Posted on 04/11/2024 5:05:17 PM PDT by C19fan
Saudi Arabia has been left humiliated after being forced to scale back its multi-trillion-dollar plans for a 106-mile linear megacity in the desert to just over one per cent of its original length.
The ambitious project, named the Line, forms part of the kingdom's lucrative Neom infrastructure project - which had been slated to cost up to $1.5trillion.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Sounds like Saudi Arabia is jealous of China’s ghost cities and wants one of its own.
The former mayor of Boise wanted to put in light rail in downtown Boise, which is about 1.5 miles long.
WTH was he thinking?
Saudi Arabia has on thing and one thing only that drives its economy—oil. It wants to pretend it can wean itself off that commodity and rely on something else but that will not happen. This is another example of the government having its head up its anus. Free markets determine success or failure, governments have no idea what that means as economic freedom is not a something they understand
Another problem the Saudis have is their religion. As long as they hold fast to a lie, nothing will change.
Islam will continue to be a pestilence on the world, until the day of the Lord.
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/saudi-arabia/
“which had been slated to cost up to $1.5trillion”
Xiden can spend that much over budget in only 5 months, not as impressive when said that way.
15 minute city
“Several members of the local Howeitat tribe who had protested the plans which would see construction on their ancestral lands were executed, according to reports”
OK.. That leaves just enough room for the Palestinian vermin...
Send them, Dano...
Sort of like CAHSR starting with an easy run from Bakersfield to Merced, hoping for federal money later to complete the project. This is starting with 800 meter modules, which can be extended and added on to, as money and demand permit. It’s still a wild idea but this is a rational approach, Much more reasonable than trying to do the whole thing at one gulp.
Too bad arabs are so incredibly stupid. A better application of their oil wealth would be in desalination plants and turning their crap country into a place normal humans would want to live.
The Gulf Arab states have invested heavily in desalination. An YouTuber geopolitical analyst claims the Saudis use around a quarter of their oil production for desalination and power for AC, etc.
I think the concept is good of small areas all walkable or reachable by train, but the concept would be much more workable as a circle with spokes, with “green” or shared public spaces in between.
A spoked circle would cut the travel time needed to go from one area to another remote area, either partway around, or up one spoke to the center and then to another point on the clock face, or straight across and partway around. As it is, traveling from one end to the other would take maximum time. This would present challenges for distribution of goods and services.
Unless, of course, they intend to corrall people into the so-called “15-minute” segments that are barricaded from one another, each with individual power plants and supply centers replenished by drone. Since the “line” map shows it going inland instead of parallel to the shoreline, they could not use boats for efficient distribution to the far end.
Are they going to rumble trucks or container trains down the one main thoroughfare? If the train tracks bisect the city like a spine, wouldn’t they soon have social divisions from people “on the wrong side of the tracks”? Will they have high pedestrian bridges, or will pedestrian or train tunnels have to be underground, in the shifting sands of the desert? Many engineering challenges.
“The Line” would also be a lot harder to police than a circle, IMHO. Which of course they will want to do. A straight line would put maximum stress on power plants, and would make the entire city more vulnerable in case of attack, as well.
You are correct
I'm not sure touring the Red Sea in my yacht is all that great an idea at the moment, but I'll be sure to keep that in mind when the shooting stops. That is, never.
Rail is like a mini-religion for the Left. Because 19th Century transportation technology is *exactly* what we need in the 21st Century!
The former mayor of Boise wanted a light rail system in downtown Boise.
Downtown Boise is something like 1.5 miles long.
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