Boring Company Will Expand Las Vegas Tunnels to 65-Mile Network

[RankingMember]

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.

[bryanlarsen]

Subways in the US cost about $1B per mile. The Boring Company is spending about $10M per mile.

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.

[xnx]

How would we feel about it if the tunnels were for bikes? Seems like that would have some benefits: sheltered from the weather, no interaction with multi-ton vehicles driven by inattentive drivers, etc.

[jcranmer]

Actually, what it's closest to is Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), which is a transit idea that has generally always underwhelmed every place it's been introduced, starting from Morgantown in 1975.

[yowzadave]

Any chance the tunnels could later be re-purposed as subway tunnels once people realize that this approach doesn't work?

[red-iron-pine]

Everything about LV is an affront to god and man. A city shouldn't be there, and it's having issues for that reason. That they want an overpriced loop that delivers little shouldn't come as a surprise.

[inconceivable]

you know, once the tunnels are built, they can be re-purposed later.

[sorenjan]

I've never been to Las Vegas, but every video I've seen of the Boring tunnels is either underwhelming or just seems plain stupid. It looks like something Tesla could use to get around their own campus as a fun PR stunt, not a city infrastructure project. It seems to have less capacity, be less safe, and more complicated than the alternatives. I don't even see any theoretical advantages, and the execution looks even worse. It's amazing that this got built in the first place, and now it's expanding?

And by the way, if Tesla cars can't be autonomous in purpose built tunnels built by a sister company, then why would anyone expect them to handle traffic on actual roads? I consider this to be negative PR for them.

[fabian2k]

So those are much smaller tunnels than usually used for both trains and cars as far as I understand. How are the fire safety issues handled here? Large tunnels usually have a smaller escape tunnel at the side. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

Do regulations that mandate escape routes in tunnels not exist in the US? Or are these tunnels different enough that they don't apply? Or do they have safety measures that are not visible on the images here?

[HillRat]

The current tunnel conforms to NFPA 130, which is intended for passenger rail and mass transit (whether a bunch of passenger cars counts as this is an interesting question), and is less-stringent than federal vehicle tunnel requirements. Essentially, the key requirements here are that you need to have no more than 2,500 feet (760 meters) between exits and cross-tunnel passages no more than 800 feet (245 meters) apart.

In the case of the LV "loop," it's a single tunnel shorter than 2,500 feet, so they basically don't need tunnel egress; having said that, imagine an electrical fire in a crowded tunnel with hundreds of tourists in varying degrees of intoxication trying to get out using narrow, 3-ft passages on either side of the cars. It's ... concerning.

[jcranmer]

> Do regulations that mandate escape routes in tunnels not exist in the US?

As far as I'm aware, not only do they exist, they are more stringent than in Europe generally.

So I don't know how these things are working under US fire codes.

[jccooper]

NFPA requirements for road tunnels is an emergency exit every 1000ft/300m. Cross-passages to another tunnel are acceptable, including a parallel travel tunnel if there's automatic traffic control. They may also be stairs or ramps. Secondary tunnels are not common; typically they are for long and/or deep tunnels.

Dunno if the Vegas system would qualify as a road tunnel (thus NFPA 502) or some sort of transit tunnel, which might be a different thing. (I've not seen such exits provided in subway tunnels; emergency procedure seems to be "walk back to the station".)

But in a short shallow system like in Vegas, they could have periodic cross-passages or stairs to the surface. Dunno if they do; never been in it.

[nerdix]

If you've seen videos of the current Vegas loop, it looks like a deathtrap. IIRC, there are sections of the tunnel where there isn't even enough space to fully open the car's door.

Even if there was an escape tunnel, you might not be able to get out of the car to get to it.

[brianbreslin]

Why can't they put electric vans or buses in these tunnels? shuttling everyone in 4 person cars seems inefficient... Lay down a track, and they can be autonomous very easily (compared to relying on tesla self driving tech)

[jandrese]

Because Tesla is a car company. Literally, they only things they currently build are sedans, a crossover, and a handful of semi-developmental semis. They're building factories as fast as they can and still can't keep up with demand. Plus you have that corporate "synergy" with everybody using the self driving tech to produce more test data, although enclosed single lane tunnels populated only by self driving vehicles should be a trivial use case for it.

