[HN Gopher] Tunnels are our Transportation Future
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Tunnels are our Transportation Future
Author : freewilly1040
Score : 19 points
Date : 2021-08-03 21:25 UTC (3 days ago)
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| samstave wrote:
| One of the things I wish we had done in earnest was focus on
| tunneling more for the last century - specifically for power
| infra-distribution.
|
| If we had put the effort into trenching/tunneling for power dist
| - we would have saved quite a lot on fires and problems caused by
| downed powerlines. Fires, etc...
|
| Further, power lines are FN Ugly.
|
| We could have had specialized machines that dig a trench,
| lay/build conduit/tunnel hosings and then them up at the same
| time.
|
| Also, if you look at how well Singapore has done in building
| 'down' -- they have massive underground causeways, malls etc -
| and its a shame that we are too shortsighted in our cities to
| give up such a HUGE % of the wonderful surface of the earth for
| things like cars and power distribution.
|
| Every single building built should have underground parking and
| access. Cars, in dense urban environments should be relegated to
| subterranean transit only.
| majormajor wrote:
| New development generally does this, as far as I've seen and
| read. https://www.sparkenergy.com/why-dont-more-communities-
| bury-p...
|
| Retrofitting is much more expensive than original construction,
| though, so older US cities and developments are at a big
| disadvantage. So somewhere in-demand but older like California
| coastal cities give you the delightful result of paying more
| for crappier buildings and infra - because you're paying for
| the location, not the condition of the infra.
| majormajor wrote:
| Tunnels full of low-occupancy cars as a commuter alternative? I
| don't see much of anything in here about
| accidents/safety/emergency response. All of those things seem
| much harder in a "bunch of Model 3s in a tunnel doing point-to-
| point travel" world than in a Subway world, while also more
| likely to be needed, because you've got so many more vehicles
| sharing the space. Seems like a very important not-considered
| expense.
|
| "The cost of loop stations is so cheap that you can place them
| next to any number of desirable locations."
|
| This also feels wildly handwavey. You need a LOT of them if you
| want this to be a viable point to point network vs just a higher-
| risk way to build a subway. With individual vehicles going to
| individual stations at user request, too, we seem to have brought
| in "full autonomous driving" as a prereq.
| NonContro wrote:
| Tunnels are simpler when you remove fossil-fuel exhausts and
| human drivers from the equation, ie. Teslas with FSD only.
|
| You don't need as much ventilation since there are no products
| of combustion to exhaust, and the risk of crashes from human
| error are eliminated. Presumably the car software and the
| tunnels themselves can also be designed in a way where the risk
| of crash is near-zero.
| midasuni wrote:
| Just like software never crashes?
| NonContro wrote:
| I'm not aware of any examples where car software 'crashed',
| in any vehicle, causing the vehicle itself to physically
| crash.
|
| And if you're talking about FSD, most of those instances
| are from exceptions eg. unexpected pedestrian, parked
| truck, construction works.
|
| Its fair to imagine that these tunnels will be custom-built
| for self-driving cars and will be totally controlled
| environments.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| It's just a matter of time as systems become more
| dependent on it.
| calaphos wrote:
| One could even eliminate the heavy and potential dangerous
| battery with some sort of overhead wire or rail contact. And
| since the cars can only move in one direction within a
| tunnel, one could eliminate the need for steering by placing
| them on a set of rails. And maybe use some sort of automatic
| control system to make sure the train stops when needed.
| Wait..
| bserge wrote:
| Just make sure to update your rail cars once in a while so
| you don't end up with old pieces of shit that lose power
| every few km and give you tinnitus when traveling
| underground. Like some German cities.
| neolog wrote:
| "Source: energy.gov"? Are you trying to keep readers from
| checking your work? Use hyperlinks.
| initplus wrote:
| It's tiring seeing so many people imagining solutions to
| transport that look like "Cars, but...". Cars are large and cause
| congestion, even if you make them autonomous. They need to be
| stored when not in use, which requires turning over more and more
| inner city land to vehicle use. And it becomes a self fulfilling
| prophecy: the more space you allocate to large carparks and
| multilane roads, the more spread out your city becomes and the
| any alternatives become less viable.
|
| But instead this subject got 1 tiny paragraph near the end, in
| which this viewpoint "a form of degrowth".
|
| "We can build more batteries, more cars, and more tunnels. And
| humans will be better off for it."
|
| Honestly I just disagree with this take so much... I'm very far
| from a strident environmentalist but it should be obvious that
| this isn't the way forward.
| majormajor wrote:
| Cars give you point to point, personal space, and climate
| control. Even in cities with lots of trains like Beijing or
| Tokyo, the commute is not a fun experience - I got tired of it
| within just a handful of business trips.
