Elon Musk appears to be getting closer to ending the “soul-destroying” chore of driving in traffic. The Tesla CEO tweeted Sunday about a conversation he had with the mayor of Los Angeles about making ground transportation more efficient.
Promising conversations with @MayorOfLA regarding tunnel network that would carry cars, bikes & pedestrians. Permits harder than technology. https://t.co/0dxrXBOOWy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2017
Musk said he had a “promising conversation” with L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti regarding the creation of a system of roadways underneath the city. The radical new transportation network was shown off in a video at this year’s TED conference in Vancouver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=u5V_VzRrSBI
Musk’s remarkable vision for the future of transportation features autonomous cars being carried on trolleys through a vast series of tunnels at well over 100 miles per hour. It’s an extreme proposal by any standard, and would require a new type of tunneling machine, one his new company—the Boring Company—is well on its way to creating.
“We’re trying to dig a hole under L.A., and this is to create the beginning of what will hopefully be a 3D network of tunnels to alleviate congestion,” Musk said at TED.
Like most of his ideas, Musk’s tunneling system has come under harsh criticism from experts, some of whom say it detracts from more practical ways of alleviating congestion, like carpooling or rapid bus transit.
But Musk acknowledged Sunday he is less concerned about the technology required to build the tunnels, and more worried about gaining permits from cities.
That means gaining permission to dig a hole in Southern California from LAX to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood, and Sherman Oaks. The Boring Company already started to build a hole on SpaceX’s campus so it can simply extend its work once it received the required permits.
Musk posted a short clip on Instagram showing the partial tunnel.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BT_gxWhB1_8/
He also posted a test run of the electric sleds used to transport the Tesla vehicles.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BT_itC8h0Cx/
Musk eventually hopes to create a tunnels to cover all of greater Los Angeles.
H/T Engadget