You can only hope.

(I've never understood how one could experience joy in the failure of a fellow man. I guess that's just the way I'm built.)

Never? you surprise me, a man of your obvious intelligence. One man's meat is another man's poison, that's what you might want to ponder.

 

Never? you surprise me, a man of your obvious intelligence. One man's meat is another man's poison, that's what you might want to ponder.

Sounds like zero-sum thinking to me: one man's success means another's failure.

I don't subscribe.

 

Sounds like zero-sum thinking to me: one man's success means another's failure.

I don't subscribe.

So you're ok with eminent domain for example? if you loved your house, had done lots of custom renovation, loved your home and were 75 years old enjoying retirement and your local community, you'd be a "failure" if you objected to a forced sale just to build some datacenter because Lord Musk and SpaceX wanted to? You're actually happy to let an organization have that kind of power over your life?

Seeing victims as failures is one way of getting through life I suppose, but I don't subscribe.

 

So you're ok with eminent domain for example? if you loved your house, your home and were 75 years old, you'd be a "failure" if you objected to a forced sale just to build some datacenter because Lord Musk and SpaceX wanted to?

Seeing victims as failures is one way of getting through life I suppose, but I don't subscribe.

Non sequitur much?

 

Non sequitur much?

Well SpaceX is a huge powerful threat in many ways, based on its spending it is an AI company with a side business in rockets.

Here are some fellow Americans, admittedly just losers of course, no victims here, all of them are weaklings, whiners, nothing wrong with big government after all...

This is why I gloat if SpaceX fail, if reality thwarts the unbelievable greed and rapacity of these monstrous power structures then that's a good thing for ordinary people IMHO.

 

Well SpaceX is a huge powerful threat in many ways, based on its spending it is an AI company with a side business in rockets.

Here are some fellow Americans, admittedly just losers of course, no victims here, all of them are weaklings, whiners, nothing wrong with big government after all...

Yup, sounds like a big government problem. You love big government.

My response ends here. Political debates are frowned upon by the powers-that-be, and have gotten me in trouble more than once.

Feel free to talk to yourself.

 

Yup, sounds like a big government problem. You love big government.

My response ends here. Political debates are frowned upon by the powers-that-be, and have gotten me in trouble more than once.

Feel free to talk to yourself.

Good luck with the launch later.

 

Is see this as the absolute best use case for autonomous electric vehicles.

 

Is see this as the absolute best use case for autonomous electric vehicles.

A death trap.

 

A death trap.

Like the highway and city streets aren't.

"An average of 40,000 to 43,000 people die in motor vehicle traffic crashes annually in the United States." ~Google

 

"Grok, estimate the number of vehicle-occupant per mile deaths in Boring Companies public loops. Compare with US traffic fatalities."

**Zero observed vehicle-occupant fatalities in The Boring Company’s public Loop operations to date (primarily the Las Vegas / LVCC Loop), implying a rate far below U.S. road traffic rates based on the available exposure.**

### Loop exposure and fatalities
Public operations began in mid-2021 (LVCC Loop). Company statements and reporting indicate more than 3–3.5+ million passengers served by late 2025, with continued growth (peaks of tens of thousands of daily riders on busy convention days; expansions adding stations and length).

No passenger or vehicle-occupant deaths have been reported in public sources. Incidents noted are limited (e.g., one vehicle stuck and cleared in ~170 seconds; construction-worker injuries at tunneling sites, which are separate from public passenger operations). There are occasional mentions of minor collisions or operational issues, but nothing rising to a fatality.

Exact cumulative vehicle-miles or passenger-miles are not published. Rough bounds:
- System segments have been ~1.7–2+ miles initially, with expansion; many rides are short (campus hops of ~1–2 minutes at ~35 mph).
- Plausible average trip length of ~1–2 miles (or a few miles on longer segments) yields a few million to roughly 5–10+ million passenger-miles so far (order-of-magnitude). Vehicle-miles would be lower depending on occupancy (typically 1–4 passengers per Tesla).

