[wjossey]

Induced demand doesn’t say that nothing happened. It says that demand just fills up the new supply.

There are no alternatives to a road system in LA for most residents. If the roads were choked and there was an underutilized subway that I could use, I’d totally get the argument of taxing the road system or capping capacity, so as to push people toward more efficient methods. But, it’s not feesible to build out a subway system in this city that is expansive, so we need to work with what we have- Cars.

Make LA the autonomous car capital of the world. Let’s be the best and first at linking cars together in convoys and shuttling them fast down our massive freeway network.

Let’s build tunnels under the mountain passes to add more connections into Hollywood so people have better access than winding canyon roads.

Let’s build expansive subway networks through south central and downtown to bring cost effective transportation to lower income neighborhoods.

Let’s do a ton. But let’s also build a bunch of roads.

[jedberg]

> Let’s build tunnels under the mountain passes to add more connections into Hollywood so people have better access than winding canyon roads.

This is an interesting idea. I just measured it out, and assuming you could build a straight tunnel to bypass the canyon at the 405, it would be 5.3 miles.

To bypass Laurel Canyon would be a 3.0 mile tunnel.

Coldwater bypass would be 4.1 miles.

So the question is, do we the technology to build tunnels that long and deep (all of those are about 1000 feet). And is it a good idea to build a 1000 foot deep tunnel in an area known for earthquakes?

[wjossey]

I'm not an engineer of that sort, but I'd imagine if we can build subways in earthquake-prone zones like SF, LA, and Tokyo, we can build safe tunnels under mountains in an earthquake zone.