Elon Musk’s Boring Company has been in the process of making underground tunnels that will supposedly revolutionize public transportation around the country. These tunnels, over thirty feet below the surface, will allow pedestrians to ride to their destinations aboard autonomous sleds traveling at 120 miles per hour. Since Musk unveiled the idea three years ago, a functioning test tunnel has been built in Hawthorne, California, and construction has begun on a tunnel in Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Convention Loop is the first tunnel that will be available for public use and is scheduled to open in the summer of 2021. This tunnel will take convention-goers to and from different convention buildings, reducing a walk of fifteen minutes to a ride of one minute. This is currently the only project of the Boring Company that has yet to receive government approval, but Musk hopes to create other “Loops” of the tunnel throughout the cities of Las Vegas, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The company also plans to offer this alternative transportation method at a cost that is less than a bus ride.
Musk recently tweeted “Coming soon” along with a picture of a digital rendering of a station for one of these tunnels. While the tunnels continue to await approval, Musk hopes they can one day solve the congestion problem of cities in America. According to the Boring Company’s website, transportation needs to be looked at in a three-dimensional way, by either taking to the air with flying cars or through tunnel systems. For Musk and his team, going underground seems like the obvious choice.
The tunnels are weatherproof, and their construction or running noise is not discernible by individuals on the surface. They additionally are able to be expanded infinitely below the surface as a city grows and more tunnels are needed. While drilling tunnels can be extremely expensive, the Boring Company is looking to reduce costs by creating small tunnels that can be navigated by their autonomous fleet, and by redesigning the machines usually used for tunneling.
Musk’s most ambitious tunneling proposal is a Loop traveling on the east coast from Washington D.C. to Baltimore. This project is still awaiting environmental government approval, although Musk said he received “verbal government approval” for the project. The loop would potentially allow individuals to travel from D.C. to Baltimore in less than eight minutes. To achieve this, the cabins for passengers would be pressurized and moving at speeds of over 600 mph. While the plans themselves are exciting, only one tunnel has been thus far approved for actual construction. The Vegas Convention Center Loop will only be running at 35 mph when it opens next year, and it will have a human driving the vehicle, rather than the autonomous method.
While the idea of these underground speedways revolutionizing travel in the country is incredibly exciting, the reality seems to be that society is very far away from that day. Many of these projects have been awaiting approval for years, and they do not seem to be any closer now than they did when they were submitted. If the convention center tunnels are expanded to the rest of Las Vegas, it may eventually act as a testing ground for whether Musk’s proposals will be accepted in other major cities around the country. It may not be “coming soon,” but maybe one day everyone will be able to quickly move around cities with underground Teslas.
Source: Elon Musk/Twitter
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July 26, 2020 at 05:01AM
