Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos
July 16, 2018 8:27 AM   Subscribe

Who owns the space under cities? (The Guardian) Airspace ownership and control (Slate) is often discussed with regard to drones. When thinking subsurface, mineral rights (Geology.com) probably come to mind with extractive industries, but what about subterranean management? With city centers fully built, developers are looking down as well as up. Singapore has been doing subsurface planning since 2007 (Science Direct, abstract only) Hong Kong built underground caverns to expand its available real estate space (Wired) after maximizing surface and airspace development, and Helsinki has an underground masterplan (Hel.fi). British Geological Survey's Project Iceberg (BGS) aims to document and better manage underground developments in England. Up next: tunnels to ease traffic congestion.

Two years ago, U.S. Rep. John Larson proposed to build massive highway tunnels under Hartford, Connecticut (CT Mirror),
a “100-year solution” that would reduce traffic congestion on both I-84 and I-91, recapture large swaths of downtown land for much-needed development, reconnect northern neighborhoods to the rest of the city and even provide fill to repair the aging dikes on the Connecticut River.
That article came out a month before Elon Musk's kind of joked about boring tunnels to address traffic congestion (News.com.au), a joke that turned into a bit of kidding on the square or not a joke at all. Beyond Musk's Hyperloop (Wikipedia), his Boring Company has proposed more traditional tunnels for cars and truck. Boring Company operations chief Jehn Balajadia proposed a 6.5 mile tunnel between the city of Los Angeles and Culver City, its neighbor to the west (Wired), and Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, is backing Elon Musk's plan to tunnel between O’Hare International Airport and downtown Chicago (New York Times).
posted by filthy light thief (20 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
Houston has 6 miles of underground tunnels connecting buildings downtown, with some restaurants and retail and the like. It's not really centrally managed, IIRC every building above is responsible for the tunnels below. Some of the connections and design are super awkward because of the lack of central planning. Wikipedia notes the system is now partially closed off because of damage from Hurricane Harvey last year.
posted by Nelson at 8:45 AM on July 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


Those are the most interesting types of tunnels to me. I think many cities have various formal (and forgotten) or informal tunnels. For instance, Clovis, New Mexico has local legends of tunnels that connected the local theater, rail road station and hotels together, which were only confirmed last year by a chance discovery by a downtown store employee who accidentally knocked over some heavy boxes, which made a hole in a wall.
"I can't believe it," said Joe Thomas, Clovis' former city manager who is among those who have investigated rumors of the tunnel and declared them baseless.

"About 10 years ago, I spent most of two days looking for such a thing because some old-timer had come to City Hall claiming he sang 'That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine' while walking through the tunnel with Gene Autry.

"I thought he was crazy. I'm thinking now maybe he was telling the truth."

Newspapers from the 1940s suggest it's been close to 75 years since anyone's been inside the tunnel. The newspapers were found just inside the tunnel's entrance from what once was the Antlers Hotel. They were inside a trash can filled with dustbunnies, cobwebs, cigarettes and a battered 78 rpm vinyl record featuring the songs "The Crime I Didn't Do" and "I'm Always Dreaming of You," by Gene Autry and Jimmy Long.
I went looking for any internet truth to such stories a couple years back and found nothing. Lo and behold, after your comment, I found this article from last April. Thanks for the push!
posted by filthy light thief at 9:00 AM on July 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


Who owns the space under cities?

Given the quality of the writers for 2018 so far, I expect it will turn out to be Morlock Consolidated Industries Inc.

(googles)

No, apparently they're only financial planners. So that's all right then.
posted by flabdablet at 9:08 AM on July 16, 2018 [4 favorites]


It's a pity that boring tunnels is so ridiculously hard and expensive. Around here in Greater Boston there's a real lack of transport infrastructure and ridiculous road layouts. In my neck of the woods for instance US-3 does this weird S bend that makes it run parallel with 495 for a bit. The end result is that there's this rat run between US-3S and I-495S which generates ridiculous amounts of traffic on MA-4. If there were a freeway tunnel between say the MA-40 exit and I-495S we'd have far less traffic in the local area. But who wants to pay a few billion dollars for that?
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 9:27 AM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


I went looking for any internet truth to such stories a couple years back and found nothing. Lo and behold, after your comment, I found this article from last April. Thanks for the push!
posted by filthy light thief at 12:00 PM on July 16


filthy light thief, I hate to rain on your parade (or, I don't know, cave in your tunnel?) but I read that article too and was disappointed to see that it was published on April first...
posted by The Baffled King at 10:25 AM on July 16, 2018 [3 favorites]


As Nelson alludes to, I would think that tunnels would be particularly vulnerable to climate-change related weather weirdness.
posted by ITheCosmos at 10:36 AM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


No, apparently they're only financial planners. So that's all right then.

The no-bid contracts for the tunneling itself will go to C.H.U.D. Infrastructure Solutions.

Regarding the CT tunnel proposition:

University of Connecticut geology professor Robert Thorson, while applauding the conceptual benefits of a tunnel, can’t get his arms around this one. “It is beyond anything I could conceive. I see it as a fantasy,” he said. “It could be achieved, but at what expense?”

