Are Elon Musk’s Tunnel Projects in Florida Still Moving Forward?

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Are Elon Musk’s Tunnel Projects in Florida Still Moving Forward?



The Boring Company, an Elon Musk enterprise enterprise that started as a joke years in the past after the billionaire complained about Los Angeles visitors, got here to North Miami Beach in February with plans for a 6.2-mile underground tunnel for public transportation.

The tunnel would transport passengers in Tesla autos to seven stations alongside State Road 826, between the Golden Glades Transit Center and Sunny Isles Beach at Newport Pier. The challenge is roughly estimated to value between $185 million and $220 million, with a building timetable of three years (if the allow course of is expedited), in line with The Boring Company.

The Elon Musk enterprise proposed an analogous challenge in Fort Lauderdale final 12 months. Known because the “Las Olas Loop,” the almost three-mile-long underground tunnel pitched by The Boring Company would ease visitors round standard vacationer locations and get drivers from Fort Lauderdale to Fort Lauderdale Beach extra rapidly, the corporate says.

While the initiatives appeared like a promising begin to assuaging the Miami metro space’s ever-worsening visitors jams, a current report within the Wall Street Journal has raised issues about whether or not The Boring Company is provided to comply with by way of.

According to the report, the corporate just lately “ghosted” a handful of places, together with Maryland, Chicago, and Los Angeles, when it got here time to formalize partnerships and break floor with their respective tunnel initiatives.

Former executives and native, state, and federal authorities officers who labored with Musk’s firm declare that it “repeatedly teased” cities with a promise to resolve visitors points, solely to again out when confronted with the challenges of constructing public infrastructure, in line with the Wall Street Journal report.

As for North Miami Beach, a metropolis official tells New Times that town’s tunneling challenge continues to be within the works. He says North Miami Beach is ready on a feasibility research to be performed by the Miami-Dade Transportation Planning Organization, however the challenge is shifting ahead.

He provides that town has not had communication points with The Boring Company, and that town expects the challenge planning to be a prolonged, years-long course of. Next 12 months might be a essential time for the challenge’s progress, he says.

“They did not ghost us,” town official says.

North Miami Beach Mayor Anthony DeFillipo didn’t reply to questions concerning the standing of the challenge.

In Fort Lauderdale in June, commissioners voted 3-1 to pay $375,000 for a “due diligence evaluation” on the fee and suitability of town’s underground loop. The bare-minimum pricetag for the Fort Lauderdale tunnel can be round $30 million, although some estimates put the fee at greater than $100 million.

Some residents have criticized the challenge as too pricey, with some citing potential flooding points as a logistical hurdle in realizing underground transportation in Fort Lauderdale.

The Sun Sentinel reported that one Fort Lauderdale man complained on the June fee assembly that Musk and his firm must be footing the invoice for the strategy planning stage.

“He’s the richest man in the world,” the resident reportedly advised the fee. “He makes $1.4 million in one hour. Why should we spend money… when he’s going to make lots of dough out of it.”

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis responded that the city has capped its expenses for the tunnel, and The Boring Company crew would be “the ones taking the risk.”

Ashley Doussard, a spokesperson for the City of Fort Lauderdale, said in an email that the June vote was the city’s last action on the project. She said she is unaware of a timeline for the completion of the study.

The only Boring Company tunnel currently open to the public is a 1.6-mile “loop experience” beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center, by which Teslas with employed drivers haul individuals by way of tunnels at about 30 miles an hour.

The Boring Company didn’t reply to a request for remark through e mail. The firm’s website boasts its creation of “secure, fast-to-dig, and low-cost transportation, utility, and freight tunnels” with a mission of fixing visitors and enabling faster transportation.

Traditional tunneling initiatives can value between $100 million to a billion {dollars} per mile. The Boring Company should cut back the fee by an element of greater than 10 with a view to make its large-scale tunneling operations viable, the corporate says.



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