Boring Company Prepares to Dig in Vegas

The bet on the Boring Company in Las Vegas is getting more interesting. 

Pictures of the company’s efforts on the planned “Loop” have emerged on Twitter, showing the Boring company is ready to dig.

Las Vegas news site Vital Vegas shared photos on Twitter of heavy machinery staged at the dig site, including parts to the company’s boring machine, cranes, and a pile driver. 

https://twitter.com/x/status/1174391620197765120

The city is looking for a transportation solution for it’s sprawling convention center, which will stretch two miles when current construction projects are finished by 2021.

Las Vegas could become the first city to complete a commercial transportation service with the Boring Company. The price estimate for the system is reportedly $30 million to $55 million, which will be paid with money from the convention authority’s general fund, which is funded mostly by hotel room taxes in Las Vegas.

 

[mongo]

Second tunnel underway
Las Vegas Convention Center Expansion Hits Major Milestones

 

[banned-66611]

Second tunnel underway
Las Vegas Convention Center Expansion Hits Major Milestones

Less than a mile long. Yawn.

 

[mongo]

Second tunnel completed
Twitter

 

[dhanson865]

 

[ThomasD]

Each tunnel is less than half a mile long. So one tunnel will take you there and one will bring you back

 

[mongo]

Each tunnel is less than half a mile long. So one tunnel will take you there and one will bring you back

The system is just under 0.85 miles end to end (4,486 feet or so) with a stop in the middle.

 

[banned-66611]

The system is just under 0.85 miles end to end (4,486 feet or so) with a stop in the middle.

How fast is this supposed to go?

Assuming the station is in the middle that's only 683.5m between them, and the whole thing is only about 1350m long.

To get up to the high speeds they were talking about the acceleration would have to be pretty extreme. Not very comfortable for the passengers.

 

[mongo]

System expansion to two hotels approved by the county:

Elon Musk's Boring Company gets green light to expand Las Vegas Loop with Tesla vehicles - Electrek

 

[mongo]

Further expansion

https://twitter.com/x/status/1450877187779796992

29 miles 51 stations

 

[mongo]

Broke on through to the other side...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1489666444245680131

 

[PACEMD]

I don't know if you can dig this but news about a boring company is just not that interesting..........

 

[Electroman]

I agree it is just Boring.

 

[ThomasD]

How many passengers is it expected to move a day? Will it be 24/7

 

[Electroman]

Sorry I just don't get the whole tunnel thingy. Yes digging tunnels are cheaper than rail infrastructure, but how this will reduce traffic congestion.. is puzzling.

 

[mongo]

Sorry I just don't get the whole tunnel thingy. Yes digging tunnels are cheaper than rail infrastructure, but how this will reduce traffic congestion.. is puzzling.

If cars in tunnels are taking people places that they were going to travel to via cars on surface routes, how would that not reduce surface congestion?

 

[ThomasD]

They are going to need larger longer vehicles to transport even a quarter of the people that walk the strip every day. They will need to be able to transport people with wheel chairs. Need to be ADA compliant in order to transport the public
How many people visit the Las Vegas Strip each day?


The average visitor walks about 4.1 hours on the Strip, visiting an average 6.2 properties. On average, 17,700 people are walking on the Strip at any given hour on any given day. The low time of the day: from 6 a.m. to noon, about 5,700; the high time: from 6 p.m. to midnight, about 34,900

 

[DarkandStormy]

Sorry I just don't get the whole tunnel thingy. Yes digging tunnels are cheaper than rail infrastructure, but how this will reduce traffic congestion.. is puzzling.

It's actually not cheaper. It cost the Boring Company nearly $50 million to complete the LVCC Loop, which they got - generously - 2 lane miles of tunnels out of. The average (perhaps pre-inflation) for rail construction cost was $1-$2 million per mile, depending on how you do the math (I've also read $4-$5 million, I'm sure there are other estimates out there).

It's also not any faster. It just took them 6 months to dig a ~600m tunnel to the Resorts World (seen above). That's actually slower per meter than an average boring machine, despite supposedly using "rocket technology" that would make digging "4-5x" (or 10-15x, depending on which BS presentation from Elon you're watching) faster.

Another incomplete - donating bricks from the dirt bored from the tunnel to affordable housing projects.

 

[mongo]

It's actually not cheaper. It cost the Boring Company nearly $50 million to complete the LVCC Loop, which they got - generously - 2 lane miles of tunnels out of. The average (perhaps pre-inflation) for rail construction cost was $1-$2 million per mile, depending on how you do the math (I've also read $4-$5 million, I'm sure there are other estimates out there).

It's also not any faster. It just took them 6 months to dig a ~600m tunnel to the Resorts World (seen above). That's actually slower per meter than an average boring machine, despite supposedly using "rocket technology" that would make digging "4-5x" (or 10-15x, depending on which BS presentation from Elon you're watching) faster.

Another incomplete - donating bricks from the dirt bored from the tunnel to affordable housing projects.

$47 million for 1.7 miles of tunnel, three stations (two surface and one subsurface), and 70 vehicles (~$3million on their own).
Tunneling occurred during large conventions (>100,000 attendees pre-COVID) with zero road closures and zero disturbances. Try that with rail.

That was with the now retired Godot+ (1st gen modified), it had a peak speed of 140ft/day and tunnel 2 averaged 80 ft/day.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BoringCompany/comments/orcq2y

Resort loop is the first to use Prufrock
First resort section was about 8 months from project approval to first exit, again no surface disturbance.

Only CA had a prototype brick plant. Not exactly a lot of room in Vegas for such a thing.

 

[Cosmacelf]

People bash Boring because the system can’t handle peak crush times like a stadium emptying out (which train systems also struggle with, Btw), overlooking that it is a better user experience for 99% of the other times the system is used. Costing is also different than train systems with Loop rides costing maybe double or triple typical subway fares. But Loop won’t find any trouble finding users willing to pay that in congested cities like Las Vegas where it can take a 20 minute taxi ride to go a mile down the strip.

Frankly, I think all this Boring bashing is almost comical. Suddenly, everyone is a transit engineer and urban planning expert. Loop is a brand new concept that has never been tried before. Absolutely no one really knows if it’ll be successful. That’s the gamble startups in new markets take. No doubt smart people at Boring are constantly updating their spreadsheets and realizing they need to increase tunneling speed, or decrease station costs or whatever to make it work. Any other external armchair analysis just isn’t worth much at all.

As usual with Elons companies, it’ll be fun watching to see how Boring evolves.

 

[roblab]

How fast is this supposed to go?

Assuming the station is in the middle that's only 683.5m between them, and the whole thing is only about 1350m long.

To get up to the high speeds they were talking about the acceleration would have to be pretty extreme. Not very comfortable for the passengers.

Dunno about you, but I always accelerate through the intersections, and have no trouble reaching 60mph shortly thereafter. You must be thinking of Fords. Or Hondas. Or one of the many cars behind me after the light turns green. And no one complains of high acceleration. Of course, I've never given YOU a ride. Or your gramma.