For the Larson plan to be realized:
    It must be drilled through a challenging subterranean environment of soft and hard rock – shale, sandstone, basalt – with fractures and faults. “It’s complicated down there,” said Thorson, who served as a consultant to the Adriaen’s Landing development along the Connecticut River. The challenge to tunnelers: “You never know what’s ahead of you.” He also observed that tunnels leak. “If you invest in one, you make a permanent commitment to pumping.”


I'm no geologist, but to my mind, geologists are the sorts of people whose cautions one should take pretty seriously when you're talking about routing people underground over long distances.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:50 AM on July 16, 2018 [8 favorites]


Who are you going to believe? Some crusty old university professor or (checks card) Grimes' boyfriend?
posted by 1adam12 at 11:05 AM on July 16, 2018 [3 favorites]


We'll never know how many Chinese people used to live beneath Oklahoma City, after years and years of people denying that there were any Chinese people in Oklahoma City in the first place.
posted by Quonab at 11:32 AM on July 16, 2018


Definitely Not Sean Spicer: "It's a pity that boring tunnels is so ridiculously hard and expensive. Around here in Greater Boston there's a real lack of transport infrastructure and ridiculous road layouts."

I mean, they DID do the Big Dig.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:24 PM on July 16, 2018


I mean, they DID do the Big Dig.

Yeah but did you see the road layout before the Big Dig?

Which urban planner thought it was a good idea to run I-93's N-S traffic on the same road as I-90's E-W traffic? Because they're a god damn idiot. Without the Big Dig I'm pretty sure I'd still be waiting in traffic going to the airport back in June.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 1:05 PM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


And there's also this massive secondary problem where the only ways in and out of Boston central is I-93 and I-90. So if you want to get to US-3 or MA-2 you either need to go over surface streets in Cambridge to get to MA-2 or you need to take I-90 or I-93 out and use I-95 to get to US-3 or MA-2. So what happens is that I-95 is extremely heavily trafficked between I-90 and I-93 all day no matter what. This combined with Massachusetts' complete allergy to stack interchanges means that the highway system there is a complete clusterfuck.

Just saying, if I was dictator there'd be a tunnel from MA-2 in Alewife all the way to Longfellow Bridge.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 1:16 PM on July 16, 2018


The Baffled King, thanks for catching that. I should have kept reading, because the article ends with this:
Editor David Stevens is just messin' with you. As Kilmer and McAlavy told me a 1,000 times, there is no tunnel connecting the train station to downtown hotels and the Lyceum theater.
😥
posted by filthy light thief at 1:43 PM on July 16, 2018


I remember having to sign some paperwork saying we understood that we don’t own the mineral rights under our house when we bought our house in Pittsburgh. I don’t know if there are plans for traffic tunnels under Pittsburgh, other than the ones we already have.
posted by Anne Neville at 4:28 PM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


I think it's pretty common around Pittsburgh for the mineral rights not to convey (I know it's happened with the two houses I've bought here).
posted by Chrysostom at 9:17 PM on July 16, 2018




The fact that Wired article called Culver City LA’s “neighbor to the west” tells anyone who lives here how plugged into the local area that author is.

Los Angeles is building two subways (I’m counting the “connector”) right this minute. Musk needs to leave transit to the adults and worry more about why he feels the need to call his critics “pedophiles”.
posted by sideshow at 11:09 PM on July 16, 2018 [3 favorites]


I think it's pretty common around Pittsburgh for the mineral rights not to convey (I know it's happened with the two houses I've bought here).

Central Pennsylvania as well, which is how I ended up as the heir to half of a third of a third of fracking royalties for a few acres in Butler County because of a farm my great-grandfather sold in, like, 1947 or something.
posted by Copronymus at 9:53 AM on July 17, 2018


Apparently mineral rights are almost uniquely American

Not really.
In Canada surface and mineral rights in general are separate.
The mineral rights are held by the Crown , but are administrated by the province.
Most provinces have similar ,but not identical rules governing the rights.
Basically anyone can acquire the mineral rights by staking a claim.

In the U.S. prior to 1783 mineral rights were also held by the Crown.
After 1783 of course there was no Crown, and in the original 13 states landowners quickly
claimed those rights. So surface and mineral rights though separate, coincide.

Out west it was different and the fledging nation claimed the mining rights , similar to the Crown.
They adopted a form of old Geman mining law. In 13 western states
The BLM administers mining rights

posted by yyz at 7:52 AM on July 18, 2018


In Texas, the ability to split surface and mineral rights on a piece of property dates to 1907, to statutes passed presumably in response to the discovery of oil in Texas a few years earlier. It was pretty common for farmers and ranchers to sell off mineral rights under their land to settle debts or otherwise try to balance the finances. It creates a huge mess. I own a few tiny royalty shares in east Texas and every year I get, no lie, hand written receipts from the county tax collector when I pay the property taxes.
posted by Nelson at 8:28 AM on July 18, 2018


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