Elon Musk Hates 405 Freeway Traffic, Pays Money To Speed Construction 431
S810 writes "Elon Musk, one of the main people behind PayPal, Space Exploration Technologies and Tesla Motors, has paid $50,000 to help Los Angeles speed up construction of the 405 Freeway, making it better and says that he will pay more if needed. From the article: 'Musk said he is open to pay the cost of adding workers to the widening project "as a contribution to the city and my own happiness. If it can actually make a difference, I would gladly contribute funds and ideas. I've super had it." — Musk quips that it's easier getting rockets into orbit than navigating his commute between home in Bel-Air and his Space Exploration Technologies factory in Hawthorne.' For those who aren't familiar with this issue, the 405 Freeway runs from the northern end of the San Fernando Valley all the way down to El Toro and runs by LAX. Residents are getting frustrated that this widening project is over budget and well over the anticipated time frame that it was supposed to completed by."
$50k enough? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does $50k remotely make any dent there? Aren't these projects tens of millions of dollars?
Re:$50k enough? (Score:4, Informative)
Does $50k remotely make any dent there? Aren't these projects tens of millions of dollars?
Probably pays the salary of 1 worker, without benefits, no overtime. A junior one at that.
Re:$50k enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
This project was budgeted at $1 billion dollars, and is currently projected to cost $1.1 billion. So no, $50k is not significant. Also, he didn't even spend the $50k on construction: he paid it to a lobbying group, Angelinos Against Gridlock, whose goal is to speed construction. The group actually looks like one worth supporting (they have a vision that includes both roads and rail improvements and it seems reasonably thought out), so that $50k might be well spent. But it's spent on an advocacy organization, not on construction.
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He sent it to have then find a faster way to do the expansion, and they could not. You know why? becasue the people who design this type of work, and mange it are really good.
Re:$50k enough? (Score:4, Funny)
becasue the people who design this type of work, and mange it are really good.
My head just exploded.
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Wait... did someone just say that CalTrans is... good?
Does. Not. Compute.
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Ten to one it is a rounding error on his tax dodge (Score:3)
Ten to one it is a rounding error on his tax dodges oops sorry, tax evasions.
Anyway, sooner or later, the people always get the government and infrastructure they deserve... the US government and infrastructure rotten to the core? How... unexpected, giving the nature of your average American who rather deny himself a thousand dollars for the fear someone else might get a penny of him.
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In a study [usc.edu] from the University of Southern California, they say that LA Freeway construction costs are roughly $20M per mile.
So his $50k buys him 13 feet of roadway.
Re:$50k enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
But yeah, it's public money, so we can ignore all that and complain that they should work for free so no tax dollars are wasted while we still get roads that you don't need a horse to traverse.
Re:$50k enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
It gets worse. Until the 405 gets into the mountains, it's solid city on each side. Widening means buying property, expensive property. It's an elevated freeway, so it's hideously more expensive to build than on the ground.
Sadly, it's not going to fix the problem. Twice as many lanes would still not be enough. There's a choke point where the 405 meets the 101 in the San Fernando Valley that backs at least 2 miles every workday, and has done so for at least 30 years.
It may get better, but it's not going to be fixed.
Re:$50k enough? (Score:4, Insightful)
My questions is, why not have a 10 mile length of a double deck freeway that has no exits. That way, you get into the express deck, and you don't have to worry about asshats who swoop across 4 lanes of traffic to catch their off ramp at the last second.
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Yes. The sad part is that not enough people ever asks WHY they cost tens of millions of dollars. Even you, in your own way - seem to have been programmed to just 'accept' the fact that simple things cost millions of $'s, when it's public money being 'spent'.
Do you know? Are you qualified to estimate the budget on such a project from your long history of public works and highway repair management experience? Have you bothered to Google search for some comparison information, taking into account size, scope, terrain and road state? Modern practice?
Or are you yet another person who'll bitch about waste without actually knowing what it is?
