Elon Musk’s Hilariously Bad Subway System Leaves Virginia Transit Officials Baffled

[Economite]

This GQ article seems about right to me.

Elon Musk’s Hilariously Bad Subway System Leaves Virginia Transit Officials Baffled

 

[Brando]

Spending $900 million per mile on a subway, or $150 million per mile on light rail, may not seem so outrageous compared to New York's $2.6 billion per-mile subway. But there's no reason why building subways and light rail in sprawling cities should be as expensive as it is. Jan 26, 2018

[corruption is the obvious reason for these cost overruns - everyone has seen it in their own town/city, right?]
The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers - CityLab

So some immigrant that never built a tunnel tries it in his parking lot. How good can you expect it to be? some analysis:

“If his tunneling costs are real, that would provide a staggering benefit for subway transit. And we need more transit tunnels in our cities badly as an alternative to street traffic and to expand overall capacity,” Ethan Elkind, a UC Berkeley lawyer and scholar specializing in transportation and the environment, told Curbed. “If it works, transit agencies may want a piece in some way.”

about a 2 page article:
The Big Deal Inside Elon Musk's Little Tunnel - CityLab

 

[Bet TSLA]

This GQ article seems about right to me.

Elon Musk’s Hilariously Bad Subway System Leaves Virginia Transit Officials Baffled

Sounds like some idiot who has never accomplished anything taking pot shots at work in its early stages. It looks like nothing, doesn't do much yet and requires some imagination, a task that seems beyond him.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I bet the article of this article didn't watch the Model Y reveal.

Especially the part where Elon talked about what people said about EV's before the Model S.

Oops.

Can't say he shouldn't have been warned about what will happen 10 years from now during some other reveal.

 

[im.thatoneguy]

Virginia’s chief of rail transportation

You mean to tell me that Virginia's "chief of rail transportation" is dismissing a car based solution?!

I don’t consider the steps they’ve taken to date to be substantive. They’ve purchased a used boring machine. They’ve put a bore in the neighborhood where they developed the SpaceX product, and they’ve taken a Model 3 and put guidewheels on it and they’re running it through the tunnel at 60 miles per hour. None of that, I think, is really significant from a standpoint of moving this process forward.

So they have a working proof of concept that already costs 1/10th - 1/100th of the price of alternatives and they don't consider that "substantive". I would consider a 10% price decrease substantive let alone 90-99% without, as they point out, even developing a new boring machine.

 

[Brando]

Sadly, governments in the US, Federal, State and even Local all work with banking cartel (so called Federal Reserve system ~13 banks) primary goal to to spend money, get bonds from the banks to pay for it all. Cost over runs are king. You all know such government projects in your local city, county or state. Save money? provide value? the very very last considerations.

 

[CarlK]

Sadly, governments in the US, Federal, State and even Local all work with banking cartel (so called Federal Reserve system ~13 banks) primary goal to to spend money, get bonds from the banks to pay for it all. Cost over runs are king. You all know such government projects in your local city, county or state. Save money? provide value? the very very last considerations.

Definitely. Like the California high speed rail project. Government bureaucracy thives on spending the most money, takes the longest time to achieve the most useless goal. Life is too short to take on tough challenges.

Sounds like some idiot who has never accomplished anything taking pot shots at work in its early stages. It looks like nothing, doesn't do much yet and requires some imagination, a task that seems beyond him.

A fitting quote for this: "Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember--the only taste of success some people get is to take a bite out of you."

 

[Tobyw]

This GQ article seems about right to me.

Elon Musk’s Hilariously Bad Subway System Leaves Virginia Transit Officials Baffled

The Wright brothers’ first flight went 120 feet, the last that day went 850 feet. Musk’s Spacex is doing well, as are his other businesses. New ideas take time to develop.
Since Musk proposes private financing in exchange for fares, the price cannot be the problem. The Dem VA governor is the problem. Perhaps he should talk about a tunnel from DC to Baltimore and later to NYC. Lots of politicians go North on AMTRACK. NYC is going to repair the Hudson tunnels Boring could get their foot in the door. NYC transit, bridges and all the roads are SUCH a drag! Bypassing the area would remove all the traffic jams.

 

[djplong]

I can't remember the details but an analysis of NY's 2nd Avenue Subway showed that, with all the corruption factored in, the actual subway tunnels weren't the biggest expense - it was the STATIONS. There's no automated machine for digging those out like the TBMs used today for the tunnels.

