How Can The Boring Company Help Toronto?
There is a lot of buzz going on in California about Elon Musk’s new hobby, The Boring Company (TBC), and how it has its sights set on changing how public transit operates. A few days ago, Musk announced his intentions of attaching one of his highly efficient Loop systems to Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles in order to relieve the traffic and pedestrian congestion following an event. With future plans to build a Loop out of Chicago O’Hare Airport, the second busiest airport in the world, one can see that it is Musk’s intention to alleviate congestion in the busiest areas in America. Since Toronto is the most populated Canadian city (and 9th most populated in North America), we have a promising future if Musk decides to take TBC north of the border.
The most alluring issue that could bring TBC to Toronto is the infamously infuriating 401 that nearly half a million drivers have to inch along every morning and afternoon of the week. The sole intention of TBC is to add a third dimension to personal transit by going underground. Rather than attempt to engineer flying cars, TBC creates underground, subway-like tunnels that house an ‘electric skate system’ that autonomously ferry cars along a track at speeds up to 240km/h.
Cars would enter the system at a ‘station’, or a bank of elevators that would lower the car on to the system. These stations “can be as small as a single parking space… [and are] only limited to the available land area”. This means the limited space of the Downtown core could still facilitate stations for this Loop. Think of it as an underground freeway where your car is controlled by a system that eliminates all of the usual causes of backups.
This luxury would come at a cost, similar to the 407, while those who would prefer to drive themselves could enjoy lower traffic volumes above ground. Commuters could get across the city in significantly quicker times and a bypass for any planned closures would be readily available.
The Loop system would also ease stress on the TTC, as TBC has planned commuter ferries as well. These would look similar to the electric skates that carry cars, but would allow 8-16 passengers instead of a car. This sounds small, but a Loop would have significantly more passenger skates than car skates, allowing for a higher frequency of available rides. Rather than a TTC subway car taking lots of people every few minutes, it would be a few people every twenty or thirty seconds.
TBC also has promised that fares for pedestrians using the system would be similar to or cheaper than pre-existing fares. Whether it means similar to the average rates of the area or just of California, where TBC is from, is anyone’s guess since TBC only started a year and a half ago and there is still a lot of planning going on. A few months ago, though, Musk talked about the idea of $1 fares, which is a third the cost of the TTC.
At the core of TBC, though, is the idea of advancing how tunnel boring machines operate. Currently, boring machines are costly to operate and incredibly slow. They use diesel burning locomotives to carry the carts of excavated dirt and rock out of the tunnel, spin slowly in order to limit frictional heat on the drilling head, and require operators to progress. Musk plans to overcome these obstacles by making everything powered by electricity, investing in research and development that would allow for more advanced parts such as cooling systems in the drilling head, and implementing automation that would allow a machine to operate around the clock.
Even when accounting for the time spent building subway stations, projects like the York Spadina Subway Extension would take less than half the time. This means the Finch/Richmond Hill extension and the two relief lines could be completed sooner and would cost less. There could even be potential for lines to continue north past Vaughan Metropolitan Center and Richmond Hill, making the morning commute that much easier to deal with.
For those of you who have further questions just in case TBC ever comes to Toronto, Elon Musk broadcasted an information session back in May outlining the company’s business plan. You can also go to TBC’s website to learn more.
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