Elon Musk’s idea for fixing traffic suffers from one fundamental problem
vox.com
vox.com
Recently there have been tunnels made for the Second Ave subway which should be opening soon. Last year, there was a tunnel made for subways below 42nd st for the 7th Ave extension from Times Square to the Javitts Convention Center. Another tunnel from commuter rails in Queens to Grand Central Station.
Many of the subway lines have tunnels for 4 tracks: for both local and express, the later which skip multiple stops.
Incidentally, like Tesla cars, the subways are electric powered but hold 2000 people. In the case of the NYC subways, much of that electricity comes from very green hydroelectric from the Canadian province of Quebec.
Other US cities should be drilling more tunnels, but for subways.
"“Sixteen brand new, concrete-lined tunnels now exist under New York City where none did five years ago,” Joseph J. Lhota, the agency’s chairman, said in a statement. “The conclusion of tunnel boring reminds us that New Yorkers remain capable of great achievements.”
For seven machines, the end of tunnel boring has also meant new destinations or, in some cases, a final resting place..."
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/molina-a-200-to...
But when the issue is net neutrality, issues about fairness and equality reign supreme. The complete opposite approaches are preferred--flat fees, minimization of priority routing, more exchanges and less centralization, and a commitment to maintaining the packet-based IP infrastructure rather than moving to more specialized (if less flexible) "mass transit" protocols.
Obviously there are plenty of good reasons for the dichotomy to exist. And I'm not challenging the normative goals regarding net neutrality, nor net neutrality as the means. But certainly in the short-term net neutrality can require expensive solutions (technologically, financially, and politically). We do it more-or-less successfully because so-far the consensus by-and-large is that long-term it provides an optimum environment for technological growth and economic mobility.
While I'm all for mass transit projects, I think our community really sells short the benefit of personal transit. And especially in the United States, we fixate on solutions that are basically untenable. Yes, the fiscal, technical, and structural problems with personal transit only grow more significant at scale, but recognizing that does not require admitting defeat.
The U.S. is unlikely to ever see mass transit on the scale of London, Seoul, Tokyo, and various Chinese cities. For social and geopolitical reasons, our future is almost certainly going to rely heavily on personalized transit. I hope and expect subway systems to grow by leaps and bounds, but the demographic shift back to the dense urban core will have its limit, and in absolute terms suburban commutes are likely to continue to dominate transit planning. Also, as the rich swap places with the poor and working-class, an excessive focus on mass transit will only exacerbate inequality of income, of wealth, and of economic and social mobility.
I say this as someone who _loves_ mass transit. I'd cut off a finger if it made a Geary Blvd subway a reality in San Francisco.