With 0 observed occupant deaths, a simple point estimate is 0 deaths per vehicle-mile (or passenger-mile). Statistically, the upper bound on the true rate depends on exposure and confidence level; even at a few million vehicle-miles the rate is consistent with being well under 1 death per 100 million vehicle-miles (and could be substantially lower). Larger future exposure would tighten this. Construction risks and regulatory/oversight debates exist separately and do not change the zero public-passenger-fatality record.

### U.S. traffic fatalities for comparison
Recent U.S. motor-vehicle fatality rates (all road users, predominantly vehicle occupants plus pedestrians/cyclists in crashes) are approximately:
- ~1.19 deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) in 2024.
- ~1.10–1.14 per 100 million VMT in 2025 estimates (declining from prior years; total deaths roughly 37k–39k range).

Occupant-specific rates are a large share of the total (pedestrians and others make up a minority). Historical rates have fallen dramatically over decades but remain in the ~1+ per 100 million VMT range recently.

### Comparison
The Loop’s observed rate (0 so far) is orders of magnitude lower than the U.S. road rate of ~1.1–1.2 per 100 million VMT on the current small sample. Controlled tunnel environment (fixed path, lower speeds than open highways in many cases, no opposing traffic or intersections in the same way, Tesla vehicles with strong crash ratings, operational control center, emergency systems) reduces many common crash factors. This is not a guarantee of future performance at scale or under full automation, and exposure is still limited compared with national VMT (trillions of miles annually).

Caveats: Small absolute exposure means statistical uncertainty is high; rare events could appear later. Data rely on public reporting and company statements rather than a comprehensive independent safety database equivalent to FARS. Worker construction safety is a distinct issue. The comparison is specifically vehicle-occupant (or passenger) deaths per mile of operation, not including other modes or construction.

 

"What if only local traffic (short haul) is used for US fatality data?"

**Using only local/short-haul (primarily urban local or low-speed) traffic for the U.S. comparison still leaves the Boring Company Loop’s observed rate (0 fatalities so far) substantially lower, though the gap narrows relative to the overall national average.**

### Relevant U.S. rates
Recent overall U.S. motor-vehicle fatality rates are roughly 1.1–1.2 deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles traveled (VMT). Breaking this down:

- **Urban vs. rural**: Urban areas have markedly lower rates than rural ones. IIHS data for 2024 show approximately **1.01 deaths per 100 million miles in urban areas** versus **1.56 in rural areas**. Rural roads account for a disproportionate share of deaths relative to their VMT.
- **Road functional class**: Interstates/freeways are generally safest *per mile traveled* among major classes due to controlled access and higher design standards, while local roads and collectors often show higher rates (especially rural ones). Local roads account for a relatively small share of total fatalities (around 10% in 2024 IIHS figures: ~3,866 of 39,254 deaths), but they also carry a large share of short urban trips. Exact per-VMT rates for pure “local” streets vary by source and year and are not always published in isolation; older analyses and subcategory reports indicate local/collector roads frequently exceed interstate rates and can approach or exceed the overall average, particularly when including rural locals.
- Short-haul/local urban driving (the closest analogue to current Loop trips) therefore sits closer to the urban rate (~1.0) or somewhat higher depending on the mix of arterials, collectors, and pure local streets, intersections, pedestrians, and lower-speed conflict points. It is still well below typical rural rates.

Occupant fatalities (as opposed to pedestrians/cyclists) form the large majority of the totals in these statistics.

### Comparison to the Loop
The public Vegas/LVCC Loop has recorded **zero vehicle-occupant (passenger) fatalities** across millions of passenger trips (company figures of 3–3.5+ million passengers by late 2025, with continued operation). Average trips are short (often ~1–2 miles or less on the initial segments), at moderate controlled speeds (~35 mph range in reporting), in a single-direction tunnel environment without intersections, opposing traffic, pedestrians, or weather exposure of the same kind.

Even restricting the U.S. benchmark to urban/local short-haul rates (~0.8–1.2+ per 100 million VMT as a reasonable range), the Loop’s observed rate remains far lower on current exposure. A few million vehicle- or passenger-miles with zero deaths is consistent with a rate well under the urban/local benchmark (upper statistical bounds still sit below typical road rates at conventional confidence levels). The controlled setting removes many of the crash modes common on local streets (intersection conflicts, pedestrian strikes, lane departures into fixed objects, etc.).

