In a predictably Muskian way, Elon Musk got into a Twitter fight with BART over the weekend. And of course the internet can't get enough of it.
It all started when Elon Musk took to Twitter on Friday to tout how awesome tunnels were. "Boring Company guide to why tunnels are awesome & safest place to be in an earthquake," Musk tweeted with a link to his Boring Company FAQ page.
Inspired by ideas of a hyperloop, Musk's Boring Company wants to solve the congestion problem in cities like Los Angeles by building a tunnel for cars to travel on electrified skates.
Twitter user Kieran Jones responded to Musk's comment, saying: "Tunnels are great things to run trains through. Not cars."
Pat came Musk's response, as if on cue: "Opposite is true: you can have 100’s of layers of tunnels, but only one layer on surface (to first approximation), therefore trains should be on surface, cars below."
Then BART — the Bay Area Rapid Transit public transit system which serves the San Francisco Bay Area — quote-tweeted Musk's tweet and said:
"We carry 28,000 people per hour through our Transbay Tube under the bay because of the capacity of a train. That’s nearly twice as much as cars over the bay. Why wouldn’t you prioritize something that carries far more (and safely with automatic train control) over cars?"
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And then, they sent off another tweet with a graphic touting the fact that BART runs entirely on electricity. Musk's Tesla sells electric cars.
Musk tweeted again, this time not directly at BART:
"Fundamental advantage of layers of tunnels is you can have as many lanes as you want going in any direction," he said. "Will feel like folding space from one part of a city to another."
