Musk plans 240-km per hour city travel at just $1
Los Angeles, May 18: SpaceX and The Boring Company CEO Elon Musk has for the first time revealed his concept for a personalised mass transit system or "Loop" that will carry 16 people and travel at 240 km per hour for a fare of just $1.
In a rare public appearance here late on Thursday, the Tesla founder also unveiled the project details, including 2.7 miles of tunnel that will run north to south parallel to the 405 freeway in Los Angeles, CNET reported.
Musk, however, did not provide a time-line for his project that could get people from downtown to Los Angeles International Airport in eight minutes in a vacuum tube.
Musk "envisions dozens to hundreds of small stations, about the size of a single or double car parking spot, to alleviate traffic at any one spot".
Musk was joined by The Boring Company director Steve Davis.
"It's the only way we can think of to address the chronic traffic issues in major cities," Musk said.
These tunnels were not yet part of his cross-country "Hyperloop" system, which would ferry people in tubes travelling at airline speeds at a much lower cost.
"Excited for @boringcompany partnership with LA Metro," Musk later tweeted.
LA Metro is the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, an agency that operates public transportation for the County of Los Angeles.
According to the city, the proposed tunnel would begin with the entry/exit point at 2352-6 Sepulveda Boulevard, north of West Pico Boulevard, in West Los Angeles.
Earlier, Musk hinted that he plans to link the hyperloop project under his start-up The Boring Company with SpaceX's rockets to create a transportation system that may ferry people anywhere on Earth in less than an hour.
The Boring Company is an infrastructure and tunnel construction company founded by Musk in late 2016.
Musk's aviation company SpaceX has got approval from the City of Los Angeles to build The Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR, which will be used to explore Mars -- a goal that Musk hopes to accomplish by 2022.
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Trouble ‘Miyas’ everywhere only then they will leave Assam: Himanta Biswa Sarma
Says “Himanta Biswa Sarma, BJP are openly against them, we are saying it openly
New Delhi: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said that four to five lakh “Miya voters” would be removed from the electoral rolls in the state once the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists is carried out. He also made a series of controversial remarks openly targeting the Miya community, a term commonly used in Assam in a derogatory sense to refer to Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an official programme in Digboi in Tinsukia district, Sarma said it was his responsibility to create difficulties for the Miya community and claimed that both he and the BJP were “directly against Miyas”.
“Four to five lakh Miya votes will have to be deleted in Assam when the SIR happens,” Sarma said, adding that such voters “should ideally not be allowed to vote in Assam, but in Bangladesh”. He asserted that the government was ensuring that they would not be able to vote in the state.
The chief minister was responding to questions about notices issued to thousands of Bengali-speaking Muslims during the claims and objections phase of the ongoing Special Revision (SR) of electoral rolls in Assam. While the Election Commission is conducting SIR exercises in 12 states and Union Territories, Assam is currently undergoing an SR, which is usually meant for routine updates.
Calling the current SR “preliminary”, Sarma said that a full-fledged SIR in Assam would lead to large-scale deletion of Miya voters. He said he was unconcerned about criticism from opposition parties over the issue.
“Let the Congress abuse me as much as they want. My job is to make the Miya people suffer,” Sarma said. He claimed that complaints filed against members of the community were done on his instructions and that he had encouraged BJP workers to keep filing complaints.
“I have told people wherever possible they should fill Form 7 so that they have to run around a little and are troubled,” he said, adding that such actions were meant to send a message that “the Assamese people are still living”.
In remarks that drew further outrage, Sarma urged people to trouble members of the Miya community in everyday life, claiming that “only if they face troubles will they leave Assam”. He also accused the media of sympathising with the community and warned journalists against such coverage.
“So you all should also trouble, and you should not do news that sympathise with them. There will be love jihad in your own house.” He said.
The comments triggered reactions from opposition leaders. Raijor Dal president and MLA Akhil Gogoi said the people of Assam had not elected Sarma to keep one community under constant pressure. Congress leader Aman Wadud accused the chief minister of rendering the Constitution meaningless in the state, saying his remarks showed a complete disregard for constitutional values.
According to the draft electoral rolls published on December 27, Assam currently has 2.51 crore voters. Election officials said 4.78 lakh names were marked as deceased, 5.23 lakh as having shifted, and 53,619 duplicate entries were removed during the revision process. Authorities also claimed that verification had been completed for over 61 lakh households.
On January 25, six opposition parties the Congress, Raijor Dal, Assam Jatiya Parishad, CPI, CPI(M) and CPI(M-L) submitted a memorandum to the state’s chief electoral officer. They alleged widespread legal violations, political interference and selective targeting of genuine voters during the SR exercise, describing it as arbitrary, unlawful and unconstitutional.