### Caveats
- Local-road VMT and precise fatality rates by functional class are less cleanly published than overall or urban/rural aggregates; estimates rely on NHTSA/IIHS breakdowns and historical patterns.
- Loop exposure remains modest compared with national urban VMT, so the zero-fatality observation has statistical uncertainty—rare events could appear with scale-up.
- Construction/worker incidents are separate from public passenger operations.
- Future higher speeds, denser networks, or full autonomy could change risk profiles, just as denser urban street networks differ from sparse rural ones.

In short, filtering U.S. data to local/short-haul traffic lowers the comparison baseline from the national ~1.1–1.2 figure but does not close the large gap with the Loop’s current zero observed occupant fatalities per mile. The environmental differences (tunnel control vs. open local streets) remain the dominant factor.

 

"Compare the overall economics of the Loop paradigm compared to that of traditional personal/public local urban transportation systems.."

The Loop paradigm (narrow tunnels with Tesla vehicles, currently human-driven and moving toward autonomy) offers dramatically lower capital costs and faster deployment than traditional fixed-guideway urban transit, competitive or lower operating costs in many scenarios versus cars or buses for short local trips, and strong time-saving benefits in congested settings—but it trades off peak throughput capacity and network density against high-capacity rail, with economics that shine most for medium-density, point-to-point urban demand rather than ultra-dense corridors.

Capital Costs

This is the Loop’s clearest economic advantage.

• Loop/Boring Company: LVCC Loop (1.7 miles, 3 stations) cost ~$47 million fixed-price (~$28 million per mile all-in). Company statements cite tunneling at ~$10 million per mile currently, with stations/safety roughly doubling it to ~$20 million fully loaded, and long-term targets of $3–4 million per mile. Expansions continue under similar low-disruption, rapid methods (months to a year per segment versus multi-year traditional projects).
• Traditional systems:
  • U.S. subway/heavy rail: routinely $500 million to $2+ billion per mile (New York examples $1.5–4 billion; global averages closer to $300–400 million but still far higher). Light rail often $100–300+ million per mile.
  • Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or dedicated lanes: lower but still tens to low hundreds of millions per mile with surface disruption, property acquisition, and utilities.
  • Personal cars: no shared infrastructure capital beyond roads (already built/sunk), but private vehicle purchase (~$30k–50k+ each) plus parking structures (very expensive in dense urban cores).

Loop’s smaller-diameter tunnels, simplified stations (essentially elevated or surface parking-like with vehicle access), reuse of production cars, and continuous/rapid boring reduce both direct costs and soft costs (delays, disruption, overruns). Traditional rail requires larger tunnels/stations, custom vehicles, complex signaling, and heavy regulatory/labor overhead—especially in the U.S.

Operating Costs and Cost per Passenger-Mile

• Loop: Vehicle costs leverage Tesla economies of scale. Current operations use drivers (a major cost); full autonomy would slash labor. Energy is electric and efficient in controlled tunnels. Fares in Vegas examples have been low or free for convention use, with public segments in the $4–12 range for short-to-medium trips. Early academic cost-benefit work on Vegas Loop projected strong net benefits (benefit-cost ratios near 3 in one analysis, driven by fares, time savings, and tourism/convention efficiency). Maintenance of tunnels and vehicles is ongoing but benefits from standardized components.
• Personal cars: AAA-style all-in ownership/operating costs are typically $0.50–$0.80+ per mile (or higher with urban parking, insurance, and depreciation). Occupancy is often low (~1.5), so passenger-mile costs rise. Congestion and parking amplify effective costs.
• Buses: Operating costs often $0.80–$1.50+ per passenger-mile in U.S. systems (high labor, fuel/energy, low average loads outside peaks). Capital is lower than rail but still requires fleet replacement and facilities.
• Heavy/light rail: Lower operating costs per passenger-mile once built and well-utilized ($0.30–$0.60 range in efficient systems) due to high capacity and longevity, but only if ridership materializes; underutilized systems are expensive per rider. High fixed costs.

