Elon Musk Gives An Inspirational Talk On His Transit Plans In LA With An Emphasis On Good Community Relations
On Thursday night at the Leo Baeck Temple in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, The Boring Company’s Elon Musk and Steve Davis gave an inspirational talk in their information session dedicated to their tunneling plans in the city that could revolutionize the future of travel both in LA and around the world.
As The Verge report, Elon Musk described The Boring Company’s plans to end the crushingly soul-destroying traffic of LA, something that was very much brought to light before Rabbi Kenneth Chasen introduced Musk and Steve Davis to the audience, with Chasen pointing out that he had been working closely with community leaders and government officials for years to try and alleviate traffic in the city and specifically along the 405, close to where the temple resides.
With doors opening at 6 p.m. for Elon Musk’s talk, audience members certainly had a taste of the severe traffic that afflicts LA, something that was humorously discussed by both Musk and Rabbi Chasen, with audience members overheard regaling each other with horror stories of traffic beforehand.
If you’re wondering just what Musk’s plans are, they are nothing if not spectacular. With The Boring Company’s 2.7 mile tunnel in LA nearly complete, the plan is to put up to 16 commuters in a space-age pod that would travel at 150 miles-per-hour for the inexpensive fare of just $1, with a ride from LAX to downtown Los Angeles theoretically taking an astonishingly fast eight minutes.
If the trip from LAX to downtown Los Angeles sounds fast, picture riding from The Getty to Union Station in just 12 minutes or from Dodger Stadium to LAX in a mere 10 minutes. There are even plans to take commuters from San Francisco to Los Angeles on a 30-minute hyperloop that would travel at a whopping 700-miles-per-hour.
When Elon Musk and Steve Davis spoke of The Boring Company’s many plans for LA, one thing that was readily apparent from their speech was that they were intent on having excellent community relations with the city. For instance, they only work on their tunnel from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. so that residents will never be disturbed.
Further, they only dig well below 30 feet underground, making it quite impossible to detect any vibrations whatsoever, with Musk describing how merely walking on the streets creates a much greater vibration than a boring machine. When audience members had questions about how utilities might be affected, Musk and Davis were quick to point out that they could just keep digging even further underground if this was ever the case, so this would absolutely never be an issue.
If you’re curious about how commuters in LA would fare if a massive earthquake were ever to strike the city, Elon Musk and Steve Davis put all fears to rest by noting that being in a tunnel underground is actually the safest place to be in such an event, with earthquakes being a surface phenomenon, mentioning earthquake-prone Japan’s fabulous subway in Tokyo.
They also made the quite excellent point that Los Angeles already has a subway system, and the city would never have approved underground travel if earthquakes were in any way a threat to commuters.
WATCH: Elon Musk shows The Boring Company’s LA tunnel system, and describes it as an “autonomous multilevel car system that would cost less than $1. Less than a bus ticket,” @elonmusk says #tictocnews pic.twitter.com/rdzwXYze5t
— TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) May 18, 2018
Showing once again just how important the public’s response is to The Boring Company’s tunneling project in LA, Elon Musk and Steve Davis were excited to offer passengers free rides in the upcoming months when their tunnel is fully completed and approved, relaying to the captivated audience that the more input they receive the better, as in this way they will be able to create the fastest and most comfortable transportation system possible.
