Plans for Saudi Arabia’s linear city cut from 170km to 2.4km
newcivilengineer.com
Saudi Arabia’s wildly ambitious plan to build 500m tall, mirrored, 170km long parallel skyscrapers, forming a 1.5M population desert city has been curtailed to 2.4km long.
The news was broken by the financial news publication Bloomberg, which said that Saudi Arabia’s government had “scaled back its medium-term ambitions” for Neom, of which The Line is the most significant sub-project.
The Saudi government had hoped to have 1.5M residents living in The Line by 2030, but this has been scaled back to fewer than 300,000, according to the report. It is unclear how it intends to house a higher concentration of people considering the proposed length (and therefore area) has been massively slashed.
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Even if they somehow had some magical way to solve the foundation issue, with the original plan... could you imagine having to go from one part of the city to another for pretty much any reason? In a linear city? You better hope that other part is really close. Especially if it's a personal medical issue or a dying loved one.
Also: this city has only one road. How is traffic going to be? Better hope you somehow get a flat near your work, and that everyone else does too, and that nobody ever moves or cha'mnges job for any reason. This is such a horsehit project I'm surprised the guy who proposed it didn't get thrown out of the window like in the meme.
Their plan was to have most people commute by train and have a veritable army of self-driving trains. That's easily the most well thought part of the harebrained idea.
Not just train
Hyperloop
You know the thing that totally exists and wasn’t a scam to stop California from installing high speed rail that would cut into a certain company’s EV sales.
Never mind commuter traffic, imagine how long it would take necessary commodities to the right places in a timely manner!
I never looked into it more than a tertiary "Holy shit that looks dumb," and yet somehow it's even dumber than I thought!
I mean, how is it any different to any other multi km wide city?
For one thing, you can avoid congestion.
Sorry, I mean those saying I hope you don't need to get to the other side, or what if you move.
Like I said- if you need to get to the other side of a normal city, you can avoid congestion by taking a different route.
In a linear city, there is only one route. If there is a traffic jam or a train derailment in a linear city, there are no alternative routes. Not even for an ambulance.
I would assume you have two routes, one either side, both directions for this exact reason.
If anything it will be more reliable and cost effective as every mass transit can be used by anyone.
It's very easy for one truck crash to block off both directions of a road. Even a very wide road. I know because I've experienced it.
I'm really not sure why you don't understand why having multiple alternate routes from A to B would be a big advantage.
Im saying two separate highways, one on either side rather than two directions next to each other.
I live in a city full of peninsulas and harbours - well aware how much it sucks having one way in and out of places. The difference is that they were never planned and designed for current volumes, vehicles and logistics - this can be.
So two truck accidents could clog up the entire city. Again, seems like having alternate routes would be an advantage.
And three separate incidents that also breach both lanes, cant be cleared quickly and happen at the same time can block three.
Can they be cleared quickly? Because I've sure been in traffic due to wrecks that block off both sides of a divided highway for hours. Except they could divert traffic to the nearest exit.
I thought the proposed plans had multiple level high speed rails inside?
Oh, I know that one - Tesla would solve it with hyperloop and boring /s
This is a good place to have elon's little super tube!!