Re:Tunnels are our Transportation Future
by majormajor on Thursday August 05, 2021 @04:40PM
(#28079453)
New development generally does this, as far as I've seen and read. https://www.sparkenergy.com/why-dont-more-communities-bury-p...
Retrofitting is much more expensive than original construction, though, so older US cities and developments are at a big disadvantage. So somewhere in-demand but older like California coastal cities give you the delightful result of paying more for crappier buildings and infra - because you're paying for the location, not the condition of the infra.
If we had put the effort into trenching/tunneling for power dist - we would have saved quite a lot on fires and problems caused by downed powerlines. Fires, etc...
Further, power lines are FN Ugly.
We could have had specialized machines that dig a trench, lay/build conduit/tunnel hosings and then them up at the same time.
Also, if you look at how well Singapore has done in building 'down' -- they have massive underground causeways, malls etc - and its a shame that we are too shortsighted in our cities to give up such a HUGE % of the wonderful surface of the earth for things like cars and power distribution.
Every single building built should have underground parking and access. Cars, in dense urban environments should be relegated to subterranean transit only.