Re:$50k enough? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't think he's an exception, half the country thinks their experts on road design/construction, even when confronted by indisputable facts that run contrary to their initial thesis they will simply reformat their premise to reach the same conclusion.
I always get a kick out of people that like the OP claim there is no basis for the cost but it's designed by registered professional engineers to standards dictated by the American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO is a committee of experts in the field from state and federal government and private business). Those plans are then built by low bid contractors (often with 3+ bidders and prices that are frequently with 1-2%) operating under strict quality control guidelines with engineers supervising the installation, inspection, testing and quality assurance. And in the end the entire project is audited by both State and Federal auditors to ensure that no tax payer money was diverted or used contrary to law.
Yet, according to the OP the whole thing is horseshit and you could build roads for half the cost. That is of course if you didn't care if they lasted more than a week, nor cared at all about safety such as whether the bridges will fall down in a strong wind. That's because the OP is an absolute expert in examining his rectum visually up close and personal.
Yes roads cost a lot, and it's because they are designed to last anywhere from 20-40 years depending on pavement type. Considering the interstates were originally built in the 60's they've more than proved that the standards are adequate. But with truck weights more than 10 times larger than when the interstates were originally built it means complete reconstruction with much thicker pavements than the interstates used in the 60's. A typical interstate pavement section is over 3' thick with a foot of granular borrow, a foot of road base and a foot of concrete you aren't going to get any of that cheap.
Idiot doesn't understand (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to throw money at the problem of highway construction, you offer a large payout contingent on how quickly it gets done while still within project specifications.
The workers get paid by the hour and so do the contractor managers most of the time. So to give them money with the promise of "more if needed" will result in pleas of "hey! we need more!!!"
These people seriously don't understand how it works when highways are constructed with public money -- the recipients never want the money to run
Re:Idiot doesn't understand (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to throw money at the problem of highway construction, you offer a large payout contingent on how quickly it gets done while still within project specifications.
The workers get paid by the hour and so do the contractor managers most of the time. So to give them money with the promise of "more if needed" will result in pleas of "hey! we need more!!!"
These people seriously don't understand how it works when highways are constructed with public money -- the recipients never want the money to run out.
You know nothing about these construction contracts, which are handled by private firms. There are incentives to get the work done fast. But there are somethings you just can't rush, like having that sandy soil properly settled so new roadbed doesn't continue to settle and end up with cracks and holes. Then there's the matter of having the equipment necessary at various stages there on time, much of it coming from other worksites. There's hundreds of miles of freeways alone in the LA area. I see the same thing where I live. It looks simple enough, until you are in charge of the logistics and find how much more expensive it can be to try rushing things. Maybe if Musk threw several million dollars at the contractors, so they had more equipment they could get some things done faster. Sometimes private industry isn't faster than a good ol' bloated public department with lots of taxpayer dollar funded extra equipment available.
Re:Idiot doesn't understand (Score:4)
Settlement is easy to deal with (at a cost, there was a project with projected settlement times of around 5 years that was completed in 60 days through available mitigation measures), the project delays are often driven by the uncontrollable externals that sink every project, those being, required federal environmental documents, utility relocation and ROW acquisition. You simply can't force the electric company to relocate a power line that serves the entire LA valley in the middle of the summer. Nor can you speed up a condemnation process when there are specific time frames required by law to condemn the property of an unwilling seller. Though you hope for a smooth process, in the real world the process is often anything but smooth with no end to headaches. It also doesn't help that construction workers in California have been issued bulletproof vests in the past due to "road rage incidents".
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You suggest that logistics are complicated and causing delays. As a public, that's not our problem, that's the contractors. If the contractor is delayed because they are using a loader or paver across town for a 2 month project, that's not the public's problem. We are paying for THIS stretch of the freeway. You bid and you agreed to do it within the same time window. The contractor is on hook to have a paver on the site as needed, and not delay it because it's not convenient.
