![]() ![]() Musk's disdain for public transport that cities rely on and his dislike of traffic formed the foundation upon which The Boring Company was founded. As a result, public-transport planning is a priority. This is in contrast to places like Tokyo, where, Knowles writes, car use is among the lowest in the world, because owning a car in Japan means paying expensive fees, and in bustling cities like Tokyo, parking spots are rare. Musk's complaints are not completely unfounded: Knowles' book shows how underinvestment in public transportation in the US has led to today's declining system, as more people opt for cars. "Why do you want to get on something with a lot of other people that doesn't leave where you want it to leave, doesn't start where you want it to start, doesn't end where you want it to end? And it doesn't go all the time." It sucks," Musk said at a Long Beach, California, Tesla event in 2017, while talking about his preference for individualized transportation. He even once called a public-transportation expert an idiot. 'I think public transport is painful'Īs recently as March, Musk's The Boring Company, a construction company dedicated to underground automotive transportation, has been touting tunnels to solve the issues cars produce: noise, pollution, and never-ending traffic jams.Īnd Musk has often been explicit that traditional public transportation options, like subways, would not be a part of his vision. "I think he's as car-brained as anybody else," Knowles continued, referencing one of the key premises in his book - America, and the world, is hooked on car culture. "He is a car executive and wants to sell cars, and believes in cars, and lives around cars," Knowles told Insider in an interview. However, that ambitious transportation project that involves moving people nonstop across long distances in high-speed tubes has yet to succeed. Instead, the CEO and billionaire has his own vision for improving transportation, which includes solving traffic congestion by building underground tunnels for cars and by building a successful hyperloop. The problem, he argues, is that Musk is not interested in that. It often indicates a user profile.Įlon Musk's yearslong quest to solve traffic by getting cars underground might be a pipe dream, but there could be one good thing to come out of it: cheap tunnels.ĭaniel Knowles, a writer for The Economist and the author of "Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It" - a book released in March about how cars contribute to public-health crises and fuel the climate crisis - argues that Musk could very well reduce the cost of tunneling for subways, which is a process that adds billions to subway development in this country. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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