A modified Tesla Mannequin X drives within the tunnel entrance earlier than an unveiling occasion for the Boring Co. Hawthorne check tunnel in Hawthorne, California, December 18, 2018.
Robyn Beck | Pool | Reuters
When Elon Musk’s Boring Firm introduced plans in July to construct 20 miles of tunnels in Nashville to hold passengers to and from downtown to the airport in Tesla automobiles, Republican Governor Invoice Lee touted the challenge as “transformative.”
Eight months later, residents seem much less enthusiastic.
A brand new survey from Vanderbilt College, which is positioned in Nashville, discovered that 51% of residents residents disapprove of plans for the so-called Music Metropolis Loop after they’re conscious of Musk’s involvement.
“The public’s help for Elon Musk’s tunnel challenge is closely influenced by partisanship,” Vanderbilt stated on its web site, relating to the ballot. Native opposition to development rose to 51% from 35% “when Musk’s identify is explicitly talked about within the query.”
Musk grew to become a outstanding and controversial determine in politics in 2024, when he spent round $300 million to propel Donald Trump again to the White Home, after which labored within the early days of the president’s second tenure within the White Home, slashing the scale of the federal authorities and reducing key applications.
The Boring Firm did not instantly reply to a request for remark.
Earlier this month, Metro Nashville Council members voted to formally oppose the Music Metropolis Loop. Nonetheless, the state’s Republican management has given Musk’s firm permission to dig below state highways all through the town.
Tennessee is now weighing a invoice that would give the state the ability to take charges from such initiatives, and to direct federal transit grants to the state’s most well-liked initiatives. The invoice, if enacted in its present draft, might additionally give the state and challenge operators the ability to control underground transit methods, leaving municipalities like Nashville with little recourse to deal with fires or different emergencies, and office security or air pollution issues.
Metropolis council members in Nashville and residents who opposed the Music Metropolis Loop expressed concern about The Boring Firm’s observe file in public hearings.
As ProPublica beforehand reported, citing public data, when Musk’s tunneling enterprise constructed its “loop” on the Las Vegas Conference Heart, the corporate racked up an “extraordinary variety of violations,” overlaying a big selection of issues comparable to missed inspections, unpermitted development, water air pollution and employee accidents.
Those that supported The Boring Firm in public hearings praised Music Metropolis Loop’s potential to create development jobs within the metropolis, and hoped the tunnels would alleviate site visitors congestion in Nashville.
The Boring Firm this week introduced that it its focusing on extra U.S. cities — together with Baltimore, Dallas and New Orleans — for tunnel growth. The corporate is operating its enterprise growth efforts as a contest, the Tunnel Imaginative and prescient Problem, promising winners a “free” one-mile tunnel. The Baltimore Ravens, who had entered the problem and received, turned down Musk’s supply after preliminary conferences with the corporate.