Large construction companies that bid on these types of projects need to be held to the dates even more. "Logistics" excuses like yours are just not acceptable. Buy the equipment if you need it, deliver on time. Or for every day you pay a huge fine. Make sure the fines are more than the cost of the actual work and firms will start to deliver on time, and most likely, ahead of time.
You're funny.
Next time you try building a house, see how successful you are at getting all the contractors to arrive and get their work done according to your schedule.
It's no different with a private firm, like Granite Construction, which may have a few pavers or shovels, but they queue the jobs up so they can get things done in an order, but breakdowns happen, unforeseen things interfere, weather can delay things, then all the planning is replaced by a scramble, maybe subcontract or lease from another con
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So you hold the contractor to a schedule that says a utility line will be moved by a certain date, but the utility company doesn't get it done? If you expect that you better be prepared to pay about 100x more for road construction.
Most states have strict liquidated damages for exceeding schedule. But there are often factors beyond the control of the contractor and beyond the control of the government. When the power company fails to move the power pole that prevents the traffic shift that allows the constru
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You fine the utility company the cost of the increase in the schedule of widening the road. You will soon find that the utility company makes sure that stuff is moved out the way according to schedule.
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I am in total agreement. Coming from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, I have seen a small highway project take decades until a new leader stepped in and said "okay. No more money. This is where it ends. If you can't do it for this amount of time and money, we are getting someone else." The project was completed in under a year. FACT.
SD Freeway isn't the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
it's all the cars on it.
if they built the sort of light rail which the region desperately needs it could cut down on the traffic hugely.
Re:SD Freeway isn't the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you really think a guy who runs a car company would want to see public transit improved?
Re:SD Freeway isn't the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Its the only thing which will make life easier for drivers. Widening this road will just encourage more people to drive, increasing congestion everywhere.
Re:SD Freeway isn't the problem (Score:5, Funny)
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The automated rail system in Kuala Lumpur is very impressive. It doesn't have drivers and ticketing is obviously automatic, so it scales very well. Services are very frequent and more faster in tight locations because of the automatic trains. The trains can be kept small, and frequent because you don't have to pay for a driver for each vehicle.
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Never mind that some of us have seen it in our own lifetimes? When you add freeway capacity, you create the (temporary) ability to live a little further from where you work, either to find a better job without moving, or to live in a somewhat cheaper house. In the case of a place like NYC or Boston where many people already take mass transit, making the freeway more attractive will pull people off of mass transit and onto the roads.
Similarly, when the roads get screwed up you see a reduction in auto traff
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Problem is,
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Re:SD Freeway isn't the problem (Score:5, Informative)
There's a reason nobody uses mass transit in LA. All mass transit in LA is based on a faulty assumption -- that everyone wants to go downtown.
There's no real north/south transit: To get from the Valley to the Westside, you have to go downtown and then back to the Westside.
pays money to "study" speeding construction (Score:5, Informative)
He didn't pay money to speed construction. He spent $50,000 on a consulting organization that would look into how to speed up construction. They did not find a way to do so. But hey, he's learning how these things work: spending $50k to "study" something with no results is exactly how many real projects happen too. ;-)
A better question might be why L.A. is spending $1.1 billion on widening a freeway, instead of improving its damn transit. Adding another lane is going to be a stop-gap solution at best, and it'll be congested to the hilt within another few years. Is the goal to have 30-lane freeways by 2030 or something?
Re:pays money to "study" speeding construction (Score:4, Informative)
The 405 expansion is only moderately cheaper than the Red Line, even if you measure purely in terms of construction cost per capacity. For $1.1b, it's estimated to add capacity for another 50k passengers/day or so, making it cost about $22k per new passenger. The Red Line, for $4.5b, carries about 150k passengers/day, so it cost about $30k per passenger.
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I agree there are diminishing returns, but some heavily traveled routes could certainly be better. For example, the whole Westside is relatively compact but poorly served by transit, since the purple line stops after like 1 mile due to being axed after partial construction. It'd be sensible for it to continue west [wikipedia.org], which fortunately does seem like it may happen. Any kind of transit connection to LAX would also be useful.
