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BART Trolls Elon Musk on Twitter, A Nerd Fight Ensues

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Elon Musk tweeted about his vision for a subterranean superhighway, currently being worked on by his ‘Boring Company’ in Los Angeles. Musk’s tweet soon came under a hail of Twitter fire (shocker), from people who clearly didn’t read his FAQ.  One of which was our beloved Bay Area Rapid Transit train system BART.  Here’s how it developed on Twitter:

Then a random person on Twitter, responded to Musk, pointing out how most mortals believe that tunnels are good for trains, not cars.

Musk

Musk’s link to the ‘Boring Company FAQ’.  Explains how a massive subterranean tunnel system relying on hundreds of tunnels and elevators, which deliver cars on sleds to various destinations at 150 mph.   Has tremendous advantages over the current trains in tunnels, and cars on land model we currently have.

Loop system testing

And in Musk’s futuristic, subterranean. hampster tubed superhighway,  there are multiple levels of tunnels to accommodate all the cars, in a weatherproof, earthquake safe, network of connections.  With no pedestrians, traffic lights, car accidents, or congestion to slow things down.

But that didn’t stop the Bay Area Rapid Transit system from trolling Musk on twitter (lol) with some hardcore nerd facts of their own:

OH Snap!

Public transportation agencies often pick fights with Musk on Twitter, mostly because it helps their public visibility & ridership, but also because they have to live in the real world.  And the daily, grinding, slug of moving millions (of mostly ungrateful riders), every day.  Dealing with non-stop problems, around the clock.  You know, reality.

The kind of underground superhighway Musk envisions is unfathomable to public transportation agencies, who have lived through the insane costs of building tunnels in California.  In fact, the USA is by far the most expensive place to build train tunnels in the world.  Right here in San Francisco, the new ‘central subway line, is costing us, the tax payers, more than $1 Billion dollars per mile of tunnel.  It cost less than half of that to build a mile of a subway line in the next most expensive European city (Paris).  In other words, public rail construction projects in the USA are hella corrupt, and currently, cost way too much money for Musk’s network of underground highways to be built.

Musk’s ‘The Boring Company’ wants to reduce the cost of building transportation tunnels by a factor of 10.  A feat that would be more impressive, and 10 times more valuable than putting men on Mars.  I, for one, hope he succeeds because traffic as it is in the Bay Area, is at a standstill, and our current methods of building public infrastructure are completely broken.

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Alex Mak - Managing Editor

Alex Mak - Managing Editor

I'm the managing editor and co-owner of this little expiriment. I enjoy covering Bay Area News as well as writing about Arts, Culture & Nightlife.

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