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Comment by jseliger | Hacker News Reader

My dad used to work in local government and likes to call the automatic opposition, "People united against anything." Today we call them NIMBYs. California has empowered them in peculiar and powerful ways, as anyone, anywhere, can challenge any project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which actually supersedes the national version (NEQA).

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> My dad used to work in local government and likes to call the automatic opposition, "People united against anything." Today we call them NIMBYs.

I love the BANANA acronym, which stands for "build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything".

Never heard of it before, but it's absolutely brilliant.

And yet development should take the environment into consideration because it can have massive consequences. Those consequences are ultimately an externality of the development project and evaluating it in advance can help inform the true financials of the project.

I wonder whether those that were taking the environment in to consideration for the development thought beyond the project to what environmental impacts could be lessened by the project. I'm not a Musk fanboy, but if these tunnels will work the way he's suggesting, the amount of traffic that would be removed from the roads (and by extension, the pollution) would probably be a net benefit to the environment.

Which is the point of an environmental assessment: to look at the benefits and cost to the environment and document the net result.

This isn’t about declaring the project a hazard to the environment, this is skipping the process to determine if it is or isn’t a net good.

Who foots the bill for such an assessment?

Whoever is paying for the project. The same as who pays for all the permits and inspections.

I would think that's the reason why Boring Co. cancelled the project then. They probably need to get some "MVP" tunnels up and running as soon and as cheaply as possible.

> traffic that would be removed from the roads (and by extension, the pollution)

I don't understand how any pollution would be removed, just because it's now in tunnels doesn't equal it being gone.

Wouldn't it just be blasted back out through the ventilation system? Or were there plans to build some kind of "pollution scrubbing" into those?

I think the tunnels would run electric cars/trains only.

Also, cars use a minimum of CO2/mile when traveling at 40mph. Time spent idling in traffic is time spent burning gas to no purpose and to the extent that these tunnels decrease surface traffic there are add on benefits.

Okay, but what about the (probably massive) upfront environmental costs of digging the tunnels and building their infrastructure?

> the amount of traffic that would be removed from the roads

seriously, how would that work?

any expansion of road capacity in LA is immediately used up and oversaturated. if you build it they will come. if you free roads up by providing an alternative like Musk's tunnel system, someone else will still come and fill the roads back up, because, "hey, traffic is moving again."

Cars fill the capacity of the roads. LA will just get more cars.

LA deserves better public transit.

Where do you think the pollution from all those added cars is going to go?

I would question if it would actually lower traffic, or just allow more people to travel.

>or just allow more people to travel.

Which is an increase in quality of life for those who would have otherwise forgone those trips. Either way it's a win.

Whether it's a big enough win to be worth the cost is a perpetual debate with projects like this.

The biggest win -if it works as expected- would be the influence on other cities to do similar projects and focus on creating fast-and-electric-powered alternatives to move cars; also there may be a gain in safety issues due not relying in the driving skills of its users.

An increase in quality of life? Really? Who is to tell? Maybe those people would have done something more fulfilling instead of whatever they did as the porpose of those trips.

"Who is to tell?"

Generally the person themselves should be the one to tell. Other systems have not worked out so well.

Oddly enough, currently the opposite is true. All the construction blocks being put up sometimes in the name of environmental assessment are pushing people out of dense areas and into sprawling suburbs, with people taking on huge commutes to get to work.

Where is the environmental assessment on NIMBY-ism I wonder? :/

There is a lot of construction going on in LA right now. It's actually quite easy to get new construction approved if you just follow the rules.

Of course, if you choose not to follow the rules and processes for development...it's very difficult.

Elon's learning the hard way that not following the rules can make his pet projects difficult or even impossible.

I've read articles that talk about that debate. Indeed, I tend to agree that development to support denser population is often an environmental net win over the immediate local environmental impacts, but I suppose it should be case-by-case.

All states have some form of this, but CA takes it to another level.

It's our profound nature as humans to reflexively unite against any outside change we don't feel part of. It's true at every scale and level of society. From "they don't make good music these days" to racism to opposition to political reforms. It's frankly a huge problem for humanity as a whole. We don't like change, especially if it's forced upon us. With climate change looming in the distance it's an almost suicidal trait.

On the other hand not letting anybody do what they want when they feel like it is important if you want to maintain a working society so it's a very tricky balance to maintain. It's probably reasonable for Californian residents not to let anybody dig holes willy-nilly underneath their cities.

That being said the article is pretty thin on details. They mention "a review of its potential environment impact" but don't explain what the problem was exactly, so it's hard for me to form an educated opinion on this particular case.

