I’m not seeing the numbers you quoted on the linked page, but I see a $2b project to add a 3rd rail to an existing 10 mile stretch (LIRR), $2.4b for a mile+ of new tunnels and a new station (Flushing), $10b for the East Side project which entails a massive new terminal and 10,500 ft of new tunnels....
I think the theory is that these mega train stations where thousands of people walk through every hour to embark/disembark is one vision of transit, one which can serve an extremely dense metropolis, but also one which is terribly difficult to expand and maintain, as we see in NYC.
Now maybe the future is that people coming into and through the city are stopping at waypoints at the outskirts and switching on to subways which run at a fixed schedule and carry masses of people in long convoys to fixed destinations, where they then have to transfer to buses or walk to their destination. Carrying luggage or packages or even just keeping children close in these environments is stressful and requires vigilance.
Alternatively, a fully autonomous transport can pick up someone or some family at their door, and bring them directly to their destination. It can carry your luggage in the trunk. It has seats for all your party and is quiet enough to carry on a conversation or work. It plays the music you want as you go. Etc... Most importantly it works on a dynamic schedule and can accommodate any arbitrary pickup and drop off point non-stop. You can pay for different classes of service, different capacity, maybe even different transit speeds.
These are fundamentally different modes of transportation. Boring is not trying to lower the cost of fixed point mass transit hubs, nor are they going to iterate in their idea until they end up building a subway. I think it’s important to admit that fixed point transport hubs are not in fact the ultimate solution to all personal transit.
For the [rather large] share of transport which is done in personal vehicles, wouldn’t it be incredible to have a solution that’s better than the massive cost of surface roads and surface parking everywhere you look?
> For the [rather large] share of transport which is done in personal vehicles, wouldn’t it be incredible to have a solution that’s better than the massive cost of surface roads and surface parking everywhere you look?
I generally care about mass transit, and it becomes pretty obvious that if you care about mass transit, you have to get people out of the massive wastes of space of single-occupancy vehicles. The problem I see with solutions like the Loop is that they're pitched as trying to replace mass transit, and there's no consideration given to the fact that storing empty personal vehicles takes lots of space that don't exist in dense cities, or, in places such as Kansas City where SOV transit is preferred, creates massive dead zones of parking that deadens the appeal of the area.
Boring + Autonomy is an attempt at a solution to the space inefficiency of personal transport.
Personal transport is absolutely essential for the vast majority of people. Whereas public transit in most cases is not sufficient to live car-free, and ridership continues to plummet as a result which drives up costs [1].
The promise of autonomy, coupled with EVs designed for 1 million mile duty cycles opens up the possibility for personal transport to be significantly more efficient, and ecological than mass transit.
If you can do all that and put the majority of it underground, I’d say it’s revolutionary.
I think the theory is that these mega train stations where thousands of people walk through every hour to embark/disembark is one vision of transit, one which can serve an extremely dense metropolis, but also one which is terribly difficult to expand and maintain, as we see in NYC.
Now maybe the future is that people coming into and through the city are stopping at waypoints at the outskirts and switching on to subways which run at a fixed schedule and carry masses of people in long convoys to fixed destinations, where they then have to transfer to buses or walk to their destination. Carrying luggage or packages or even just keeping children close in these environments is stressful and requires vigilance.
Alternatively, a fully autonomous transport can pick up someone or some family at their door, and bring them directly to their destination. It can carry your luggage in the trunk. It has seats for all your party and is quiet enough to carry on a conversation or work. It plays the music you want as you go. Etc... Most importantly it works on a dynamic schedule and can accommodate any arbitrary pickup and drop off point non-stop. You can pay for different classes of service, different capacity, maybe even different transit speeds.
These are fundamentally different modes of transportation. Boring is not trying to lower the cost of fixed point mass transit hubs, nor are they going to iterate in their idea until they end up building a subway. I think it’s important to admit that fixed point transport hubs are not in fact the ultimate solution to all personal transit.
For the [rather large] share of transport which is done in personal vehicles, wouldn’t it be incredible to have a solution that’s better than the massive cost of surface roads and surface parking everywhere you look?