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It's been done. There was a study looking at traffic levels around some roadworks in London about a decade ago. What they found was that even six months after the road works had finished the traffic levels had not returned to there pre road work levels.
technically (Score:2)
405 means N/S off shoot to the 5 that reconnect.
That why there is more then one 405.
and this make it hard for me to feel sad:
"is commute between home in Bel-Air and his Space Exploration Technologies factory in Hawthorne."
What a tragic life he has.
20 miles through some of the densest population. You can blame the city planners who abandoned the much more logical freeway expansion in the 70's.
https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Hawthorne,+Los+Angeles,+California&daddr=Bel+Air,+Los+Angeles,+CA [google.com]
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Re:I found a solution (Score:4, Funny)
Better still, why doesn't he use the infinite energy of his ego to power a Star Trek transporter system between his house and office?
Re:technically (Score:5, Informative)
The Interstate numbering standards are not random, nor are they some secret. Here's how they work:
1- or 2-digit freeway = primary route
even last digit = east / west route
odd last digit = north / south route
3-digit freeway = loop or spur route from 1- or 2-digit primary route
3-digit freeway, even first digit = loop route
3-digit freeway, odd first digit = spur route
1- or 2-digit freeway numbers are numbered ascending, starting west to east for odd numbered routes, and south to north for even numbered routes. Thus, I-5 on the west coast and I-95 on the east coast; and I-10 across the southern US and I-90 across the northern US.
3-digit freeway numbers are unique per state. Thus, California, Oregon, and Washington all having a 405 loop route that connects twice with I-5. Interstate 105 in Oregon is a spur route that goes from I-5 to a downtown terminus in Eugene.
There are a few oddities in the system due to an early convention that allowed a "directional prefix" in a name if a freeway split, this has been abandoned causing abnormalities in numbering. Example: I-84 used to be I-80N before being re-signed, and now I-84 is actually south of I-82 in Eastern Oregon / Washington. There are other oddities too, but they are few in comparison to the rest of the system.
Hope that clears it up.
Dear Elon (Score:5, Insightful)
You aren't in traffic, you are traffic.
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"Nobody drives on the 405 anymore. There's too much traffic." --Yogi Berra
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I get why people move out of cities, I really do. Pollution is higher, it's noisier than the suburbs, the yards are not as big, etc.
And houses in a good area cost five times as much. The idea that people choose to live in suburbs is ridiculous. It's all they can afford. The suburbs of a city are just like living in the city, but further away and more inconenient.
Living in the actual countryside is a different matter, but in that case you have to expect to commute further.
Commuting is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, clearly the only reasonable solution is for everyone to move (probably to a vastly different neighborhood with completely different safety and cost) every time they change jobs. Certainly there's nothing in the world wiser than applying for a new mortgage every time you have just started a new job.
Also, couples or people living together are only allowed to work within four blocks of one another.
405 (Score:2, Interesting)
"The 405 Freeway runs from the northern end of the San Fernando Valley all the way down to El Torro and runs by LAX."
And is a complete and total piece of shit. Unlike Orange County, which has been upgrading its road network for the last 40 years, LA in the 1970s diverted money away from roads and into mass transit systems (subway, light rail, bus). The net result is the completely clogged arteries of the city, which its vaunted bus network needs dedicated lanes to even barely function in.
Everyone knows when
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Re:405 (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't move a population of 10+ million people around every day by automobile without traffic jams. It's an impossible task. You can eke out tiny improvements, but just as quickly they are overtaken by increased usage and then you're looking at an even larger, more expensive and time-consuming upgrade to keep traffic moving . The 405 is a perfect example of this.
Auto travel does not scale efficiently and over the long term LA is going to have to significantly improve its mass transit (ie subway, light rail, street cars NOT buses) to have any chance of improving congestion. Thankfully the government understands this and is moving beyond 1950s urban planning policies.
