> you could possibly make a city where driving is king and there is effectively no congestion. It would just be absurdly expensive and hostile to everyone who doesn't have access to car.
This is exactly what has been done in most of North America, except for the "no congestion" part.
Only cost is important for tunnels, because there's still space sufficient for hundreds of layers of tunnels below cities.
Only if you build tunnels that no one can get to. Road tunnels still need to obey grade and (horizontal and vertical) curvature restrictions. For example, every story down you push a tunnel, every city block longer an access ramp needs to be. And the deeper you make tunnels, the more difficult ventilation and pumping becomes.
theoretically one could avoid vertical curvature issues by connecting the tunnels with large shafts, similar to elevators in skyscrapers.
Re:Hypnotized by Hyperloop
by chiefofgxbxl on Sunday July 30, 2017 @10:50PM
(#14889168)
This may slow down traffic, based on the vertical speed of the elevators and how quickly people in cars can board the elevator.
I'm not sure which one would be quicker: having a really long access ramp (long because of the tunnel's depth), or having to wait in line to board an elevator that moves quite slowly.
Musk's system uses elevators.
Now figure out how to get people up and down, and how to cool them. Places like London has problems with both already.
Re:Hypnotized by Hyperloop
by thatfrenchguy on Sunday July 30, 2017 @08:34PM
(#14888716)
Look at Paris, this is not true.
(1) Cost. Building roads and highways inflicts both huge upfront capital costs and maintenance costs. A typical highway line has a throughput of 2,000 cars per hour. (2) Real Estate. Building the level of roads necessary to meet induced demand+ would take up an extremely large amount of land that can only be used for vehicles. (3) Local Roads. Local roads can only absorb so much capacity and they have functional throughput limits. If you wanted to make them faster, homeowners couldn't have driveways.
If you really wanted to, you could possibly make a city where driving is king and there is effectively no congestion. It would just be absurdly expensive and hostile to everyone who doesn't have access to car.