Elon Musk's Boring Company wants to tunnel under Las Vegas
Chicago may be a no-go for The Boring Company's high-speed underground tunnel system, but there's always Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority announced a plan this week to build an underground "Loop" tunnel at the Las Vegas Convention Center -- yes, the home of the annual consumer tech show known as CES. More than 182,000 attendees were at the show last year, and they absolutely mobbed every train, taxi, and CES-provided shuttle.
The proposed Loop is expected to cost anywhere from $35 to $55 million. The authority said the project would cost less than $10 million per mile, the same as the Boring Company’s test tunnel in Hawthorne, California. They said the Las Vegas tunnel could be completed in time for CES 2021.
The convention center is expanding from 73 acres to 200 acres. Techies aren't the only people who will benefit from more space— the convention center also hosts other events, including the Pizza Expo, World Tea Expo, and National Hardware Show, to name a few.
Several options and configurations could connect the halls and exhibitor lots at the convention center.
The Boring Company says the Loop could extend beyond the convention hall to different hotels and casinos and onto the airport. It even showed how the system could continue to Los Angeles -- Elon Musk's ultimate goal for intercity travel. Above ground, the Las Vegas Monorail already connects the convention center with hotels along 4 miles of the Las Vegas Strip.
The full Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board will meet Tuesday to determine if the project is ready to proceed to the next step, which is making design decisions and creating a timeline for the project.
UPDATE: March 13, 2019, 1:48 p.m. PDT The full board of directors at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority approved the underground transportation project Tuesday.
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This means final plans, designs, and timing will be drawn up and move along. A final contract meeting expected in June will be the next step before construction can begin.
Topics CES
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
