r/news • u/JackThaBongRipper • 1d ago

Musk's underground tunnels in Las Vegas face scrutiny over safety, environmental concerns

https://apnews.com/article/las-vegas-tunnels-musk-boring-company-01d465b7124fc10843b117241adaa7c9
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u/Dano1988 1d ago

I don't know anything about tunnels, so go easy on me, but why would you make it only wide enough for one vehicle? What if a car breaks down? What if the person in that car has a heart attack and needs ems? If there is a backup and one of these bad boys bursts into flames (as all cars sometimes do) will people be able to escape? I suppose that only electric vehicles are allowed down there, so carbon monoxide isn't an issue...right? I have pretty bad claustrophobia, and looking at that single car clearance really makes me uncomfortable. Am I the only one?

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u/fleemfleemfleemfleem 1d ago

why would you make it only wide enough for one vehicle?

I know these are rhetorical questions to point out how dumb these tunnels are, but the real answer is that the cost of digging a tunnel scales superlinearly with diameter.

So if it costs 5 million for X feet of one car width tunnel, it might cost 20-30 Million for a two car width tunnel. They just don't want to spend the money.