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posted by martyb on Monday December 03 2018, @02:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the hey-man,-can-you-dig-it? dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 04 2018, @10:15AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 04 2018, @10:15AM (#769483) Journal

    My point is that there is no need for further "test tunnels" (eg 405 parallel) because they have already done one (Hawthorne) even if that were needed - given that making tunnels is established tech. The fact that Musk keeps calling these things "test" tunnels after the first suggests to me that he intends that they will become part of regular service tunnels in due course and that he is using the "test" description to sidestep normal planning permission and maybe safety requirements.

    Why is only one test required?

    But having said that, if labeling them "test" gets past bureaucratic nonsense, then bully for him. I guess I'm of the opinion that "safety requirements" != an appropriate level of safety in California. Same goes for planning, something which California is notorious for neglecting. UK/London might be very good on these things, but California is a bunch of crazy nannies. Musk is already taking on extraordinary risk by having so much of his businesses in California.

    The tunnels will count if he builds them where needed, and I am suggesting that he should get on with doing that instead of talking about "testing". It won't count (ie it will prove nothing not already known) if he digs "test" tunnels where not needed. I also suggested that if he really wants to dig non-functional tunnels for novelty rides and to host dinners to satisfy his love of publicity, or to satisfy himself and backers that tunnelling machines do in principle work (as if they can't look at the rest of the World to see that), then he could do it in the desert or some such place where objections will be fewer.

    The "test" tunnels already sound like they're in relatively useful locations and will end up with some sort of transportation system installed.

    I don't see why my points should be so hard to understand. FWIW, as a former engineer for London Underground I am all in favour of building urban subway tunnels and wish Musk luck with it. I am just not impressed with the hype that he spouts and I regard "test tunnels" as irrelevant.

    The problem here is that the news cycle is way ahead of anything physical that Boring can be doing (it'd be a vastly different world if tunneling could proceed at the speed of journalism) and Musk's hype raises funds. It's not going to change because Musk's sexy stories sell.