But it's LA, and no place on earth is more beholden to the notion that a car is freedom and taking public transit is for the unwashed masses. Even when it's obvious to everyone involved that upgrading the freeway system is a huge, inefficient pain in the ass and a waste of public money you still get people like yourself clamoring that they should do *more* of it. It's absurd.
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And I don't have any data to back it up, but I guarantee that the number of cars going into LA proper is a lot smaller than the number leaving during the mo
Move (Score:3)
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Get some balls. (Score:2)
Hamburger Analogy (Score:2, Interesting)
Widening the 405 is an expensive and only temporary band-aid to the problem of traffic congestion. The hamburger analogy [streetsblog.net] explains why:
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You're describing Jevon's Paradox.
And you should be downmodded for using a hamburger analogy in a car thread. That's just not right.
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Free hamburgers are like unpriced freeway lanes.
Not really, a free hamburger is a good, a free highway is a service. That is a critical difference.
The goal of a highway isn't to accommodate cars, it's to accommodate car movement. This means you dont worry about how many cars you can put on there at any one time rather you are concerned with how quickly you can get a car from point A to point B. Adding tolls to roads does not fix congestion, it just makes it more expensive to sit in congestion. It will also force more traffic onto secondary routes, inc
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Yes and no. Yes there would absolutely be rioting, but it -would- also solve the problem.
People would literally not be able to afford to get to work. So they would quit and find a closer job, or move closer to work. Or both.
Simultaneously employers would find their employees completely unwilling to show up for work unless they got substantial raises to cover the cost of showing up. Employers would embrace telecommuting, move their offices to locales more accessible to employees, etc.
Public transit would tak
Re:Hamburger Analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.
First off the road is not free. It already costs loads of money to maintain cars, insurance, and gas, and you pay for the road in your taxes. That is like saying the solution to house hold fires is to make people pay x thousand dollars before the firemen turn on the hoses. People do not want to commute in the first place, and they already shelled out the cash to buy those roads/firetrucks.
Preventing people from travelling/taxing it beyond reason is only something you would want to do if you wanted to stifle the economy.
There is not a infinite demand for roads. There are a finite number of people trying to go to a finite number of places. And all of them are either going somewhere to make money or to spend it. The only correct way to plan a cities transit system is to provide enough transit to accommodate all of these trips.
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That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. First off the road is not free. It already costs loads of money to maintain cars, insurance, and gas, and you pay for the road in your taxes. That is like saying the solution to house hold fires is to make people pay x thousand dollars before the firemen turn on the hoses.
You're very vehement for someone so incorrect. Use of a road is so different from asking for help from the fire department that I don't see what could possibly make you think they're similar. Okay, they're both public services, I get that. After that, nada.
The way to get the most efficient system is to have supply meet demand, and that cannot be at a price point of zero forever. Having to pay some amount for a service encourages or forces people to make choices, including whether they should work from h
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The premise of your argument is incorrect.
People will get a hamburger if they want a hamburger. People don't drive on a road simply because it's there - they drive on a road because they need to get somewhere it goes. In your comparison, you assume that 100% of the population need to use a road, just like 100% of the population need to eat. That is incorrect.
If you don't build a freeway and people still need to get to that place, they will do it via surface arterials or neighborhood streets causing the n
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Or they'll carpool or take mass transit and let someone else drive. Or they'll ride a bike and pass all that traffic. Or they'll move closer to where they need to be. Or they'll work a different shift when traffic is lower.
You bring up a good argument for eliminating minimu
Re:Hamburger Analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hamburger Analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
Why it matters is because public versus private goods is the entire point the cited passage. You started this by arguing that air somehow was a non-scarce good (i.e. can potentially be used up until there is "no more air left"). In doing so you provided an example of a free public good, which is neither scarce, nor rivalrous, nor excludable, as the passage requires. Do you have half a brain to be able to rationalize the fact that no matter how hard we breathe, we cannot "use up" the air like we use up hamburgers or freeways? Did that even cross your mind, yes or no?
