
Elon Musk’s Boring Company Gets Preliminary Permit for NYC-DC Hyperloop - vinnyglennon
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/19/elon-musks-boring-company-gets-preliminary-permit-for-nyc-d-c-hyperloop/
======
Nrbelex
This headline is bordering on inaccurate. As described by the original
Washington Post article:

> The Boring Company team has received an early, and vague, building permit
> from the D.C. government that will allow some preparatory and excavation
> work at the fenced-off parking lot at 53 New York Avenue NE beside a
> McDonald’s and amid the construction cranes of Washington’s booming NoMa
> neighborhood.

------
ucaetano
Translation: Boring Company gets permit to dig hole in a private parking lot.

------
ksenzee
> this first permit is comparable to an athlete stretching before a race. We
> have not yet begun.

Sounds to me like this first permit is more like an athlete shopping for
running shoes. This is really preliminary.

------
osswid
A previous genius industrialist - Isambard Kingdom Brunel - built an
"atmospheric railway" in 1844.

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-
word/2014/apr/04/b...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-
word/2014/apr/04/brunels-atmospheric-railway-history-technology-)

------
criddell
Is the ground around DC dry enough for a tunneling machine like Musk has? I've
always thought of that part of the country as being very wet.

~~~
bane
It is both wet and generally fine for tunneling. The D.C. metro (subway) is
almost entirely underground within D.C. city limits (though it runs mostly
above ground outside of the city) and basements and extensive underground
parking garages are the norm (some going _very_ deep).

The region being looked at is the Atlantic Coastal Plain and a little of the
Atlantic Piedmont Plateau. Below the wet marshy bits it's mostly sedimentary
prelithified and lithified rock in the coastal plain area and a complex
geology in the Piedmont area. The Piedmont area used to be the base of an
ancient mountain range that's since eroded away while the Coastal Plain used
to be entirely underwater at some period.

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_(United_States)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_\(United_States\))

------
tritium
The address in this article (53 New York Avenue NE) appears to be slightly
incorrect.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/49+O+St+NE,+Washington,+DC...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/49+O+St+NE,+Washington,+DC+20024/)

------
kingbirdy
It looks like this permit is only for a small location, would this be the
station?

~~~
Nrbelex
>Asked about the permit, issued Nov. 29, a Boring Company spokesman said
Friday that “a New York Avenue location, if constructed, could become a
station” in a broad network of such stops across the new system.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/dc-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/dc-
has-given-elon-musk-a-permit-to-do-a-little-digging-for-the-
hyperloop/2018/02/16/ee8d2f08-1359-11e8-9570-29c9830535e5_story.html?utm_term=.2ae28b93aabf)

------
krazydad
Their work actually sounds pretty exciting to me.

~~~
geezerjay
> Their work actually sounds pretty exciting to me.

Why? They are nothing more than a off-the-shelf boring machine that was never
used and a marketing department dedicated to fabricate hype.

~~~
BenjiWiebe
The reason I'm excited is because at one point SpaceX was all hype too. :)