Loop sits between private cars (higher flexibility, higher per-vehicle cost) and buses/rail. At high utilization with autonomy, its per-passenger-mile cost can undercut both cars (no parking/ownership) and many bus systems while delivering faster, more direct service than fixed routes.

Capacity, Throughput, and Scalability

• Loop: Demonstrated peaks of 4,500+ passengers per hour and 32,000+ per day on the small LVCC system. Company targets 90,000 per hour system-wide with denser stations and higher vehicle density/autonomy. Reality so far is lower; single-lane tunnels limit passing and create potential bottlenecks in emergencies or breakdowns. Best suited to distributed, many-to-many short-haul demand rather than extreme peak corridor loads.
• Traditional:
  • Heavy rail: 10,000–40,000+ passengers per hour per direction on busy lines.
  • Light rail/BRT: several thousand per hour.
  • Cars: very high aggregate network capacity but collapses under congestion; individual throughput is low.
  • Buses: flexible but surface-speed limited.

Loop’s economics improve with scale (more stations = more point-to-point utility) but face diminishing returns if tunnels become congested. Traditional rail has superior peak-hour economics in very dense cores once the massive capital is sunk; Loop wins on total network cost for serving broader urban areas without concentrating everything on a few corridors.

User Costs, Time, Land Use, and Externalities

• Time and reliability: Loop’s point-to-point tunnels deliver consistent 2–8 minute trips that beat surface congestion. This has high economic value (value of time often $15–50+/hour depending on user). Traditional cars suffer congestion; buses and rail suffer waits, transfers, and fixed routes.
• Land use: Loop uses minimal surface footprint (stations only), preserving or freeing valuable urban land versus roads, parking, or elevated structures. This is a major hidden economic advantage.
• Externalities: Near-zero local emissions (electric), very low accident rates observed so far (as discussed previously), reduced surface congestion. Traditional cars generate high congestion, pollution, crash, and parking externalities. Buses/rail are better on these but still involve surface impacts or high construction disruption.
• Financing and risk: Loop projects have often used private or tourism-authority funding with fixed-price contracts, shifting risk. Traditional transit relies heavily on public subsidies and frequently experiences large overruns.

Overall Economic Comparison

Aspect	Loop Paradigm	Personal Cars	Buses / BRT	Light/Heavy Rail
Capital cost/mile	Very low ($10–30M all-in claimed)	Roads already sunk; vehicle high	Low–moderate	Very high ($100M–$2B+)
Operating cost/pax-mi	Competitive (esp. autonomous)	High (ownership + parking)	Moderate–high	Low if high ridership
Peak capacity	Moderate (scalable with density)	High network, low per lane	Moderate	Very high
Flexibility / coverage	High (many stations, point-to-point)	Highest	High (routes changeable)	Low (fixed lines)
Speed / reliability	High in tunnels	Variable (congestion)	Low–moderate	High on dedicated ROW
Land / disruption	Minimal surface	High (roads/parking)	Moderate surface	High construction disruption
Best use case	Medium-density urban, short-medium trips, tourism/convention, expanding networks	Door-to-door, low density	Flexible coverage, lower demand	Ultra-dense corridors

Bottom line: For many local urban applications—especially where traditional rail is prohibitively expensive or slow to build—the Loop paradigm is economically superior on total system cost, deployment speed, and user time value. It undercuts the capital barrier that has stalled U.S. transit expansion and offers a middle path between inefficient private cars and overbuilt rail. Its limitations appear mainly in extreme peak-capacity corridors, where traditional heavy rail retains an advantage once built, and in the still-maturing transition to full autonomy and denser networks. Real-world results from Vegas (millions of riders, rapid expansion at low unit cost) support the capital-cost thesis; longer-term operating economics will depend on utilization rates, autonomy progress, and whether cities integrate it as complementary infrastructure rather than a full substitute for all modes.

 

The more I look at these kinds of projects, the more convinced I become that people are smoking whaky baccy. The Artemis moon project is very complex, far more than Apollo was. The risks are huge, the logistics, huge.

The SpaceX Starship will be used on Artemis IV only to land crew on the moon and get them back into lunar orbit. Starship needs to filled with fuel beforehand, while in earth orbit, by several preceding fuelling flights.

