeler truck bed , and finally delivered to wherever it is going. And vice
versa.

Also there are subways that run on roads, the Muni in San Francisco is one
example.

~~~
njarboe
I would think there is a bit of a difference when the vehicle can convert from
a car to a train by just merging into an existing stream of traffic in
seconds. Multi model is nothing like that. Unloading a ship to a train takes
days and unloading a train to trucks is also a full day activity.

"subways that run on roads".

Not sure what you mean here. Underground tunnels that have trains that have
rubber tires instead of tracks like the Paris RER? Or trolley cars on rails
that come out of the underground(the subway) and then run on the surface (a
trolley).

The closest I've seen to the Musk idea is in Seattle where the buses go
underground in downtown, but can go on the road network everywhere else.

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dalfonso
_Boring Co urban loop system would have 1000’s of small stations the size of a
single parking space that take you very close to your destination & blend
seamlessly into the fabric of a city, rather than a small number of big
stations like a subway_
-[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/972243992153739265?s=20](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/972243992153739265?s=20)

Video of concept:
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/972245615735222273?s=20](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/972245615735222273?s=20)

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Finnucane
Cyclists can’t afford cars?

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StellarTabi
Literally can't - yes, many people literally can't get the money in their
hands to lease/buy a car.

Figuratively can't - yes, some people don't make enough money to justify a
car, whether that is a monthly lease, large upfront cost, insurance, etc..
when they attempt to fit it in their budget, the budget ends up negative or
pushes out elements of higher utility. of course, this requires living
somewhere that actually supports non-car infrastructure.