Re:Hamburger Analogy (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, if you ask someone living in Beijing, they might disagree. Given that it's not people "consuming" the air that's the problem, it's the people polluting it so people can't breathe it anymore.
And in fact, we do charge for it through pollution taxes, carbon taxes, air quality standards, etc. Because if given a chance, people DO spoil it. Hell, LA used to have a huge smog problem until California introduced some of the most stringent air quality standards around.
And that was people consuming air for "free". Now China's actually had to admit the air in Beijing is actually polluted.
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That's correct, and when the price of using them is set at the market equilibrium price, the roads will be sufficient in that supply and demand will be in equilibrium. Setting the price below the market equilibrium rate is never a good long-term strategy.
The optimal amount of road lane-miles is not the amount where there's never any congestion when the price is zero, but the amount where the cost of traffic congestion equals the price of the tolls
Move your company (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile... (Score:3)
Meanwhile, the owner of the construction firm in charge of the project, who's been bleeding the state for every last dime it could just shit himself as he looked up Elon Musks net worth and realized just how much more money he could make if he made the delays even more intolerable.
With more capacity, more people will move here (Score:3)
The widening project was a travesty of wasted money. It's was more about employing people than it was increasing capacity which they didn't want to do since if you did that the rest of the LA area would suffer more crowning and traffic.
With the money they had they had available they could have built a layer on top of the existing freeway that could have withstood a 10.0 earthquake. It's really not that long a stretch they are working on. They could possibly have tunneled through the mountains in two or three places with the same amount of money which wouldn't have bothered existing traffic.
Back in the 50's oil companies bought off LA area city planning. They designed the city for traffic. They decided where the more expensive and less expensive areas would be. Then they put the areas of industry and shopping far away from the cheaper housing which is where more people travel from.
That will go a long way (Score:3)
"The cost to construct one lane-mile of a typical 4-lane divided highway can range from $3.1 million to $9.1 million per lane-mile in rural areas depending on terrain type and $4.9 million to $19.5 million in urban areas depending on population size."
I would see $50,000 as a drop in the ocean. Of course if it is a bribe to get that particular road prioritized then it could be a very effective drop...
Re:If he has the money and is willing to spend it. (Score:5, Informative)
I like living in the country, I'm not going to move into the inner city where my job is just because the commute sucks. However, if I can contribute a fairly small portion of my money to make my commute a bit easier, I will. A good place for a job can be a really shitty place for a home.
Re:If he has the money and is willing to spend it. (Score:5, Interesting)
While I prefer the country myself (and just recently took a job in the country to get out of the city), working in the city and living in the country is irrational by almost any objective criteria. Here are some examples (all times are for the round trip):
Here [slate.com] is the article I pulled those stats from, it links to more definitive sources. Basically, it's absolutely not worth it to live further away from your job to have a bigger house. That said, raising a family might be better in the country, unless you're subjecting your kids to a long commute as well.
Re:If he has the money and is willing to spend it. (Score:4, Informative)
In America, suburban schools are usually better than inner city schools. Being that said, I am willing to take a slight pay cut for telecommunting privlege and indefinite tenure. Some dumb blonde CEO may disagree with your finding however.
Re:If he has the money and is willing to spend it. (Score:5, Interesting)
In America, suburban schools are usually better than inner city schools. Being that said, I am willing to take a slight pay cut for telecommunting privlege and indefinite tenure.
While true, inner cities also have private schools which are better than suburban public schools (particularly since problem students can easily be expelled, thanks to the safety net of public schools). Take ~$6,000/yr for high school for example - if schools are the main reason for moving to the suburbs, determine if you are losing more than $6,000/yr in money or time by commuting - it may end up actually being cheaper.
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I don't think anyone is bothered by that attitude at all. It's when people whine and complain about the commute that they "choose" to have that people pull out the pitchforks.
Re:If he has the money and is willing to spend it. (Score:5, Interesting)
I just mapped it, and it comes up about 17-18, but you're still in the right ballpark.
