impractical, poorly thought out, and generally an embarrassment

August 14, 2024 4:24 AM

I think it is actually somewhat generous to call the Loop an underground system, as most maneuvers and operations occur at surface level. It is perhaps best thought of as a taxi system that makes use of underground connectors to bypass traffic. Future expansion plans involve significantly more tunnel length and more underground stations, which will probably cause the system overall to feel more like a below-surface transit system and less like an odd fleet of hotel courtesy cars. from a pedantic review of the las vegas loop [computers are bad]

The Boring Company, previously

posted by chavenet (19 comments total)

If you let someone who hates public transportation design a public transportation system, the results are likely to be unsatisfying.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:50 AM on August 14 [18 favorites]

Just build trains.
posted by thecaddy at 5:06 AM on August 14 [9 favorites]

I was especially intrigued/horrified with the rudimentary safety accommodations of the system, taken in the context of how difficult it is to put out a Tesla fire.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:43 AM on August 14 [4 favorites]

Just build trains.

The Loop exists purely to prevent people from building trains.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:21 AM on August 14 [9 favorites]

I am honestly surprised at the claim in the article that it is possible to open the car doors nearly all the way inside the tunnel. Based on the pictures I've seen, I was guessing you'd have to scrape the car against one wall to be able to open the opposite door enough for a reasonable egress with awkward people and mobility issues etc.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:31 AM on August 14 [1 favorite]

this is embarrassing, but when i first heard of the hyperloop, only knowing of musk as a ridiculously wealthy space launch company owner popular among nerds, i honestly thought it was referring to this sort of thing (a more practical sort of space elevator concept). the whiplash when i learned the reality was.. something.
posted by ver at 6:58 AM on August 14 [3 favorites]

Back in early 2023 I wrote a short LinkedIn post about the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop - reflecting on if it was the future of car commuting, or an evolutionaly dead-end.

Some of the comments on that raised the safety aspect - how would retreive a car with a flat tire? Or is it possible to jack it up and change tire in the tunnels?

The lithium fire hazard seems to me, to be under-estimated (no apparent mitigation efforts to put that kind of fire out, or contain it).

Then, on the other hand: the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop is a fairly short system, and probably easy to evacuate.

I wonder if they will ever get around to extend it to the airport, as previously advertised.
posted by Rabarberofficer at 6:59 AM on August 14 [1 favorite]

OK look. I think musk is a mess. And I will never buy a tesla. And I believe in public transportation (especially light rail and trains). That said the loop to move around just the convention center is efficient and far quicker than walking or buses etc. It's heavily used and wait times are never higher than 2 or 3 minutes. I use it for several large conventions every year.

Again, the highlighted safety problems and political horseshit around musk and light rail and especially the criminal Ada approach is all gross. But... Just wanted to offer that a top of the bell curve experience is just fine and it serves it's need.

Now if only they'd stop mucking around with this nonsense and just keep expanding the monorail.
posted by chasles at 7:01 AM on August 14 [3 favorites]

Well There's Your Problem, a podcast about engineering disasters (with slides!), did an episode about the Las Vegas Loop a while back.
posted by jomato at 7:05 AM on August 14 [9 favorites]

I was just in Vegas for DefCon and used the loop a bunch of times. It was very useful for traveling between Resorts World and the convention center, but that's it. What is truly amazing is how there is only one tunnel in which vehicles can only go one direction - meaning that there is a whole lot of infrastructure to prevent cars from going the wrong way with oncoming traffic. Eventually, without a doubt, something will go wrong and a car will enter the loop in the wrong direction and then... then there will either be a crash or a long delay as the errant car figures out how to back out of the tunnel.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:11 AM on August 14 [1 favorite]

I would definitely not get in a small tunnel in a vehicle known to catch fire built by somebody who hasn't figured out how to stream audio reliably in 2024.
posted by signal at 7:40 AM on August 14 [9 favorites]

Heck what if someone has a medical event in those cars? Do they carry AEDs? Do the drivers know how to use one? How do they get emts or paras in there?

From what I've seen they have significant backups in the tunnels sometimes with no easy way to get someone out fast. Do they do evac drills at all?
posted by bonehead at 9:44 AM on August 14 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: impractical, poorly thought out, and generally an embarrassment
posted by kirkaracha at 9:49 AM on August 14 [1 favorite]

I get mild claustrophobia just taking my car on the bay bridge sometimes, this narrow no-egress tunnel seems really horrifying.
posted by migurski at 10:22 AM on August 14 [2 favorites]

All these concerns, plus frankly the abysmal carring capacity of the system are valid. It's typical tech bro move fast and break things bullshit and I fully expect a future Well There's Your Problem episode to feature the Vegas tunnel fire where 30 cars and 90 people burned up in a fire so hot the concrete liner caught fire.

Drivers are required to wear a provided uniform with plain black shoes and no jewelry or accessories, and are prohibited from initiating conversations with passengers.

Like they can't say hello unless the passenger does first?

And considering Musk's robotaxi vapour it's boggling their isn't automatic speed control. It should be plain impossible to exceed speed limits not a voluntary limit enforced by fines.
posted by Mitheral at 1:02 PM on August 14 [1 favorite]

I am blissfully unaware of what this Loop thing is so I'm amused by the blind-people-describing-an-elephantness of just hearing the descriptions here. Apparently there are cars, that drive through a tunnel, powered by unstable volatile batteries, and the tunnel only goes one way, but you drive in it vs subway where everybody moves the same speed...but you still have to all move the same speed, it's a tunnel that is claustrophobically small so you can't pass or turn around. There are drivers in these cars, even though it is like the most automatable thing ever, but the drivers have to be like robots, so don't talk to them, but it must be an easy job due to the speed limitations and lack of turning and it apparently this tunnel only exists around one building in Las Vegas, but it's not just a building, it is like a massive arcology so walking is impractical -- so in essence this whole thing is like something somebody in the 1940s made up for their "distant future learns the hubris of technology" short story in a poorly distributed science fiction short story magazine. Does that sound about right?
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:58 PM on August 14 [11 favorites]

Spot on.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:17 PM on August 14 [3 favorites]

Elon Musk is basically a stock character from every single one of those “distant future learns the hubris of technology” stories and I really wish he would hurry the heck up with making some terrible choices that invoke his humorously ironic death. Sadly instead he’s got enough of a sense of self preservation to keep on imbecilically bouncing from one cynical parody of a Heinlein story about an enterprising Libertarian businessman asshole whose failures never quite catch up with him to another.
posted by egypturnash at 6:15 PM on August 14 [3 favorites]

apparently this tunnel only exists around one building in Las Vegas, but it's not just a building, it is like a massive arcology so walking is impractical -- so in essence this whole thing is like something somebod

Something like that. Las Vegas is extremely dense within individual buildings but between buildings is mostly parking lots, and has an unpleasant climate 4-5 solid months a year. To support that density, it has pedestrian bridges across giant streets and 2 different monorails and an international airport you can see from some of the hotels in the most popular area, but can only access by car or bus. The Las Vegas convention center is three buildings, connected by skyways across streets that are each the size of half superblocks, with the other half of the superblock being parking lots. So as a way to speed up some movement within the convention center and as a test site that was supposed to eventually expand to other locations, Tesla built the Tesla Loop underground subway, which was supposed to be random Tesla cars entering but for obvious reasons that was a bad idea, and since they already have two monorails, a 3rd wouldn't have been nearly so special, so the Tesla Loop proof of concept has never expanded, making it sort of useless except for accessing the convention center and the hotel across the street (Hilton Konrad Resorts World).

Las Vegas is a weird place.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:05 PM on August 15