In some ways using Teslas as the cars is nice. If the system is lightly loaded the waiting time is always short. There's no "waiting for the next train/bus to arrive". The downside is that if it gets busy the system doesn't scale well, maximum capacity is low, but that's a future problem and it is trivial for Tesla to swap out the cars with higher capacity vehicles once they are building them. One of the nice things is that the per-car cost is far lower than it is for a train car (which typically cost on the order of $2 million[1] each), and the cars can be sold on the secondary market to make back some of the capital costs. The secondary market for metro cars is far smaller.

[1] https://wamu.org/story/20/02/27/metro-just-received-the-last...

[ahoy]

musk's companies do this precisely in part because it's inefficient. By lobbying hard against good transit infrastructure and building flashy but sucky alternatives, they lock in dependance on their product, automobiles.

[guardiangod]

Tesla doesn't have an EV platform designed for vans. Musk said (if you believe his words) that's one of the goals.

[otabdeveloper4]

> Let's reinvent the subway but call it an "electric van" so that Americans don't feel squeamish.

This is comedy gold.

[martythemaniak]

Why do you believe autonomy requires rails?

[robohydrate]

Why can't they just build tracks and have trains running through this network of tunnels?

[bingaling]

this is a pr/lobbying/marketing expense to delay train investment and sell cars, silly .. the purpose of these is to sell cars over trains

[jcranmer]

The tunnels are built too small to run trains in them.

[advaer]

There are dozens of other US cities with trains running through tunnels, and they all operate at a loss. Why not try something new?

[s1artibartfast]

The tunnels are a very different design than those used for trains

[xhkkffbf]

Trains tracks tend to be designed so that the trains must stop at each station, something that can add plenty of time to a trip. Ideally, the smaller cars/scooters/whatever can load and unload out of the main pathway making it possible for every trip to be non-stop.

[guardiangod]

Tracks are expensive. Railcars are very expensive.

[lm28469]

Public transportation is for peasants and communists, don't you know

[demygale]

This will never exist. The announcement is the final product.

[mritun]

These are uniduct tunnels. There’s no emergency exit. Any fire in these tunnels will be a disaster.

nb. In tunnels, the smoke kills.

[dmonitor]

Do you have a source for the tunnels not having emergency exits or being dangerous?

[martythemaniak]

Have you ever seen a real subway system?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground#/media/File...

TBC tunnels have more room to exit and maneuver than most older subway tunnels.

[fooker]

How is this working out for planes?

[vm]

These look like underground, single vehicle tunnels. It got me wondering why tunnels instead of building above ground. It looks like 1) tunnels are much less expensive in dense areas than above-ground roads, and 2) more tunnels can be added as needed by digging deeper (so the company says).

This is cool. I have no idea if they'll solve traffic jams or succeed as a business. There are many issues to solve (ventilation, safety exits, traffic from accidents and exit queuing, etc.). But, having lived in LA and seen how traffic alters livability of a region, I love that they're trying.

[xref]

> Electrek reported that vehicles only cruised at 35 miles per hour, instead of the roaring 150 miles per hour that the company has touted

Residential neighborhood speeds for 21st century mass transit, dream big.

[bananapub]

what's with this crappy and incorrect post title?

the article title is:

> Boring Company Gets Approval to Expand Las Vegas Tunnels to 65-Mile Network

which is also actually truthful - the Boring Company announcing something and £7 will get you a pint in Zone 1 these days.

[partiallypro]

At this point...why doesn't Elon just turn this into a subway?

[SketchySeaBeast]

I just checked the Tesla site and don't seem to see any subway trains for sale there.

[mensetmanusman]

I really hope this is successful. If we can automate delivery of goods, above ground roads could have a much longer lifetime as heavy truck damage could move underground.

[erulabs]

I’ll wait to hear more details rather than assuming everyone doing anything I have any question about is a liar or a grifter.

Tunnels are cool. Small tunnels maybe less cool - but one can still imagine the uses. Here’s one: put it deep enough only the DOD knows it exists and run oil pipelines without public controversy.

[awestroke]

Or fill one with slaves that make stuff for you without public controversy. The possibilities are endless