So Starship will be launched into earth orbit, fully fueled by a succession of fueling flights and the make its way to lunar orbit. This is separate from the crew launch using a different rocket to get to lunar orbit and the transfer crew to the already orbiting Starship to then land on the moon.

The entire project is crazy, I mean the scope for error/faults is huge, I'm no space engineer but I am a project manager and the assumptions and risks just strike me as huge, silly, I mean why are we doing this? why are we spending resources on this?

Already there has been multiple delays, changes and so on, Starship's slow progress already led NASA to put the lunar lander out to tender as well, I mean this is truly scary.

Given that Musk and Bezos are to all intents and purposes competing for the lander contract, my money would be on Bezos, at least he's not a fake engineer like Musk.

 

The more I look at these kinds of projects, the more convinced I become that people are smoking whaky baccy. The Artemis moon project is very complex, far more than Apollo was. The risks are huge, the logistics, huge.

The SpaceX Starship will be used on Artemis IV only to land crew on the moon and get them back into lunar orbit. Starship needs to filled with fuel beforehand, while in earth orbit, by several preceding fuelling flights.

So Starship will be launched into earth orbit, fully fueled by a succession of fueling flights and the make its way to lunar orbit. This is separate from the crew launch using a different rocket to get to lunar orbit and the transfer crew to the already orbiting Starship to then land on the moon.

The entire project is crazy, I mean the scope for error/faults is huge, I'm no space engineer but I am a project manager and the assumptions and risks just strike me as huge, silly, I mean why are we doing this? why are we spending resources on this?

Already there has been multiple delays, changes and so on, Starship's slow progress already led NASA to put the lunar lander out to tender as well, I mean this is truly scary.

Given that Musk and Bezos are to all intents and purposes competing for the lander contract, my money would be on Bezos, at least he's not a fake engineer like Musk.

"A hundred thousand years ago, there were people who stayed by the campfire and people who wandered. I'm pretty sure I'm a direct descendant of the wandering type." ~Jack Reecher

 

"A hundred thousand years ago, there were people who stayed by the campfire and people who wandered. I'm pretty sure I'm a direct descendant of the wandering type." ~Jack Reecher

Jack Reacher is a fictional Hollywood fantasy character, so I understand the appeal, escaping reality can be fun but I was talking about reality.

 

Jack Reacher is a fictional Hollywood fantasy character, so I understand the appeal, but I was talking about reality.

So am I.

In your reality, you'd like to put leg irons on the wanderers (or, in the spirit of my sig, break their legs).

 

So am I.

In your reality, you'd like to put leg irons on the wanderers (or, in the spirit of my sig, break their legs).

That's an odd interpretation of my post, there are many space experts expressing deep concerns, I'm just echoing them.

e.g.

https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-safety-panel-warns-of-high-risk-for-artemis-iii/

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/...onsequences-for-nasa-delays-amid-chinas-rise/

“The bottom line is that an architecture which requires a high number of refueling flights in low-Earth orbit, no one really knows how many, uses a technology that has not yet ever been demonstrated in space, is very unlikely to work—unlikely to the point where I will say it cannot work,” Griffin said.

 

That's an odd interpretation of my post, there are many space experts expressing deep concerns, I'm just echoing them.

e.g.

https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-safety-panel-warns-of-high-risk-for-artemis-iii/

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/...onsequences-for-nasa-delays-amid-chinas-rise/

I have my own concerns about Artemis, which i consider a botched over-priced Frankenstein's monster designed by committee and constructed from out-dated Space Shuttle parts for an unrealistic mission.

But you are conflating private endeavors with government projects.

I'm all for Musk & all of his companies striving to go wherever they want. The payoff for all of us has already been extraordinary.

 

I have my own concerns about Artemis, which i consider a botched over-priced Frankenstein's monster designed by committee and constructed from out-dated Space Shuttle parts for an unrealistic mission.

But you are conflating private endeavors with government projects.

I'm all for Musk & all of his companies striving to go wherever they want. The payoff for all of us has already been extraordinary.

Sadly Musk has become a personality cult, there are a lot of them around these days.