It's like a train, but with monumentally less carrying capacity- it's basically special tunnels for taxis. This is a real head-scratcher and calls into question the basic competence of LV government.
Subways have a capacity of about 50,000 people per hour. TBC's tunnels have a capacity of 4,000 people per hour.
So 8% of the capacity for 1% of the cost.
Even if the numbers are an order of magnitude out, it would still be attractive. 8% of the capacity for 10% of the cost would be fabulously useful in smaller cities like Vegas.
No they don't. The most expensive subway in the country costs $1B per mile. Typical costs are much cheaper (and could be even cheaper, but that's another story).
Subways at $120M/mile would be pretty freaking awesome.
This means that need to put down rails and control systems in the tunnels. I can't see that being $10M/mile.
The huge cost for subway systems are stations. What do the Boring stations cost? I bet the $10M/mile doesn't include the stations. Fairly simple stations for Las Vegas should be pretty cheap.
The 4,000 passenger number is afair only for the current section, the planned expansion will have a capacity of 2,000 passenger per hour.
The Las Vegas Loop makes sense as a vanity project.
If this is the way that economies of (small-) scale work w.r.t. tunnels, then how 'bout we shoot coffin-like pods down pneumatic tubes for something close to free ?
actually, I'm not even kidding.
I was under the impression you had a driver take you through the existing tunnel, all those wages can’t be cost effective for users.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-longest-cycling-tu...
It amazes me that a lot of these green cities haven't incorporated a small golf cart lanes as most people work within a range of a golf cart distance to travel.
The cost would be a lot cheaper than a car, no need for insurance premiums(if so, very little) , and less maintenance than . Also could likely double the lane traffic within the equivalent car lanes. The consumer would be more than willing to get on board using and buying golf carts just for the financial benefit of it.
Not saying that ebikes are bad but it would also be more appealing for the masses to embrace golf carts over bikes as a replacement for their vehicles.
One could imagine a city where the streets are only for bikes/pedestrians/scooters/etc... and deliveries happen via underground tunnels where there is parking every other block and a freight elevator to bring the goods to the surface. A kind of futurist ideal that will never work because it would be horrendously expensive and the elevators would always be breaking down and as the city grew the system would be trapped at its current size and become increasingly overloaded over time.
I wonder if it would be possible to fit a commercial AGT like Mitsubishi Crystal Mover into the Boring tunnels. They're wide enough I think but I don't know if the height clearance is sufficient. And of course AGTs are always constructed with a fire egress walkway which wouldn't fit, but Boring seems to have already accepted that significant safety limitation.
The intent is that it's supposed to be autonomous cars moving around, but it seems Elon vastly overestimated the speed with which autonomous cars can actually be delivered, so the manual operation is just a stopgap solution.
Then again, it's pretty telling that he's struggling to recreate the features of systems developed 50 years ago.
Ultimately I think Boring/Tesla would introduce automation to the Las Vegas tunnels faster if they just bought a commercial moving-block system like Cityflo and adapted the vehicles. The fact that they don't seem to be pursuing this makes me think that the automation goal was never serious outside of its potential as a marketing tool for Tesla, which they are perhaps ironically also failing to deliver.