 

[Brando]

The Wright brothers’ first flight went 120 feet, the last that day went 850 feet. Musk’s Spacex is doing well, as are his other businesses. New ideas take time to develop.
Since Musk proposes private financing in exchange for fares, the price cannot be the problem. The Dem VA governor is the problem. Perhaps he should talk about a tunnel from DC to Baltimore and later to NYC. Lots of politicians go North on AMTRACK. NYC is going to repair the Hudson tunnels Boring could get their foot in the door. NYC transit, bridges and all the roads are SUCH a drag! Bypassing the area would remove all the traffic jams.

Seems perhaps Musk is busy putting his foot in his mouth (per SEC about Elon twitter comments in the courts) and really doesn't need to put his foot into any more projects - especially where people don't want him - seems he already has most of the auto industry -, Wall st. even Big Oil against him.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Definitely. Like the California high speed rail project. Government bureaucracy thives on spending the most money, takes the longest time to achieve the most useless goal. Life is too short to take on tough challenges.

I wouldn't buy into the anti-CAHSR FUD too much. The estimates are in "year-of-construction" cost, so when you-know-who got elected to office and pulled all federal funding, the estimates were updated to reflect the majority of costs being pushed 4+ years down the road, which adds whatever the inflation rate is for those years to the project's bottom line.

That's been the case since the project was on the ballot in 2006. Granted, there have been increases because of changes and/or more accurate estimates, but most of the increases are because the project uses "year-of-construction" costs, and the longer it takes the larger those will be because of inflation.

 

[CarlK]

I wouldn't buy into the anti-CAHSR FUD too much. The estimates are in "year-of-construction" cost, so when you-know-who got elected to office and pulled all federal funding, the estimates were updated to reflect the majority of costs being pushed 4+ years down the road, which adds whatever the inflation rate is for those years to the project's bottom line.

That's been the case since the project was on the ballot in 2006. Granted, there have been increases because of changes and/or more accurate estimates, but most of the increases are because the project uses "year-of-construction" costs, and the longer it takes the larger those will be because of inflation.

Everything you said from inflation to time it takes are all known factors and predictable. Those people low balled the cost to fool voters because they knew it will be too big to fail and there will be no accountability when it failed to deliver. We are actually pretty lucky if we just stop here. All revenue numbers they gave are total fantasy too. It will be a bottomless money pit if it's built. You will have no choice by then but continue to feed money into it. Just give $10 billion, or whatever cost he will guarantee, to Elon and the Boring company to build a 21th century hyperloop/tunnel running smart cars. It's too late now for the 20th century high speed rail stuff. Even some developing countries are ahead of us on that. This is the most advanced country and state where the Silicon Valley is located. If you want to take risks and face challenges at least do something worthwhile.

I do not like that you-know-who too but we just screwed first on this and gave him the opportunity to punish us.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Everything you said from inflation to time it takes are all known factors and predictable. Those people low balled the cost to fool voters because they knew it will be too big to fail and there will be no accountability when it failed to deliver. We are actually pretty lucky if we just stop here. All revenue numbers they gave are total fantasy too. It will be a bottomless money pit if it's built. You will have no choice by then but continue to feed money into it. Just give $10 billion, or whatever cost he will guarantee, to Elon and the Boring company to build a 21th century hyperloop/tunnel running smart cars. It's too late now for the 20th century high speed rail stuff. Even some developing countries are ahead of us on that. This is the most advanced country and state where the Silicon Valley is located. If you want to take risks and face challenges at least do something worthwhile.

I do not like that you-know-who too but we just screwed first on this and gave him the opportunity to punish us.

The initial estimate on the proposition was $40 billion in 2008. That's about $62 billion in 2028 year-of-construction costs.

California Proposition 1, Bonds for High-Speed Rail (2008) - Ballotpedia

The current estimate is at $77 billion, so in 10+ years there's been a ~25-30+% increase in the estimated total year-of-construction cost. The more the federal government withholds funding and screws up the project, the more it'll cost down the road.

There's a lot of resistance to it because the auto and airline industries don't want it hitting their revenue and profits in the largest economy in the US, but the alternative, doubling the size of transportation corridors and number of airports/flights, is still more expensive, and more GHG intensive.