It's a test track that would interfere with the future construction of any public transportation running through the area, including lines that are currently in the early planning stages. That doesn't include it's impact on utility lines, water mains, or future housing construction (the Elonrail would only be 30 feet deep as currently planned, so no building over 3 stories could be built over it).
Elonrail responsibilities are to offer a good negotiation position for themselves. It's up to the city to counteroffer, say....:
1. Burying slightly deeper to accommodate larger building for the future.
2. Demolish the "test rail" after the "test" is proven to work.
3. Expand the rail after success is proven to accommodate a larger attendance
Elonrail/boring company is happy with the success of the test's outcome, the boring company will use this test as propaganda to further their goals and build larger projects, the boring company will not mind tearing down (or grandiosely upgrading) their tunnel with the new contracts it receives, and in the meantime: the region makes money from the project in the process.
The city has no responsibility to counteroffer, or even to waste any time or money considering the proposal. It's up to Elonrail to make a realistic proposal to the city if he hopes to get approval for his boondoggle.
in the meantime: the region makes money from the project in the process.
Based on the submitted financial plan for the Elonrail, it would earn maybe $250,000 a year. It would several tens of millions just to tunnel, not including the hundreds of millions to build the many stations along the way that Elon has proposed, or the millions it would take to build all the carts.
>The city has no responsibility to counteroffer
>gamblor956
Everyday lobbyists are making proposals to congressmen, founders are pitching to VCs, people applying for jobs and asking for salaries, and there is usually a middleground that these two parties can land at.
Perhaps the mechanism in like you suggest, simply to reject the offer OR perhaps more beneficially, the city should reject the offer and ask for what it wants at the same time, and play the negotiation game.
edit: I read your profile, and I get you're a lawyer, and that you're technically right that it has no `legal` responsibility to counter ... That mentality doesn't get either party anywhere.
You are starting from the position that the Elonrail is a good thing, or a practical thing, or even a feasible thing.
I start from the position that it is none of the above. It is a boondoggle, like the hyperloop. It solves nothing and the proposal as presented only raises numerous problems that Elonrail fails to address. Which is pretty typical of Musk these days: present a shiny new idea, not fully thought out, as if it were something innovative, take credit for it, and then let other people do the work of actually figuring out whether it's even possible to implement.
Elon Musk has zero clue how public transport works and doesn't seem the least bit interested in figuring it out.
Put a train in there, not one car at a time.
How are these signalled? Are they all "autonomous"? Whatever it is, it sounds like it's ripe for disaster if operating at scale.
Being stuck in a subway train tunnel in a large subway car can be a miserable experience. Being stuck in a tiny pod is undoubtedly worse. It's like being stuck in an elevator you can't stand up in.
