I think this is a great effort but I wonder if they could have done something cheaper that can be put in many places. I am not sure how useful one super shiny crossing will be.
Half the ~$100M probably disappears in administrative BS.
Now that they've captured the federal government (re. Trump/Elon bromance), maybe The Boring Company can obtain some national environmental restoration funding and dig a bunch of holes to put the ugly freeways in.
If digging a short tunnel is a repeatable operation free of BS and possible at ~2-3x this cost (~$250M) then it could perhaps be widely replicated to good effect on relatively natural lands adjacent to but outside of core urban areas.
I think this is a great effort but I wonder if they could have done something cheaper that can be put in many places. I am not sure how useful one super shiny crossing will be.
Sometimes one giant crossing is better than several-equivalently priced smaller ones, for animal behavior or geography reasons.
Half the ~$100M probably disappears in administrative BS.
Now that they've captured the federal government (re. Trump/Elon bromance), maybe The Boring Company can obtain some national environmental restoration funding and dig a bunch of holes to put the ugly freeways in.
If digging a short tunnel is a repeatable operation free of BS and possible at ~2-3x this cost (~$250M) then it could perhaps be widely replicated to good effect on relatively natural lands adjacent to but outside of core urban areas.
> If digging a short tunnel is a repeatable operation
It is not. Geology and drainage conditions are different at every site, and thus cookie-cutter solutions do not go nearly as far as you would hope.
Here's a case when a $660k tunnel didn't work out because it spooked the animals, then the Marines blocked it: https://jesseshunting.com/threads/660-000-wildlife-tunnel-un...
Hah. As if. They are just going to funnel taxpayer money into private ventures and corruption. Just you wait.