Like a character from Shakespeare, Elon Musk is larger than life, so here's a look at his tunnel in iambic pentameter.

People underestimate Elon Musk at their peril; he has accomplished amazing things. From rockets to electric cars to flamethrowers, he has changed the world. And unlike normal people, when he gets stuck in traffic, he doesn't sit and swear or look at his giant TV dashboard or get a bike – he has bigger visions. Voilà: The Boring Company, which just unveiled its first tunnel. He said at the launch: “Traffic is soul-destroying. It’s like acid on the soul.” Previously he had noted:

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Musk has dropped the cost of tunnelling primarily by dropping the diameter of the tunnel to slightly larger than the width of his car. In the latest iteration, he has even dropped the "skate" that the car sat on in favour of retractible curb guide wheels like those used on buses. This makes a lot of sense, given that his electric cars have the motors and brains to drive themselves, and it takes up less space.

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But it does limit the market to smart electric cars that have been outfitted with guide wheels, which will add weight and cost to the cars. And that's a pretty small market.

Laura Nelson of the Los Angeles Times says the ride was a bit bumpy. Musk explains:

“We kind of ran out of time,” Musk said, attributing the rough ride to problems with a paving machine. “The bumpiness will not be there down the road. It will be as smooth as glass. This is just a prototype. That’s why it's just a little rough around the edges.”

Musk acknowledges that there are other people who do not own Teslas who need to get around, but his solution for them is not realistic; he would need a lot of cars to make a difference.

There are many people who think that the whole idea is silly, and that it doesn't scale. There are so many problems, from the traffic jams to get on and off, the tiny capacity, the reliance on private vehicles that might run out of juice and clog the whole thing up.

One critic is transportation consultant Jarrett Walker, who got into a spat with Musk a year ago, which we covered on TreeHugger earlier. Another is playwright Joe Bagel, who tells Cult#MTL:

Elon called Jarrett an “idiot” and brought up dirt about Jarrett having gotten a PhD in Shakespeare Studies before he became a transit expert. Low blow! Such a jackass! So what better way to respond to Elon’s anti-Shakespeare tweet than a 17,000-word clapback in iambic pentameter?

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Which is how we got Trapped in Elon's Mansion, which recently premiered in Montreal. Act 1.0.2 discusses the Boring Company, tunnels, and Jarrett Walker, which we publish portions of with permission from the author. First, the Mayor of Los Angeles introduces our hero Musk:

Tonight ’tis my duty—nay, privilege,

Honour, blessing—nay, nay, benedictus

To introduce to you, my city’s yawns,

L.A.’s celibated entrepreneur,

Maverick, mover, shaker, guru, tweeter,

Engineer, icon, designer, rock star,

A “disruptor” in not only one field,

Like pizza directions, or rocket ships,

Email bank transfers, or polar sandals,

Or near-cypersonic vacuum car pods,

Or an underground car conveyor belt,

Or the cheapest-seeming car belt tunnels,

Or the first long-range electric sports cart—

Not Musk! He has disrespected them all!

Musk explains why he hates being stuck in traffic.

Fie! Fie! On with it! For time is like oil:

Our reserves are finite, we think it cheap

Then we awake, one day, cloaked in its fumes

Choking back its fetid blackfoot’s breath.

Citizens of Los Angeles! Hear ye:

Tonight I beseech you to help me build

A gold ring to band our city’s jewels.

Why? As getting around Los Angeles

Feels, on good days, like Dante’s seventh rung.

And a bad day? An eight-deep inferno.

Musk then tells how he would solve the problem:

Thousands of tunnels, bored below our feet

Such will make L.A.’s underground replete

Tunnels, tunnels, tunnels, all the way down

Eastward, westward, northward, and south-veering

With my boring machines we’ll make a clearing

We’ll spare the spades of yore, their bright-edged blades

And bore down deep beneath each beach and glade.

Imagine thus: your car, but down a shaft

Into a car pod, shuttled like a raft

On a great car-conveying skate, hands-free,

Zipped from point to any point, a-to-b,

And since our pods will be robotic-steered

There’s no risk of catching one from the rear.

But Jarrett Walker notes that these tunnels are a bit elitist. I leave the rest to the playwright:

Mr. Musk: what improvement seekest thee?

Is it an abatement of our traffic?

Or is it merely a thinning of thine?

For at a first glance of this proposal,

(And I admit, it was a nauseous one),

I saw naught within extraordinary

Save the marketing slickness of thine brand.

ELON MUSK

Chill that tongue, cow, lest I brand it myself!

JARRETT WALKER

I would rather thou bore my mooing cheeks

And then brand my grass-fed tongue to cinders

Than stamp my brand on thine boring blueprints

For a second asshole’s punctured purpose.

ELON MUSK

He makes an ingrate of the ungulates!

JARRETT WALKER

If only, and I would be most grateful.

Call me a hippo, a cow, a camel,

It doesn’t warp the math of bulbous truth—

Elephants do not fit in a wineglass

Just as L.A.’s space-wracked metropolis

Has no room for personal parking spots

For single-occupant automobiles,

Nor will another car-bridge or -tunnel

Amend this-here city’s traffic deathtrap.

Public transit, not tunnels, are the way!

ELON MUSK

Go on, wiggling Walker, tell us more!

I am transportation’s visionary,

Thou wouldst rather me ride a dirty bus.

JARRETT WALKER

A bus can be tidied, but not math, man.

For one subway tunnel’s capacity

L.A. would need a thousand thine bore holes. Thou’d do well to recall what Plato said—

Inscribed on his Academy’s entrance:

“Let no one ignorant of geometry enter.”

ELON MUSK

He knows his “Plato”: it packs his belly

If only engines could burn its jelly

Then we’d have no need for a powertrain! Forget Tesla. Let’s all ride... what’s his name.

JARRETT WALKER

The tunnels thou proposes are fanciful

Yet fancy’s the only thing they’re full of.

Never before has the phrase “mass transit”

Been wasted on cars so sparsely ridden.

Couple-person car pods? Is air thine mass?

Buses and trains can fit a hundred-plus.

Thou art short on pros—but long on the cons.

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