His best bet is to move- as soon as the 405 is built out, it will return to the same congestion as before (that happens to freeways everywhere). The next best thing (and better for LA) would be to fund a rail line that essentially parallels the 405. And maybe throw in a bikeway-- LA has 330 days/year that are good biking weather, but having to do a long commute on city streets can be a pain. There are a few bikeways along the various rivers and/or freeways (SGRT, LARIO) that can make a bike commute competitive with driving, even for very long distances. Shorter than about 10 miles it's faster to bike, and even at 15-20 miles, the combination of bike and train is faster than driving at rush hour.
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Or, like the owner of my company, occasionally fly his helicopter from home to office.
Yes, sometimes there really is no other way of saying "I'm a highly paid douchebag with a vastly inflated sense of my own importance".
Re:If he has the money and is willing to spend it. (Score:5, Informative)
I still find the money would be better invested in expanding the rail/subway network. How many lanes can you add to a freeway before it becomes ridiculously dangerous? There are already 17 lanes on some sections of the I-5 over here...
Re:If he has the money and is willing to spend it. (Score:4, Interesting)
If I were Musk, I'd just ride in a limo and treat the backseat as my mobile office for the variable amount of time spent in traffic. I'm sure the guy spends most of his time in email or on the phone anyway. He's got the money to do all that and full high-def video-conferencing from his car if he wanted to.
Sure, that doesn't help anyone else. But this article is about his personal frustration and what he's done in response.
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The problem isn't that LA needs wider freeways OR an expanded rail/subway network... LA needs wider freeways *AND* an expanded rail/subway network. People who argue for one to the exclusion of the other are missing the point.
A new rail line won't do a damn thing for gridlock *today* -- it takes a minimum of 25-40 years before a new rail line really starts to pull its own weight (40 when it's the first segment in a city, 25 when you're extending one that's already established). That doesn't mean the rail lin
Re: If he has the money and is willing to spend it (Score:3, Interesting)
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May I contribute $5 ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since Elon Musk is so wealthy and he's only paying $50,000, may I contribute my $5 ?
The $5 from me to me is worth much more (by ratio of my wealth) than the $50,000 to Mr. Musk, btw
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Re:May I contribute $5 ? (Score:5, Informative)
This really isn't a bad idea. You could surely speed up construction on the most heavily trafficked roads.
If you think that construction companies, union workers and prevailing wage workers are not already soaking this government project, then you have no idea how government contracts work in California. if it a State, County or Federal project ultimately makes no difference. By offering more money from another source, it just cues those involved that they can charge extra to do what have been contracted to do already. Be it $5.00 per person or $50,000.00 per person adding the thought of having private money contributed to do a job that the government supposedly gave to the lowest bidder, which has already missed its time target and is overbudget is insane.
Re:May I contribute $5 ? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think that construction companies, union workers and prevailing wage workers are not already soaking this government project, then you have no idea how government contracts work in California.
This is an American problem. In other countries it doesn't work this way. I lived in Japan and China for several years, and public construction projects in both of them are done amazingly fast.
In the USA, the construction crew will show up, tear everything up, and put out lots of traffic cones, ... and then disappear. For months there is no activity. The machinery just sits there. Everyone now and then you see some guy in a hard-hat drinking some coffee, but nothing is getting done.
In Japan and China it is completely different. A construction site is a beehive of activity from start to finish. They set up giant lights so they can work through the night. When I lived in Shanghai, they build the middle ring freeway past my house, and it was annoying to hear the din of construction all day and night. But in three months it was over because they were done.
I really don't understand why America is so bad at managing these kinds of projects.
Re: May I contribute $5 ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:May I contribute $5 ? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the USA, the construction crew will show up, tear everything up, and put out lots of traffic cones, ... and then disappear.
Yes, same technique in Italy. During a trip I counted something like 10 different areas with restricted lanes (or lane changing side) and traffic cones on the highway, some as long as 15km, and not a single worker to be seen. One such area has been like that for over 15 years.