|
| Walking can give you point to point, with more personal space
| than the frequent crush of a train or bus, but I don't think
| it's realistic to expect people to want to live in cities small
| enough that "always have a walkable commute" is a realistic
| goal.
|
| Electric bikes/scooters/skateboards/etc seem like the best
| option in coastal California, but are a harder sell in places
| that get extreme weather. And have some issues compared to a
| car for the less able or more fragile.
|
| Self-driving cars make congestion and usage probably _worse_ ,
| in my expectation, because you've eliminated one of the big
| downsides of cars, so I expect more demand for them compared to
| buses and trains.
|
| Environmentally, the more realistic win - short of strict laws
| that basically just force people to not go with their first
| choice - honestly seems like just figuring out remote work.
| Reduce how often people have to travel across town at all.
| (That, and I'm not convinced that moving away for "perpetual
| growth forever" is such a bad thing.)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I guess I am unsurprised that this started out as an interesting
| read and then evolved into a full-on advertisement for Elon Musk
| companies.
| PatentlyDC123 wrote:
| I don't think the "right of way" for tunnels is as simple and
| easy as the author claims. Many land rights include the soil
| beneath the land. While tunnels could be built below existing
| Federal and State owned land, many of the problems outlined for
| railroads by the author would happen again with acquiring the
| land required for tunnels.
|
| Many of the other points in the article seem glossed over and
| error prone as well (e.g., simplifying the comparison between
| trains and trucks efficiencies to a rolling resistance
| coefficient and ignoring the discrepancies in weight of the
| vehicle an all other efficiency factors).
| skanga wrote:
| When mankind started burning Gasoline they never contemplated
| that burning fossil fuels would damage the atmosphere and lead to
| runaway warming ...
|
| It's the law of UNINTENDED consequences.
|
| This seems like it could be even WORSE. I fear damage to the
| earth in unknown ways. Let's NOT make more tunnels ...
| lonnydonovan wrote:
| Is it plausible to build a tunnel from China to the US through
| the ocean? Just a wild idea.
| Someone wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel: _"The main
| barriers to constructing such a tunnel are cost first estimated
| $88-175 billion, now updated to $1 trillion-20 trillion, as
| well as limits of current materials science."_
|
| China-USA would be a bit longer and go through the ring of fire
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire), making it a
| bigger challenge to build.
|
| I would guess a bare tunnel itself is less of a challenge than
| its ventilation (even if you build a parallel tunnel tube for
| ventilation, pumping it out over thousands of kilometers will
| be challenging. The alternative would be to build ventilation
| towers every x km) and safety (how long will it take to get an
| ambulance to a traffic accident? To get people out?)
| samstave wrote:
| A semi-bouyant tunnel that sits ~100 meters below the surface
| with anchors to the floor and floats above might be ideal.
| Imagine if it was a conveyance even for just "packets" (cargo
| conatiners that are shot through the tunnel, no humans...)
| noahtallen wrote:
| The next downside is whether anyone would use such a tunnel,
| given that plane travel would be much quicker, probably
| safer, maybe cheaper (tolls on such a tunnel plus gas would
| be quite expensive), and possibly more enjoyable (better
| views in a plane, it'd probably be depressing and
| claustrophobic being down under for so long)
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| My favourite (physics) teacher in high school once told us that
| "you can get anywhere on this planet in 44 minutes".
|
| The caveat being that you need to drill straight through the
| earth to get there and jump inside.
| jonstewart wrote:
| Dedicated bus lanes are our transportation future. The capital
| expense and engineering are minimal (but not nothing), the
| capacity improvement is vast, and route to zero emissions clear
| (electric buses).
|
| Taking the bus on a dedicated lane is a thing of beauty.
| megaman821 wrote:
| Most cities are not dense enough to support commuter trains or
| subways. Building them where they are not appropriate will
| ensure citizens will have to pay decades bailouts to keep them
| running.
|
| Dedicated bus lanes in downtown areas and variable-rate tolls
| on highways. The tolls would probably pay for the entire build-
| out in a couple of years.
| stoolpigeon wrote:
| I just spent a week in Chicago - and the lack of a bus lane
| made buses our last choice. Traffic is terrible so bus travel
| is egregiously slow compared to the metro or trains. I'm used
| to Budapest where a bus is a great way to beat traffic.
| jonstewart wrote:
| A lot of US mass transit systems have developed existential
| problems due to decades of poor maintenance and under-
| investment. As a result they'll take years and billions to
| get into a state of good repair. Bus lanes are a great way to
| expand capacity while that happens.
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