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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday February 23 2020, @10:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the boring-story dept.

Elon Musk's Boring Company Finishes First Tunnel for 155mph Vegas Loop:

Last week, Musk's Boring Company finished excavating the first of two tunnels for a new transportation system that will run underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). The second tunnel will run parallel to the first, creating a loop to carry people back and forth in modified Tesla Model 3 and Model X cars.

There will be one station at the convention center's south hall, another between the central and north halls, and a third at the west hall, which is currently under construction. It takes about 15 minutes to walk from one hall to another (more if there are super-cool things like Avatar concept cars to see along the way). According to Musk, the underground cars will move at speeds up to 155 miles per hour, taking people between stations in just one minute.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority awarded a $48.7 million contract to the Boring Company last year; it's the company's first commercial contract, and they're required to test the system for three months before opening it for public use. Their goal is to move a whopping 4,000 vehicles per hour.

It took three months to excavate the first tunnel, with work taking place 40 feet underground. Musk hopes to eventually expand the transit system to other parts of Las Vegas, including the Strip and the airport, and even to have a connecting tunnel running all the way to Los Angeles; LA residents may one day be able to hop over to Vegas for an afternoon (or Vegas residents go catch a glimpse of the ocean for a few hours).


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by lentilla on Monday February 24 2020, @11:46AM (2 children)

    by lentilla (1770) on Monday February 24 2020, @11:46AM (#961782)

    The way I see it, this is simply a way of getting someone else to pay for proof that the Boring Company can successfully dig tunnels. The fast cars are just the means by which punters will pay to ride and investors will foot the construction bill. The real magic is getting that first contract to dig a tunnel. Once the first tunnel is delivered others will come.

    From that perspective - I see this as moving humanity forward. Digging tunnels is not exactly glamorous but has many applications. If the Boring Company can improve on the state-of-the-art and dig quickly, efficiently, economically and deliver on-time and on-budget then we (humanity) have made significant progress.

    In a decade or so, nobody will care about race cars speeding though a silly tunnel. History might; however; point to the time when it became economically and logistically feasible to put transport underground, thereby reducing the pox on our landscape that is highways, and preventing pedestrian deaths and inconvenience.

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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday February 24 2020, @12:14PM (1 child)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday February 24 2020, @12:14PM (#961790) Homepage
    And eventually in the distant future there might even be something like a tunnel going from the UK to the European mainland. Oh, wait, that was decades back.

    This is another player in the market, yes, and that's good for competition and therefore for keeping the market fair, but it's still just something mundane that we've been doing for centuries. Oh, did I say "centuries"? I must have been getting confused with "centurions" - I meant "millennia": http://www.romanaqueducts.info/aquasite/samosarchaic/index.html
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by lentilla on Monday February 24 2020, @12:59PM

      by lentilla (1770) on Monday February 24 2020, @12:59PM (#961803)

      a tunnel going from the UK to the European mainland

      You are quite correct. What I see as the potential innovation here is that a tunnel can be delivered on-time and on-budget without the decades of corruption, cronyism and political maneuvering that seems to go hand-in-hand with these kind of projects.

      I am no expert in the history of the Channel Tunnel but my guess would be that it would fit all those categories mentioned above. A quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that my guess was accurate - a decade to build and "only" 80% cost overrun. The Big Dig [wikipedia.org] is another example that comes to mind: "The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the US, and was plagued by cost overruns, delays, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests...". It took twenty-five years and only ran 190% over budget.

      Things would be markedly improved if governments could simply say "please build a tunnel from this entry hole to this exit hole" and a construction company could say "sure, that will be 60 months and 20 billion dollars". Elon Musk already has a track record here - delivering an huge grid-connected battery [wikipedia.org] in South Australia. The important part was the cheeky wager - the battery would be complete within 100 days from signature or it was free. It was delivered on-time and on-budget. I would like to see the same things with tunnels - governments could concern themselves with infrastructure planning and payment, and they could rely on engineering experts to deliver.

      but it's still just something mundane that we've been doing for centuries

      Yes and yes - but until now it has most often been an extremely painful process.