For context, at the moment they hope to have them operating some time in the 2030s. That’s a best case, just like the cost estimates (which operating practically and safely may be more than what people are forecasting)

Not operating today like it sounds from the comment.

The idea isn’t great, tunnels for cars or pods have really low throughput (low occupancy + safety margin headways, even at a high speed). And it hinged on them magically revolutionising an already highly mature field, which surprise, surprise didn’t work out.

If it had been possible to speed up and reduce the cost of tunneling, the thing that would most make sense is running regular trains through them. But they never had any real ideas to actually make it cheaper or faster (apart for making it too small for proper emergency egress), just the idea that SV tech guys would be able to find a way to do it.

Here is the thing, you demand incredibly high amounts of capital cost for not actually achieving much. And that capital could be use for far, far, far, far more useful things the city actually needs. Like high capacity transports, like metros, trams or bike lanes.

The amount of goods that need to be transported to stores and such things isn't that big. And using literally free unused roads at night or early in the morning is just a great deal.

For individual transport last mile is regularly being done by cargo bike or small electric truck just fine.

But you are right, tunnels do make sense for some things. Like transporting garbage underground. Or transporting heat underground for district heating, or district cooling. Both would be better investments then trying to move logistics under-ground.

There is a reason, no serious attempt anywhere in the world is trying to move logistics under-ground. There are just so, so many better ways to invest in the city. Its literally not even in the Top 100 most needed things.

Specially in the US where the road network is so hilariously overbuilt that it could serve 10x the amount of people on the same area if public transport was just taken minimally serious. And in the US, underground cargo transport isn't even in the Top 1000 things a city should consider spending money on.

Metros are in tunnels.

There’s only so much gridlock you can avoid without going above or below grade. I was shocked when I moved to Seattle and they had no subway system. It was made even worse by being crammed up against a tall hill with a ridiculously deep lake behind it. They are finally changing it now but I’d spent time in Tokyo before, and time in London and Paris shortly after and it was a real head scratcher. One bus tunnel helped, as was evidenced when they shut it down for a couple years, but cmon.

Seattle also is a great example of "why tunnels for cars are not tantamount to a public transport network".

As well as all the impediments to the glorious vision of the parent commenter's "tunnels everywhere" as a panacea.

Yes, WHEN you build tunnel you need to make it the highest possible capacity. And not some low capacity tax system.

Because The Boring Company hasn't built any tunnels worth noting, perhaps, and stalled most of its projects.

This isn't a case against tunnels, this is a case against The Boring Company.

The tunnels aren't a great idea apriori. Good luck pitching the tunnels idea in Venice.

The tunnels may be a good or a bad idea depending on many variables, and the tunnels that the Boring Company has actually built are worthless.

As for the tunneling equipment: selling those machines isn't their core business, and there's no evidence these machines have, or may in the feasible future, do anything revolutionary in the tunnel industry (i.e., built radically better, radically cheaper, or radically faster).

The idea of having such machines is good. They don't have such machines.

> It's still premature to say that they haven't revolutionized the field

It's never premature to say that. Read what you wrote.

You can say a field has been revolutionized once a revolution takes place.

It's hasn't.

The impact of the Boring company on the way tunnels are dug is, very sharply, zero.

Is it possible that they will? Sure. It's also possible that Britney Spears will. She still has the time, it's premature to say she wouldn't do it, right?

That’s a cop-out though. Company boards are legally required to act in the best interests of shareholders, and plenty of shareholders would agree that running a business in a sustainable way that can deliver profits over the long term is more in their interests than a business trading its future for some short term profits.

It’s a cultural problem really, where too many people who study business and economics have been taught this idea that it’s a moral necessity that businesses maximise profit for shareholders (to the point where plenty of people even wrongly believe that’s a legal requirement!), but it’s an ideological position that has only caused once great companies to fail and huge damage to our economies.

A lot more people I've talked to about it say the theatre makes them feel uncomfortable and intimidated rather than making them feel safe. Airport security staff being so gruff and expecting people to know what to do (which casual travellers often don't), then not being able to properly explain what to do and shouting at people...

I really don't buy that the illusion of safety is high on anyone's priority list, it's more that a bureaucracy will grow as much as it can, employing more and more people who might not have better prospects, and no politicians want to be seen to be "comprimising people's safety" by cutting things back. Then "lobbying" from those selling equipment and detection machines probably helps everything keep going.

