The Engineering of Wildlife Crossings

rqtwteye · 2024-12-21T21:14:26 1734815666

I think this is a great effort but I wonder if they could have done something cheaper that can be put in many places. I am not sure how useful one super shiny crossing will be.

Night_Thastus · 2024-12-21T21:35:47 1734816947

Sometimes one giant crossing is better than several-equivalently priced smaller ones, for animal behavior or geography reasons.

contingencies · 2024-12-21T23:55:06 1734825306

Half the ~$100M probably disappears in administrative BS.

Now that they've captured the federal government (re. Trump/Elon bromance), maybe The Boring Company can obtain some national environmental restoration funding and dig a bunch of holes to put the ugly freeways in.

If digging a short tunnel is a repeatable operation free of BS and possible at ~2-3x this cost (~$250M) then it could perhaps be widely replicated to good effect on relatively natural lands adjacent to but outside of core urban areas.

NortySpock · 2024-12-22T00:26:39 1734827199

> If digging a short tunnel is a repeatable operation

It is not. Geology and drainage conditions are different at every site, and thus cookie-cutter solutions do not go nearly as far as you would hope.

9dev · 2024-12-22T11:01:44 1734865304

Hah. As if. They are just going to funnel taxpayer money into private ventures and corruption. Just you wait.

relwin · 2024-12-22T18:13:09 1734891189

Here's a case when a $660k tunnel didn't work out because it spooked the animals, then the Marines blocked it: https://jesseshunting.com/threads/660-000-wildlife-tunnel-un...