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Originally Posted by canucklehead2
I agree 100%. Also why The Boring Company was hiring staff at Adelanto. I am guessing an LA to LV tunnel with Prufrock is going to be the tech's coming out party as it were... And most likely a race against Brightline to get to the city first since Musk seems to be all about disrupting the status quo, even if it's just a mindset like "America needs to copy the world instead of leapfrogging it"
Personally my compromise/ideal tech would be something I call "MuskMetro" an automated battery-electric Skytrain-like rapid transit that could use the same 12' diameter tunnels as TBC has designed.
If you think the tunnels are too small for rapid transit let me remind you the London Underground Deep Tube network uses tunnels with a smaller diameter than that! So already MILLIONS are transported daily narrower tunnels using tech invented LITERALLY 2 centuries ago...
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A) Any kind of lengthy tunnel from LA-LV will have to undergo the notorious California environmental review under CEQA, which takes years. Brightline already has theirs done. There will be no race.
B) Even with the small diameter, tunnel boring is very slow. If you want to speed up a long tunnel, you need to break it up into multiple segments with multiple access shafts and multiple TBMs working at the same time. When Musk wanted to tunnel in Chicago from downtown to O'Hare it was estimated to be 3 years of tunnel boring, and that's only ~16 miles. There will be no race.
C) Musk's tunnels can theoretically carry subway trains ala London Tube, but they don't have traction power, tracks, signals, high capacity stations, rolling stock, or trainyards, and those aren't cheap. Once all that is factored in I don't know if there is much of a cost savings over "reasonable" costs for a traditional subway (i.e. the subway costs paid by Asian and Euro nations, not the US where all construction is subject to cost disease).
D) The face that Musk's tunnels can theoretically carry trains is a moot point, because Musk hates trains (too socialist for him) and he will only build the tunnels for private luxury pods, which is to say Tesla cars.
E) Musk's Vegas tunnel deliberately did not comply with NFPA130, the fire code that applies to subway tunnels. NFPA is a very costly approach to fire prevention and exceeds what is done in Asian and Euro nations, but it is the law of the land in virtually every state. In Vegas, the city and/or state may just decide to repeal that code, which is their prerogative, but fat chance of that happening in California.
F) Finally, the cost savings of Musk's tunnel can't be adopted by others looking to build a subway, because of the NFPA130 reason listed above. So until the code changes nationally, don't expect so see The Boring Company building a subway anywhere.