But it lowers property values close by, the noise is quite significant. So putting light rail in a tunnel would be the better option.
If Musk can really lower costs, London would be a good client. I'm sure that if he could reduce construction costs for new tube lines by 80% (costs are mostly tunnels), there would be at least 4 new lines that could be approved quickly. After that, they'd still have money left over from what they now plan to spend on Crossrail 2.
Here in Denver, property (and rents) near the light rail are very high value and expensive. I live in an apartment that is ideally located and let me tell you I could afford a very nice house out in the suburbs for the rent I pay.
edit: Additionally, the light rail here (very modern Siemens units) is orders of magnitude quieter than the major 6-lane streets and Interstate 25 running nearly parallel to rail.
Same in Baltimore, and our carsets are going on thirty years old. I live alongside both the light rail track and the interstate, which run mostly parallel here, and the latter is much noisier, especially when the crazy people on motorcycles use it for a racetrack.
There are relatively few residential areas very near our light rail, and those that are tend on the pricey side, although that may be more for other reasons than transit access. Where I live now is one of the few places you can live in easy walking distance of a station and pay less than $1k/mo in rent; on the other hand, my community has a poor reputation, mostly undeserved, for being a hive of drug dealers and "not our kind of people", by which is meant working-class black and white folks. A mile or so down in Clipper Mill, which is very much "our kind of people", one may confidently expect to pay $1600 or more a month to rent a tiny rowhouse, even if it's no closer to the Woodberry station than my current abode is to Cold Spring Lane.
The findings of most studies directly contradict this assertion. And, if I recall correctly, there's a strong correlation between urban density and light rail value add -- the denser the area, the more property values rise near new light rail lines.
This is false. The costs of modern underground railways like Crossrail are mostly stations (particularly those in the city centres where property is expensive).
If Musk can really lower costs, London would be a good client. I'm sure that if he could reduce construction costs for new tube lines by 80% (costs are mostly tunnels), there would be at least 4 new lines that could be approved quickly. After that, they'd still have money left over from what they now plan to spend on Crossrail 2.