In a tweet by Elon Musk, The Boring Company has officially begun drilling in LA. The tunnel boring machine “Godot” has finished the first segment on June 30th of what will eventually become a series of tunnels under LA. Musk had previously announced that the plans for the tunnel would start by connecting LAX to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood, and Sherman Oaks.
No longer waiting for Godot. It has begun boring and just completed the first segment of tunnel in LA.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2017
Godot is the tunnel boring machine whose name was inspired by the Samuel Beckett play “Waiting for Godot”. Godot weighs about 1,200 tons and runs about 400 feet long. Apparently, according to Musk, the wait is over and Gadot has begun boring outside of the SpaceX parking lot.
Why Tunnels?
On The Boring Companies site the reason for tunnels is to “alleviate traffic, transportation corridors, like the buildings that feed into them, must expand into three dimensions. One option is to “go up” with flying cars. However, flying cars have issues with weather, noise, and generally increase anxiety levels of those below them. The other option is to “go down” and build tunnels.”
there could be more cars on the road in the future than there are now
In May of this year at TED we were given a glimpse on how these tunnels would work by Musk as well as a concept video. Musk said, “Street-level elevators would send cars down into the tunnel network where it would be placed on a track propelling it at 124 mph to its destination. With such a system, a traveler could get from Westwood to LAX in about 5-6 minutes.”
While we may still be a decade or two away from the concept video becoming a reality, It’s clear this is a company Musk deems necessary as Tesla continues to take off. “Once you have shared autonomy where it’s much cheaper to go by car…the affordability of going in a car will be better than that of a bus” said Musk. This means that there could be more cars on the road in the future than there are now.
