Fort Lauderdale considering Boring Company project

Dive Short:

• Metropolis officials in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are contemplating a proposal from The Unexciting Corporation for an underground transportation loop built to relieve road site visitors.
• The metropolis fee voted to critique the Elon Musk-owned firm’s proposal for a transit process built to connect downtown Fort Lauderdale to the seashore, Mayor Dean Trantalis introduced by way of Twitter July six.
• Other firms have forty five days to submit proposals to compete with TBC on the undertaking, dubbed “The Las Olas Loop.”

Dive Insight:

Critics of TBC have pointed to the firm’s first undertaking — the one-mile-extended transit loop at the Las Vegas Conference Heart — saying it incorporates simple failures other transit units by now clear up. The product uses autonomous Tesla vehicles to ferry travellers alongside the tunnels, at speeds slower than TBC experienced first indicated. These inefficiencies have drawn criticism from transit gurus, despite the fact that that has not slowed TBC’s efforts to locate and commence new projects.

Because completing the conference center undertaking earlier this yr, TBC has a number of projects beneath consideration, despite the fact that none have totally come to fruition however. 

In December 2020, the Las Vegas Metropolis Council voted to progress options to extend the conference center loop beneath the Strip, connecting it to key casinos and the airport.

In February, TBC commenced negotiations with the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority to create a 4-mile-extended transit loop from a Metrolink teach station in Rancho Cucamonga, California, to Ontario Global Airport.

And in March, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez stated that he needed to use federal revenue to build a TBC tunnel beneath the metropolis. On the other hand, the destiny of this undertaking is unsure as it would not drop beneath Suarez’s purview because in Miami-Dade County, the county controls the roadways. In addition, South Florida has a substantial drinking water desk, indicating basements, tunnels and other underground get the job done are uncommon. 

The state has only two tunneling projects, and its limestone will make it difficult to improve tunneling, according to CNN Enterprise. In addition, Florida has protected underground aquifers that can make tunneling price tag prohibitive.

Even so, other prospective projects may perhaps be popping up quickly. In Might, Gapped Bass LLC — an entity tied to TBC — purchased seventy three acres in Bastrop County, Texas, outside of Austin, NBC affiliate KXAN documented. The order hints at some type of undertaking there, be it tunneling or or else.