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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

It needs to be fixed, but maybe the MTA isn't the right entity to fix it. Maybe write Elon Musk a $3 billion check with no political strings attached and see what he can do with it?

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Elon has never delivered anything nearly this big ever and has rarely operated on schedule. He is not the person I would give the transit problem in one of the world's premier cities.

I like the sentiment of this but Elon isn't the right person. He hates all things mass transit.

This isn’t true. The Boring Company’s first two projects are intercity mass transit (Baltimore-DC) and local mass transit (O’Hare-downtown Chicago).

Is the current plan actually for mass transit or just point-to-point rather exclusive transit?

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/12/what-elon-mus... was doing the rounds a few weeks ago

I'll believe it when I see it. Being a rich techie doesn't mean you know how to build a public transit system

He seems to be angling for Mass Transit 2.0: The Bus Comes to You.

Is that going to work? I don't know yet. I want to believe, though.

It will make things better, but I don't think it can solve anything outright. Grade separation, which provides load balancing and a sort of fail-over route, is the real deal.

Both of those are bids, not projects for which the Boring Company has been selected.

> Maybe write Elon Musk a $3 billion check with no political strings attached

What are the political (as opposed to, presumably, practical, like "these metrics for subway performance must improve") strings that might be attached?

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