In France it depends. I like the technique they use on the Paris beltway: they shut it down at 10pm, move all the equipment at once under floodlights, work on only 10 to 50 meters, clean up everything and reopen by 6am. Repeat the next night on the next 10 to 50 meters. But it's expensive and the planning must be held tight no matter what otherwise the city can shut down the next day!
Re: (Score:3)
Faster construction means higher costs.
The simple reason is that you have to pay crews more if they work in the night. Also, the logistics of a project that runs 24/7 is more complicated than a project that runs only a few hours per week. The costs of a few diggers standing idle is small to the costs of the crews or the asphalt factory that may have to run over-hours. Asphalt is a major bottleneck: it cannot be stored after it has been made. It comes out of the factory, still hot, and must be transported to
Re:May I contribute $5 ? (Score:5, Funny)
If only we could establish some sort of formal, coordinated system for extracting money out of people, proportional to their earnings, to pay for local infrastructure projects. Think, boy, think!
Re:May I contribute $5 ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Immorally gotten wealth? You mean anyone who earns more money than you has automatically done it immorally?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't earn that kind of wealth by working hard. You earn it by withholding it from the people who do the work. In the past even the rich would have blushed at the idea of being paid that much more than the people doing the actual work.
Re:May I contribute $5 ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
You earn it by withholding it from the people who do the work.
By far the biggest misconception about the economy is that it is a zero sum game, and therefore if someone gets rich, it must be because others are getting poorer. The real world doesn't work like that. Most people that get rich do so by creating opportunities that pull lots of other people up with them. Microsoft made Bill Gates a billionaire, but also created more than 2,000 millionaires and good salaries for tens of thousands more.
If your theory was right, third world countries, with very few billiona
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
By far the biggest misconception about the economy is that it is a zero sum game, and therefore if someone gets rich, it must be because others are getting poorer.
No, I'd disagree. That's the second biggest misconception. As we can see from your post, though, it's evident that there's a lot of people out there that realize it's not a zero sum game and won't hesitate to point that out. If you haven't heard someone cry out "but the economy is not a zero sum game!", then you've been living under a rock.
By far the biggest misconception about the economy is that it is infinite in size, and therefore if someone possesses wealth, it does not necessarily deprive someone e
Re:May I contribute $5 ? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the exact number of millimeters that makes a person tall? The fact that there isn't a specific number does not mean the concept doesn't exist. See "sorites".
(This doesn't mean I agree with GP, I'm just pointing out the fallacy)
Re:May I contribute $5 ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything you can earn through labor is moral. Anything you acquire through investment is immoral.
Re: (Score:3)
Capitalism: you take a risk with money
And that's the problem with capitalism. Taking a risk with money is non-productive. Labor is productive.
At no point is wealth witheld from anyone
Executives and shareholders take a share of the profits earned off of the backs of labor.
Re: (Score:2)
How about you actually making a point without logical fallacy and using specific examples?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Kill the Hippy Operated Vehicle lanes (Score:5, Funny)
How about replying instead of trying to knock off my karma?
You're an idiot. Happy?
Re: (Score:3)
He's got a 6-digit id. He's still relatively young.
And you've got a 5 digit ID. You're still a plonker.
Seriously.
I have a 6 digit ID in the 600k range (not the 500k range) and I've been reading slashdot for about 10 years. Maybe a bit longer. The poster you're complaining about has been here longer than me.
If you're claiming that 10 years is "new around here" then you're doing a fantastic job of demonstrating why waving teeny IDs is nothing more than e-peen waving and contributes nothing of value.
Re: (Score:3)
This donations need to go to key politicians, that is just a drop in the bucket. The cost for highways is way out of his league. Upkeep is high as well. Auditing would only go so far, the big issue is that roads are expensive.... you could lower the cost considerably if you prohibited heavy trucks and limited the speed! (F=ma dominates the cost.) I've seen the cost for roads and the load + speed makes it rise so fast, people have no clue how much all these roads legitimately cost. You could double the