YHK - yet another hacker news clone

California is building a $400M shield for Yosemite's most dangerous highway

26 points danso 2 days ago 18 comments

JumpCrisscross 1 hour ago | parent

“He described the new $400 million infrastructure as a colossal ‘tunnel with windows’”

What would an actual tunnel cost in Europe or China?

defrost 1 hour ago | parent

Fun to "normalise" - the UK, for example, has both the recent London underground extensions and the London Sewer projects that have figures on tap for large tunnels + extras.

This specific "tunnel with windows" is $400 m USD quoted in toto for a 675-foot avalanche resistant rock shed.

In Yosemite they're cutting through the edges of hard rock - as opposed to the much softer soils under London and the Thames, and they're making an impact shock resistant structure exposed to daily heating and cooling as opposed to relatively zero shock resistant tunnels with far less of a temperature cycle.

For a Yosemite tunnel the length would be greater and the cutting challenges greater (rock V soil).

Apples, Oranges.

You might be better served looking to European rock shed construction of a similar scale - the civil engineering aspects would be similar.

voidfunc 1 hour ago | parent

400m now... after cost overruns 2billion.

tjwebbnorfolk 1 hour ago | parent

$2 billion? I wish I were as optimistic as you.

The environmental consultants will drag this out for a decade if they can.

collabs 1 hour ago | parent

I wouldn't have believed you but it will take close to a decade to build under like half a mile of sidewalk near me with like actual construction time planned in weeks in contrast to the overall plan.

I don't think I would blame the environmental consultants though. This is just how we do things now.

The USD 2B path train stop at WTC became USD 4B+ and nobody went to prison for it. I don't think it should have even been USD 2B. All we needed was a path train stop.

nikanj 39 minutes ago | parent

*This is how we don’t do things. The whole process is optimized to ensure the least possible amount of things actually get done

fancyfredbot 24 minutes ago | parent

The UK spent 100m GBP on a 900m tunnel. Rather than protecting cars from rocks, this one protects trains from bats (or vice versa really) so structural requirements are presumably less stringent. It's weirdly pretty though.

tz18 1 hour ago | parent

>“There’s not anything like this in the world,”

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tranbc/26942437655

kart23 1 hour ago | parent

also the rock shed in big sur: https://www.discover-central-california.com/rain-rocks-rock-...

rconti 29 minutes ago | parent

Man, I'm so confused. Has it really been that long since I drove the coast? I'm sure I did this in 2014 or 2015 but have no memory of this structure.

I guess I couldn't drive the whole coast in 2023, the last time I bought a car in SoCal.

I planned to do it this summer but was rerouted due to fires.

Razengan 1 hour ago | parent

lmfao* 5 fucking banners and overlays in the face, for having an ad blocker

* (I didn't really laugh, just used the acronym for its disrespectful tone)

MelonArmiger 1 hour ago | parent

Man's delusion of mastering nature, nature's reality of mastering man. Fascist strength is illusory.

thin_carapace 40 minutes ago | parent

the linked article doesn't want to be read by myself so this question may be daft. still, may I inquire as to your proposed relation between the thread subject (conceptually, tunnel building) and fascism ?

MelonArmiger 17 minutes ago | parent

Here: https://archive.ph/PGZKw

The article makes the connection, though obliquely. It seems obvious enough - large parts of the USian West embody fascism in their unnatural relationship with nature. Unsustainable water consumption, roads and "the freedom of the open highway," etc.

And as late-stage capitalism "progresses" it'll all become uninhabitable, replicating the logic of the so-called climate migration crisis within as it is without.

s3p 33 minutes ago | parent

Today I learned that building a tunnel is facism

janilowski 54 minutes ago | parent

>“There’s not anything like this in the world,”

Must've never driven through the Alps I guess. There's something like this every couple km

jandrewrogers 40 minutes ago | parent

This article is kind of dramatic about describing a normal thing. Alpine highways everywhere in the world have to deal with this. The entire Mountain West is built for this, including some parts of California.

Maybe the Federal government has never bothered to invest in some aspects of road safety in Yosemite. That’s somewhat embarrassing. I’m surprised this is even an issue in Yosemite given how many other places have had this forever. Far more remote and unpopular highways have addressed this problem.

It is difficult to paint this as anything but incompetence.