One might call it… Boring?
Las Vegas has given Elon Musk’s Boring Company a $48.6 million contract to build an underground transit line for the city. The project is scheduled to be finished in January 2021, just ahead of that year’s CES. The project, named the LVCC Loop, is meant to connect the Las Vegas Convention Hall with other halls down the street. The Loop will lower the travel time between halls, with the 15-20 minute walk being cut down to a 1 minute ride in the Loop.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority approved the contract on Wednesday, with a near-unanimous vote. The single dissent from the 14- person board was from Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman. Goodman was, instead, in support of a plan from Boring competitor Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group of Austria. And while it seems she was being a party pooper, it may be down to the fact that the Boring Company’s Loop technology has been demonstrated before, to less than stellar results.
initially, Musk announced the Loop technology to be headed to cities like Chicago and L.A. And the first test tunnel did, in fact, come to L.A. And it was basically a car driving in a tunnel. Said the LA Times Laura J. Nelson of the test she experienced:
The trip through the tunnel took about two minutes, illuminated by the car’s headlights and a strip of blue neon lights tacked to the ceiling. The Model X rolled on two molded concrete shelves along the wall, which were so uneven in places that it felt like riding on a dirt road.
[…]
“We kind of ran out of time,” Musk said, attributing the rough ride to problems with a paving machine. “The bumpiness will not be there down the road. It will be as smooth as glass. This is just a prototype. That’s why it’s just a little rough around the edges.”
The original pitch of the product had all the futuristic glamor you’d expect:
Whereas the finished product… didn’t:
Regardless, Las Vegas is clearly banking on the novelty of the proposed project. And who knows? Maybe Musk will deliver; the L.A. tunnel was made as a prototype to work the kinks out and show proof of concept. Certainly, the proposed end result will be a draw on its own.
In a statement to the Las Vegas Sun, the board’s vice-chairman Bill Noonan said:
This is truly a unique and one-of-a-kind project. People will come from all over the country to see it.
While LVCVA CEO Steve Hill told them:
This was certainly quite a bit less expensive than the alternatives that we saw. That’s the easy thing to point to, but this is a system that has high capacity, it’s innovative and fun, and we think it provides a great customer experience.
(Las Vegas) has been looking for congestion solutions for decades. This project is going to be a real benefit to our customers, but it also has an opportunity because it’s innovative and leads to a low-cost system, to help solve congestion problems not only in the resort corridor, but throughout the community.
Either way, construction is set to begin Summer this year. Let’s hope things are a bit more sophisticated than a car in a tunnel, eh?
Source: Gizmodo
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