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The Boring Company won’t pursue LA tunnel under 405 freeway anymore
Back in August, The Boring Company was already distancing itself from a plan it pitched earlier in the year to build a test tunnel under Sepulveda Boulevard and the 405 freeway in Los Angeles.
On Tuesday, The Boring Company and a group of Westside residents issued a joint statement that they had "amicably settled" a lawsuit brought by the residents against The Boring Company in May of this year, according to the Los Angeles Times. The company, founded by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, said it would drop plans to build the 405 test tunnel and focus instead on building the so-called "Dugout Loop" that will run between a downtown LA Metro station and Dodger Stadium, if all goes as planned.
Elon Musk talks proof-of-concept tunnel parallel to the 405 in Los Angeles Musk announced the 405-parallel tunnel in an evening talk back in May, describing it as a 2.7 mile north-south test tunnel that wouldn't carry the general public—at first. Musk added at the time that The Boring Company would eventually do test rides to get user feedback. The City of Los Angeles appeared poised to fast-track Musk's idea, with LA Metro announcing: "We'll be partners moving forward."
[...] Now, The Boring Company intends to focus on the Dugout Loop, for which it has begun the CEQA permitting process (although it's unclear if a full permit will be acquired before construction starts). Critics have charged that The Boring Company has taken advantage of poorer neighborhoods, like the Hawthorne neighborhood under which Musk's first tunnel is being completed. Meanwhile, richer neighborhoods represented by the coalition of Westside neighborhoods have the resources to fight back. Others might see the opposition from wealthy LA neighborhoods as a form of NIMBYism that stops innovation from coming to impacted LA transit.
For now, Musk's first Hawthorne tunnel is almost complete. The Boring company intends to open the tunnel to the public in December.
(Score: 2) by idiot_king on Monday December 03 2018, @03:54PM (4 children)
Instead of doing a really stupid thing like boring tunnels in one of the most earthquake prone regions in the Americas, why doesn't he just buyout Amtrak and not make it suck?
Instead of floating an idea of sending humans through a vacuum mail tube system (again in said earthquake region), why doesn't he take control of San Frans BART and make it not suck?
Is it because perhaps capitalism isn't about efficiency whatsoever? Is there some reason I'm missing why he comes up with ridiculous ideas that very very obviously won't work and everyone eats them up?
(Score: 3, Touché) by dwilson on Monday December 03 2018, @04:25PM (2 children)
Capitalists are people with capital (ie, money) that wish to invest it in some enterprise or activity, hoping to increase it. Elon Musk doing 'really stupid things' with his capital has nothing to do with being a capitalist, but has everything to do with being Elon Musk.
I apologize if that seems obvious, but you made an implied assertion (Being a capitalist means you have to do stupid things with your capital) that just isn't true.
- D
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday December 03 2018, @05:53PM
Sometimes we call people Capitalists because they had their own capital, and used it to build some really crazy stupid things that would never work. Like inexpensive practical electric light bulbs.
Or the very first pocket mp3 player (diamond rio I think) . . . who would even use such a crazy thing? Who even knows what an mp3 is, and of those who do know, how many of them go jogging and need a small solid state player? And then they get the honor of being the first sued by the RIAA because they make a device that people could potentially use to play pirated content.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 04 2018, @11:29AM
Yes.
While that is the usual motive, it is not part of the definition of “capitalist”. A capitalist is someone who invests capital, period.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday December 03 2018, @06:35PM
Because that has a negative return on investment. The first thing you'd have to do is shut down all the money losing parts of Amtrak (that includes any business those parts would stir on the more profitable parts). That would probably be more than 90% of the current operations. So here, Musk would be buying out Amtrak and then selling almost all of it for pennies on the dollar in order to avoid bankruptcy.
Reminds me of the joke about what it takes to make a small fortune in the stock market.
In addition, the people who profit from these beasts presently aren't going to want to give them up.