Call me crazy, but as an outsider looking in with attachment to California (many friends moved from there, brother's wife from there, I visit often), isn't part of their empowerment of NIMBY's out of fear that if they don't empower them they will straight up leave? Owning a home in California close to any of the economic centers sounds like one of the hardest endeavors one could embark upon, I imagine if you don't give any sort of concessions then more people would straight up leave.

California's insane housing prices (at least near the aforementioned economic centers) indicates that people are clamoring to move there. If you drive people away, more will replace them, possibly after causing prices to drop somewhat.

To me it indicates much more than that: high taxes, high regulatory fees, high cost of labor. The median cost per square foot for a home in California is $319 dollars, the median cost per square foot for the entire U.S is $151. The median home price in California is $379,000, and the U.S. is $225,000. One only needs to do a simple web search to see the current migration from California's tech centers to other tech destinations such as Austin, for example (note in my previous comment I said more people will leave, people are already leaving)

>If you drive people away, more will replace them

There is no data to support this hypothesis, however, in this case. The facts are California housing is expensive, and there are not enough jobs at those wages to support the expensive houses.

Prices can't exist without people willing to pay them. It doesn't matter how high your taxes, fees, and labor costs are, if people aren't willing to pay, prices don't stay high.

Another way of interpreting "The median home price is California is $379,000" is "people are willing to pay, on average, $379,000 for a home in California."

The home prices are the data to support my hypothesis. If there wasn't demand for houses then prices would fall. Demand for houses means people want to move there. If there were a net migration out of the state, prices would be dropping.

> The home prices are the data to support my hypothesis. If there wasn't demand for houses then prices would fall. Demand for houses means people want to move there. If there were a net migration out of the state, prices would be dropping.

This is true in general, but it isn't as immediate as you are making it out to be and doesn't give you any insight into how long it takes for the price to correct itself. The migration trends are 1-2 years old at this point. If my hypothesis is correct, expect to see your pricing drops soon (towards the middle to end of next big moving season, typically May 15 to August 31st), but only to a certain level and then it will make more sense for the builder to go under and let the banks take the hit.

Several major tech companies just announced moves into Downtown LA...Almost every new apartment building built in downtown has reached 90% occupancy within 6 months. A few of them reached 95%+ occupancy within their first month. For about 2 months earlier this year, the available inventory of new condos (as in, sold by the developer) reached zero and even the supply of condos on the market dropped into the lower double digits.

California is experiencing a net outward migration of people, but from the parts of California where there are already too many people, so all those people leaving has had minimal effect on the price of housing in LA or SF.

We have a disbeliever in the efficient market hypothesis! I generally am in the same boat but have yet to turn this into significant profit.

I'd say California home prices are because they haven't built enough, and that people really love living in California.

California is a really nice place to live; great weather, great coast lines, great food, great people, etc. Most people don't live there on accident.

I associate NIMBYs with going against things that improve a neighborhood. I don’t think that includes all types of resistance.

The problem is NIMBYs think that no things improve the neighborhood. Everyone would say they are for things that improve the neighborhood, but some are reflexively anti-change.

Well, that may be true, but there is good reason to doubt the effects of adding more roads to LA: demand will grow to meet capacity, which I am sure Musk is aware of given that he runs a car company.

Eventually Elon will give up and take a helicopter to work.

He already takes a Gulfstream

"California has empowered them in peculiar and powerful ways"

Fun example of this is John Wayne airport in Orange County pilots do a special takooff involving cutting power to engines to reduce noise for Newport Beach neighborhood below dating back to a lawsuit from the 80s.

This seems reasonable to me. If they can take off while reducing nose pollution, they should.

I wonder if they do this at other airports located in of near cities such as LGA.

It's a pretty common thing. Here's a long survey and discussion of various noise abatement procedures that I haven't actually read through: https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Documents/Revi...

I have some mildly related personal experience as well. The glider club I belong to started getting noise complaints from people living near the airport. On a busy day, our tow plane might make 25 takeoffs. We often took the same path every time, repeatedly annoying the same people. We started varying our routes and also replaced the propellor with a quieter one and everybody was happy.

Glad you guys worked it out.

Seems unreasonable to me, who's to say which neighborhood deserves more or less noise pollution? Oh right, economic status and ability to file massive lawsuits. If that takeoff method was all around better they would just do it everywhere, Congress outlawed other airports from doing the same in 1990

"In 1990, Congress, fearing that many localities could eventually hamstring the growth of aviation by implementing their own patchwork of noise restrictions, passed the Airport Noise and Capacity Act which outlawed curfews at airports. John Wayne was grandfathered in, however, due to the original lawsuit being filed in 1985."

https://www.avgeekery.com/whats-rollercoaster-takeoffs-orang...

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