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| The boring company under Los Angeles |
Credit: Elon Musk’s Instangram photo reveals progress of The Boring Company LAX project
The Boring Company through its founder Elon Musk has published a photo showing a 152 meters tunnel, right under the city of Los Angeles. The image that was uploaded on his Instagram account this Saturday reveals one among other numerous tunnel projects underway beneath the city and beyond.
The billionaire says his traffic-busting tunnel will be 17 miles long within a year or so - that is starting from the opening point in LAX.
While the Boring Company and Musk are anticipating for a huge network of underground tunnel roads, all their resources and focus is currently under Los Angeles. However, Elon puts it clear that he’s going further to establish the network even beyond borders, as long as an area is earthquake free.
So far, he personally spends 2% of his time in this project, citing it’s still a hobby. That can be true bearing the fact that he also has other companies to run -these are the likes of SpaceX, PayPal, Telsa, Solar City and Deep Mind among others. Well, maybe tunneling could later become his full-time gig -that is if he’s to reach the goal of an underground network of roads.
“I plan to have cars rushed through tunnels at a speed of 125 mph, in pods,” Elon Musk says. Being a completely traffic-free network of electrical routes the tunnel way will significantly reduce the time required to move around the city. As later tweeted, Musk predicts the tunnel will be two miles long by January 2018.
“It’s 500 ft so far, give it another three or four months and it should be 2 miles in a years’ time,” those were the words of the iconic entrepreneur in a separate interview. In approximation -the 405 N-S corridors could stretch to 101 from LAX, referring to two famous California’s busy highways, to the airport.
By comparison, journeying between the above points at 125 mph with NIL traffic in the tunnel would take less than eight minutes, while traveling the same speed with the current history of LAX traffic will take more than 45 minutes.
Musk shared his frustration on Twitter way back in December 2016 that resulted from the traffic he was in. He said, “Traffic is driving me nuts. I need to start digging as soon as I have built a strong boring machine.”
Not just a tweet, he was seriously serious and as result, he founded TBC (The Boring Company) on 17 December 2016. TBC has since set up headquarters in California, Hawthorne, and the United States. Steve Davis, a respected engineer at TBC, is the project leader at LAX.
By February 2017, the company had begun digging a 4.6m-deep x 9m- wide x 15m- long test trench on the SpaceX office premises in Hawthorne CA. Ideally, nothing much was required to kick-start as permits were not required.
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| Elom Musk found the boring company to begin tunneling in LAX |
Via the The Boring Company
It’s cheaper than you think
To clear the airways, permits are a must have for such projects in many countries, only that in this case TBC was allowed to carry on their first project because the premise was theirs. However, there is less need for infrastructure when it comes to tunneling, making it very easy to begin. As long as the boring machine is available, work can begin, anytime!
According to SpaceX and Tesla Inc board members, tunnels are built for electric vehicles. This means the corridors don’t have to be massive or complex - thus the cost should likewise be low. Sure, most people don’t see that point, as in, tunneling sounds expensive to most of “us,” but not to technology.
Jurvetson explained that, if you only envision electric cars in your tunnels, air handling for carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide wouldn't be a concern. You could have scrubbers coupled with a few simple accessories to make everything collapse to a small tunnel size.
Other great minds in the field of innovation seem to support this idea, especially those in the ministry of roads, transport, and traffic management. They are calling for a combined effort in further research and dialogues with the concerned stakeholders like Elon Musk, and the like-minded, to factor out how the dream of underground travel would be established faster.
With the current age where innovation is getting access to all fields, it is highly anticipated that underground road networks will be the order of life by the year 2090, worldwide.
Back to Elon; does his dream of underground EV network really make sense to you? Let’s hear your comment below!