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I’m reading the environmental assessment for Elon Musk’s proposed tunnels between Baltimore and D.C. That’s the report you’re all talking about, right?
The company is proposing twin 35-mile(!) tunnels with concrete shelves that would basically act as tracks for autonomous cars — similar to what’s in their first, 1.14-mile tunnel beneath Los Angeles. I rode through it in December - here’s what it was like. latimes.com/local/lanow/la… 
The concrete shelves were cast so unevenly that the ride at points felt like driving on a dirt road. (Future rides, Musk said, “will be as smooth as glass.”) latimes.com/local/lanow/la…
The Boring Co. says the underground car tunnel project, which they call “Loop” (not to be confused with Hyperloop) would start with two stations — one in D.C, about a mile from Union Station, and one in Baltimore, in the parking lot of Camden Yards.
The company would need right-of-way permits to dig under land owned by DC, Maryland, the city of Baltimore, and the National Parks Service. Once they secured those, construction of 70 miles of tunnels would take up to two years, they say — with a big caveat.
The company would dig 70 miles of tunnels, beneath seven rail corridors, to initially accommodate 2,000 passengers a day. (Number of vehicles not specified.) People would reserve tickets online in advance.
Elon had originally said the company would help keep costs down by turning dirt from the tunnel excavation into bricks, maybe to build housing, but the assessment also analyzed which landfills / reclamation sites would take 97 truckloads of dirt per day.
If the tunnels are carrying 2,000 people a day, makes sense that they wouldn’t affect transit ridership or traffic, I guess.
The report says fares “are expected to be comparable to public transportation.” I think the Acela is the most expensive transit option between DC and Baltimore and is like $80 for that one leg? So, less than that is a wide range.
At ~$80/passenger x 2,000 x 365, that’s $58.4 million in revenue annually. Subtracting operating, maintenance and construction costs, it would take… a long time to make a profit. (That’s true of transit and highways too, of course, although they have higher capacity.)
The assessment says the Elon Musk tunnels would also include up to 70 ventilation shafts, so that, you know, people riding inside the tunnel would have air to breathe, etc. It is accompanied by a truly delightful rendering.
One of the seven deadly sins, if I'm not mistaken.
I wonder if the NSA would have anything to say about this here tunnel plan.
Oh, I forgot an important part: The assessment says the trip from Baltimore to D.C. would take 15 minutes.
Also, the report says that these tunnels could someday be retrofitted so that they would carry not only self-driving cars, but Hyperloop, the pneumatic tube-esque technology that Musk has talked about before -- with another big caveat.
The process of getting the National Park Service to agree to construction beneath the 18.6 miles of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway that it controls sounds like a fun shenanigan.
Whew, what a whirlwind this has been. Thanks for tuning in for updates from this hotly anticipated report out of Washington, D.C.
