How so? Maintenance happens all the times in subways. In Montreal they do it during 4 hours each nights. In ours, they close everything down, thus we can no longer use it, but if we had multiple smaller one, we certainly could close one at a time and lower the perturbation. They could still close them all, theses tunnels aren't meant to be the only ways to drive either, even the biggest highways are closed from time to time to maintains them.
> you couldn't physically fit enough cars through the tunnel to compare to real transit system
That's seriously so weird to see that kind of comment on Hacker News. Never heard of horizontal scaling? There's more than a ways to increase capacity and the size of the unit sure is one, but the number of units is another one. It's like saying Google is impossible because you could never fit that many website on a single core, yeah luckily we can just add cores.
> Given that this thing requires rigging something up to your vehicle, the onload and offload points would immediately become major bottlenecks to any serious throughput even if you could cram them in bumper to bumper.
Then they'll come back to the skate system, which would fix the tire issue at the same time (and many others).
My SO is a soils engineer/geo-physicist, so I know a bit about the issues at play, mostly over dinner conversations. When it comes to large infrastructure projects like these, the problems are multitude and all very individual, especially in such a geologically active zone as the LA Basin [0]. Though Musk et al. should be congratulated for the incredible achievement of even trying to pursue this idea, proper study is always required. Honestly, I've no idea about the studies that they have undertaken. But in such a place like the LA basin, I'd imagine that they have taken such measures; it would be insane to do so otherwise.
When it comes to horizontal scaling, without a proper geologic survey of the bedrock, water table, oil-wells, soil dynamics, and all the many other factors, simply multiplying the structures on top of each other can only be described as a deliberate attempt to endanger the lives of all people concerned (riders, construction crew, etc). The surveys must be made with deep consideration and respect to the laws of physics and the local environment. Brady, of Practical Engineering on YouTube has a wonderful channel that goes into some depth about large scale civil engineering [1] that is well worth a binge.
That said, with proper study of the effects and dynamics of increased removal of soil and bedrock, horizontal scaling is of course a perfectly good solution to increasing ridership.
> My SO is a soils engineer/geo-physicist, so I know a bit about the issues at play
what's this? PhD by association?
I came to Bay Area from Japan, I was surprised to hear that high buildings are not a thing here because of earthquakes. For comparison, in Japan there are about 2000 earthquakes that person can feel every year. And somehow monorail/high-speed trains/tunnels/skyscrapers are everywhere. Lazy engineering and crumbling infrastructure which stayed same for decades.
>> My SO is a soils engineer/geo-physicist, so I know a bit about the issues at play
>what's this? PhD by association?
I mean, I did day that I only know a bit about it.
That said, there are differences in the dynamics of the soil between Japan and California; each situation is unique. When it comes to earthquakes, Japan typically has deeper earthquakes due to the subduction zone that it sits above and the earthquakes are compressional(very roughly), while in CA, the earthquakes tend to be shallower along the San Andreas and more strike-slip (again, very roughly) up to 30km down involving mostly the crust. In general, one should not expect that buildings in two different seismic zones should be similar.
I haven't read much to suggest that the Bay Area's lack of tall buildings is the result of earthquake fears or "lazy engineering". Besides the fact that SF's tallest building, the Salesforce Tower, started construction in 2013, SF historically has had tall buildings, before and after the great earthquake. SF's and the rest of the Bay Area's lack of tall buildings seems to be a result of local dictate, in the same way that Kyoto lacks tall buildings. Similarly, it would be foolish/overly simplistic to blame the Bay Area's housing shortage on "lazy home builders".
How so? Maintenance happens all the times in subways. In Montreal they do it during 4 hours each nights. In ours, they close everything down, thus we can no longer use it, but if we had multiple smaller one, we certainly could close one at a time and lower the perturbation. They could still close them all, theses tunnels aren't meant to be the only ways to drive either, even the biggest highways are closed from time to time to maintains them.
> you couldn't physically fit enough cars through the tunnel to compare to real transit system
That's seriously so weird to see that kind of comment on Hacker News. Never heard of horizontal scaling? There's more than a ways to increase capacity and the size of the unit sure is one, but the number of units is another one. It's like saying Google is impossible because you could never fit that many website on a single core, yeah luckily we can just add cores.
> Given that this thing requires rigging something up to your vehicle, the onload and offload points would immediately become major bottlenecks to any serious throughput even if you could cram them in bumper to bumper.
Then they'll come back to the skate system, which would fix the tire issue at the same time (and many others).