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.
Related Stories
Local leaders cooling to Boring Company tunnel promises
Virginia state transit officials are telling The Boring Company "thanks but no thanks," at least for now. The Virginia Mercury reported yesterday that the state's chief of rail transportation, Michael McLaughlin, was not sufficiently impressed by his recent visit to Elon Musk's test tunnel in California to recommend that the state work with the startup.
"It's a car in a very small tunnel," McLaughlin reportedly told the state's Transportation Board public transit subcommittee this week. "If one day we decide it's feasible, we'll obviously come back to you," he added.
[...] In February, Musk tweeted that the company was working on improving its test tunnel. "Focus right now is getting to high speed, tight follow distance in test tunnel," the CEO tweeted. He said that "Line-Storm," The Boring Company's second-generation boring machine, would start getting updates "in a month or so."
But even as The Boring Company says it's trying to improve on tunneling efficiency and design, Chicago may be looking to take a step back from the express line that Mayor Rahm Emanuel pledged to build with the company. The mayor's office announced in June 2018 that it would work with The Boring Company to build a long-awaited express line between O'Hare International Airport and the Windy City's downtown area.
Previously: Elon Musk Claims to Have "Verbal Approval" to Build New York to Washington, D.C. Hyperloop
Elon Musk's Boring Tunnel Near Los Angeles
Washington, D.C. Granted Elon Musk's Boring Company an Excavation Permit for Possible Hyperloop
Elon Musk's Boring Company Wins Chicago O'Hare International Airport Transportation Contract
Elon Musk's Boring Bricks
The Boring Company Announces Dec. 10 Debut for First Los Angeles Tunnel
The Boring Company Won't Pursue Los Angeles Tunnel Under 405 Freeway
Elon Musk Startup Picked to Build Las Vegas 'People Mover'
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 03 2018, @03:01PM (1 child)
I guess the lawsuit over the LA tunnel under the 405 made the project too exciting for The Boring Company to pursue.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @03:42PM
Perhaps, or perhaps this is a convenient out for Musk when he can't actually provide what's been promised.
(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.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday December 03 2018, @05:18PM
There were no subways no light rail lines when I was at Tech from 1982-85. At the time there were buses but their bus system sucked. Whenever a serious effort was made to build a subway, a whole whack of political opposition brought the banhammer down on it. I never so much as heard of proposals for light rail.
Imagine attending a very, very elite Astronomy school so you could major in it there.
Now imagine not being able to see the stars at night. I would _not_ have even _applied_ at Caltech had I ever visited the campus before applying.
But somehow quite a lot of light rail got built, the buses systems was _massively_ expanded - there are even some twenty-four hour lines. While there's not much subway yet, what little there is is quite heavily used, with well-planned connections to light rail and buses from it.
My friend Ted lives in LA now; I visited him late in the Spring of 2013. The air was pure and clean as far as I could tell when I visited him. When I was at the Institute, more often than not the sky was _brown_. That was Nitric Oxide, it's what the fumes from Fuming Nitric Oxide are made out of. Just run your sprinkler on a hot summer day, mix it with some sulfuric pool acid then some drug store hand softener and you've got Nitroglycerin.
Ted is always posting photos of the LA skyline. That skyline never has any smog hanging over it.
Surely there was some reason that the subway was fought so heavily?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday December 03 2018, @05:40PM (8 children)
WTF is innovative about a subway tunnel? They've been building them for the last 100+ years. In cities in other parts of the world, people on the ground don't generally have a problem with subway tunnels underneath them, and planning permission is quite normal and mostly to do with the stations. Musk has shot himself in the foot by hyping that this is not just another subway that he is building, and has therefore got people who will live near it spooked about it; I don't blame them for telling him to fuck off - I would too and tell him only to come back when he has stopped bull-shitting. But a subway is what it would be.
Why TF he needs to build a proof-of-concept tunnel anyway is beyond me, it's just a Godammed tunnel, they are being built elsewhere all the time. The Musk fans say he is a man who gets on with things, yet he wastes time on proving that a tunnel can be built?
If he thinks he is going to put new-fangled type of train through it, and needs to test such a train, I can't see why the train itself can't be tested in the open somewhere out of the city, independently of the tunnel - this is not Hyperloop I understand. My money is on Musk's tunnels ending up with normal passenger trains anyway; talk of things like flat-wagons (he calls them sleds) for cars is just bullshit to get headlines.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 03 2018, @06:48PM (7 children)
So suppose you need some work done on your roof and you run into someone cheap. They say they can do it. That's good enough right?
Or maybe it's not good enough and you want to see some evidence that they can do the work, say recommendations from customers who had roof jobs done.
That's what's going on here. Tunneling is a big part of the capital costs of the Hyperloop system in an urban environment. They're showing that they can do it (while learning from the experience), not just to the city of Los Angeles, but also to the world, Boring Company's investors, Elon Musk, and themselves. If they don't build such a tunnel, then how will anyone know that they can build such a tunnel?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday December 03 2018, @08:07PM (4 children)
But they have already built a test tunnel (Hawthorne Test Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boring_Test_Tunnel), [wikipedia.org] and Musk is already getting contracts (Chicago O'Hare link https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-14/elon-musk-s-boring-co-wins-chicago-airport-high-speed-train-bid). [bloomberg.com] I believe that Musk is calling these "Test Tunnels" as some sort of way of getting building permission easier.
Tunnel boring is established tech, the principle of which needs no further proof. If Boring fouls up in a contract then they can be fired and the job given to another contractor to finish - at least that has been a provision in all civil engineering contracts I have been involved with. If Musk thinks he has some way of digging faster, fine, try it out under the desert if he must, but he should get the fuck on with it instead of talking. I'd be unimpressed by such test pieces anyway - the success and speed of tunnel building (as with much civil engineering) depends very much on the geological conditions met and a test piece done elsewhere does not have much relevance.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday December 03 2018, @08:11PM
Sorry, those links did not work, the closing parenthesis fouled them up. Here they are again :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boring_Test_Tunnel [wikipedia.org]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-14/elon-musk-s-boring-co-wins-chicago-airport-high-speed-train-bid [bloomberg.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 03 2018, @10:03PM (2 children)
So what? As I noted, that's not what Boring needs to prove. I see you have similar thoughts further on.
Unless nobody else has the capabilities to finish that contract at the given price.
You said the principles have already been proven. What more needs to be done? Talk away!
So... what is the point to this entire post? First, you complain that tunneling is established tech (even though it's clear that Boring has ambitions beyond just digging holes). Then you complain that Musk is talking instead of tunneling. Now you're complaining that even if he tunnels instead of talks, it won't count because tunneling won't be the same everywhere. Whatever.
These test tunnels and subsequent construction efforts, if completed successfully, will show that the company is more than just talk.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday December 03 2018, @11:37PM (1 child)
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.
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.
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.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 04 2018, @10:15AM
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 "test" tunnels already sound like they're in relatively useful locations and will end up with some sort of transportation system installed.
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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 04 2018, @11:36AM (1 child)
Actually if it's only for his Hyperloop project, why did he have to start a tunnel boring company of his own? It's not as if such a thing didn't exist before, or that such a company would be unwilling to be a subcontractor if Musk ever got a viable contract to build a Hyperloop (they don't even have to care whether the Hyperloop itself will work; they build the tunnel they get paid for, and if Musk then fails to build a viable Hyperloop in that tunnel, it's not their problem).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 06 2018, @07:43PM
Because that's how he rolls. He got burned in SpaceX from subcontracting stuff out to sloppy businesses. I guess he doesn't want to go that route.