Comment by kolinko
9 years ago
With all my sympathy for metro - in many American cities it will never be good enough due to extensive suburbs.
In places where land is cheap, and there are single family houses, cars will be the most efficient way to commute for years to come. We'll switch to self-driving electric cars, but still.
But ultimately you aren't going to have tunnels dug by the Boring Company out into the extensive suburbs either. The question ultimately becomes whether it makes sense to give up large amounts of space (even if underground) in the centre for parking (for everyone commuting from the suburbs), or give up space further out where land is cheaper and less dense for large car parks at stations. (Obviously there's a cost in changing mode of transport, but that somewhat applies to the pods too.)
> But ultimately you aren't going to have tunnels dug by the Boring Company out into the extensive suburbs either.
The point of the boring company is to make excavation of tunnels an order of magnitude cheaper. [1] And if he succeeds, I suspect demand for the tunnels will push them out to the burbs.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company
But if you can make tunnel digging orders of magnitude cheaper, why not just run subways to the suburbs?
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Commuter rail is a thing. DC's metro goes a dozen miles outside the city in all directions and the MARC train goes further.