If it was actually cut back to a proper risk-assessed point of what's strictly necessary, people going thorugh would think "is this safe not having as much security" for about 30 seconds and then never think of it again.

> More of a issue that power goes to their heads.

I'm sure this exists too, but isn't the mundane rationale more likely? That gruffness is inevitable because the work sucks?

Overworked, understaffed, the days blur together because it is boring, mostly sedentary work. They are ground down from dealing with the juxtaposition of their role; internally TSA are told they are important because their vigilance is heroic and prevents catastrophe, yet the general public views them with annoyance if not disdain. _Everyone_ they interact with is impatient, and at the that scale of human interaction nobody is really a person anymore, just a complication to throughput.

The thing about shoes is just dumb anyway - I don't know if there was some period of time where it was required elsewhere around the world but I never experienced it. Literally the only times I've ever had to take off my shoes were during the two times I've visited the US (vs. a over a dozen trips to European and Asian countries).

Liquid restrictions were also lifted in my country four or so years ago for domestic travel, so it's still annoying when getting ready for an international trip and I remember I still have to do that...

It was a reaction to a very specific incident that happened just after 9/11 so the policy basically took effect at the same time the TSA started existing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_63_(2...

I have to take my sneakers off about three to four times a year while traveling around Europe.

I flew out of the UK twice in relatively short succession in ~2018 and the first time was out of London City: did not have to take off my shoes. I was pleasantly surprised by this and concluded common sense had prevailed and it was no longer necessary. The second time was Gatwick, and based on my prior experience I did not take off my shoes. I got yelled at because "everybody knows you have to take off your shoes at the airport!". Then got subjected to an extra search of my luggage as punishment. Of course there was a razor in my bag of toiletries (one of those Gilette cartridge ones with a million blades - not an oldschool safety razor) and promptly 'got got' for that as it could have potentially injured the person searching my belongings. 0/10 would not recommend.

Yes, for example taxiways and aprons designed to take the weight of large aircraft like A380s can be ~470mm (almost half a metre) thick, and that's only half of the structure with the subgrade and sub-base together being about as thick! Whereas the standard for driveways where I live is 125mm thick.

Pretty common to have to re-clear security at large airports if you've come from another country, I've had to do it every time when transiting through Dubai for instance.

We’re talking about the restrained guy who had been trying to help a woman and not once during the whole encounter had a gun in or near his hands? No, I would not murder that man, and I hope others wouldn’t either.

The guy that was trying to physically interfere with an arrest, and that was now resisting arrest, that you were fighting with, and had a gun near his left/our right hand?

Yes you would respond to sudden gunshots with gunfire.

You are surrounded by people with guns, it could be any one of them that took a shot at anything else. It is a pretty massive leap to assume the guy being manhandled on the ground is the one shooting. That close to a gunshot you would have no idea where it came from sound unless you directly saw the gun firing, and if they did they would know it wasn't the guy without a gun in his hand.

> That close to a gunshot you would have no idea where it came from sound

Yes agreed. Someone yells “gun gun” and they reacted thinking they were being shot at by the armed man that started an altercation with them.

Yes - that's what happened. I mean minus the part where Pretti "started an altercation" with them. He has back to the agents when they start pepper spraying him in the face and then tackle him to the ground.

But they heard "gun" and assumed it was the man who had been disarmed in plain view, and was being held down to the ground by 6 other agents. That's pathetic and disturbing. If he is that scared, he has no business holding a gun, let alone a job as a federal agent.

It’s usually not a great example because it’s basically the one thing that is “never going to happen here”. Normally the one about abusive law enforcement offices stalking ex-partners (or helping their buddies stalk their ex-partners) is better because it happens fairly regularly.

We really are in unprecedented times when it’s looking like the big one could happen in the United States though…

That literally makes no sense. There’s a point on the accelerator pedal curve where you are coasting (between it applying power or applying regen), you get used to staying around that position pretty quickly because you stop short of where you are aiming to stop otherwise. You basically only back off past that point and into regen when you would be braking in an ICE car, so there is really no difference.

Yes, you learn to stay around that point.

You don't stay at the zero point. It's an impossibly small target. This is not news to anyone who drives an EV and keeps an eye on the readout showing current power usage/regen.

I don't think it's impossibly small. Maybe it depends on your software - you don't need to have a completely linear response across the full range of the pedal.