Posted on 03/25/2022 5:08:55 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Trains already go to centers of many cities... they’re useless. Stations let people off in hellhole neighborhoods with no easy access to ‘where business people want to go’. Public transportation sucks.
What Musk could do is off load into several safe and active destinations areas along the route. AI can do that with ease...
Using steel wheels on a rail instead of rubber tires on asphalt causes stations to be built in hellhole neighborhoods?
Years ago when planes were first seen as possible competition for trains - railroad executives used their power and influence to force airports to areas outside city limits.
The idea was to make it difficult for people flying to make easy connections.
The unintended consequence was trains were sidetracked and stopped evolving and airports thrived. If railroad execs had chosen to place airports adjacent to train stations BOTH industries would have prospered. Instead commerce moved toward airports and away from inner city train stations.
You are right-it would be an accident waiting to happen-but i doubt the Texas natural resource commission and the water quality commission would let it go forward-Musk would be better off selling that idea to the DFW area-prarieland instead of limestone bedrock, aquifer, etc...
“Didn’t he want to build a tunnel in LA a few years ago?”
indeed ... i saw a picture of it ... it was a couple hundred feet long ...
Sorry, I didn’t realize you are an idiot.
You are missing the point. Trains only solve getting people from station to station. At each end you have to change transportation modes to get to your destination the last mile problem. Plus people especially Texans hate being crammed in with a bunch of people we don’t know on their schedules mass transit is a disaster in Texas.
Automated EVs can do something regular vehicles cannot they can platoon inches away from the bumper of the EV in front of them all linked together with wireless protocols controlled by a central system. This allows virtual trains to be formed moving thousands of EVs per hour with zero human control in the tunnels. Right now in Vegas the vehicles have steering done by computer to keep them centered in the tunnels. This solves the last mile problem once you reach the exit portal the whole column exits into a divergence area slows to a halt and releases control back to the humans or the individual FSD unit to pull off the DV area into the surface street network direct to the users destination. This has the best feature of mass transit being grade separation from surface streets. The best of PRT as in personal rapid transit, and still keeps the individualism that Texans demand. If he builds it it will be a winner. DFW Is looking at something similar for DAL love field underground to IH35E and US75 either would be a huge money maker at $5 to $10 each way to not have to creep on loop 12 or mockingbird Lane is worth every penny millions a year in revenue for sure Dallas as the affluence for it. We have till lanes under 635 at run $5 to $10 during peak hours to cut 5 miles from 75 to 35E and they are packed full every day of the week chaaaaching baby. They basically dug up 635 dropped a completely new motorway under it then covered it up with the original lanes plus one as that was the deal to use the ROW under a paid for road. Musk is a modern day Edison he is changing the way we live. SpaceX is nothing short than a revolution in space flight he has the only human rated space craft in the USA and the only one in the world that can leave low earth orbit and come back. He will land humans on the moon well before NASA goes back he has the contract to do so already. He likely will beat the Chinese and definitely the Russians. His Boring company has proven the cost cutting tech they developed to make TBM machines at a tenth the cost of the others. The secret sauce is they don’t back in massive corporate profits they make just enough to put money into the next venture. Tesla spawned SpaceX that spawned Boring and down the line we go.
The Edwards aquifer is much lower in the strata than the depth of what effectively is a subway tunnel. I’m a geologist with years in the Permian and Eagle Ford basins. S.A. Shallow depths are Austin Chalk perfect for a TBM to.chew through. The Austin is competent but not so hard to beat up cutter disks. The Boring company uses custom built TBMs if they hit shallow ground water it would be the surfacial zone not under much pressure the TBM probably would not need a shield type head they could pressure balance with compressed air vs mudshield.
Dallas would be perfect for a love field to 75 and 35 tunnel it’s been looked at twice before the costs were too high. Boring co. Could do it ten times cheaper so it’s a possibility now. Drill right under HP and the rich people if they are deeper than 50 meters vibrations won’t be an issue in competent limestone Dallas is also Austin Chalk or Woodbine sandstone both have the resistance to hold up a TBM face.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.