【2012 Archives】

Virginia transit officials don’t seem very impressed with Elon Musk’s tunnel012 Archivesthey had a very hard time trying to hide it.

The state’s public transit subcommittee is in talksto invest billions of dollars to upgrade its transportation systems. However, the board was worried that rail infrastructure projects would soon be rendered obsolete by technology like Elon Musk’s much-hyped tunnel. So, earlier this year Elon Musk’s Boring Company provided a tour of its tunnel in Southern California to Virginia transit officials.

This week, the transit professionals who experienced Musk’s tunnel shared their opinions to the subcommittee.

“It’s a car in a very small tunnel,” said Virginia’s head of rail transportation, Michael McLaughlin, according to local news outlet Virginia Mercury. “If one day we decide it’s feasible, we’ll obviously come back to you.”

Ouch.

Elon Musk may be use to criticism by now -- or maybe not. Anyway, the Tesla and SpaceX founder has long been pilloried for his tunnel idea online. However, these are transportation officials. These are the very people Musk has to sell his tunnel to.

“I think there’s a lot of show going on here,” said Commonwealth Transportation Board member Scott Kasprowicz, who also toured the Boring Company tunnel. “I don’t mean to suggest that they don’t have a serious plan in mind, but I don’t consider the steps they’ve taken to date to be substantive.”

Musk says the first tunnel, at 1.4 miles long, cost $10 millionto make. According to the Los Angeles Times, though, that figure doesn’t includeresearch, development or equipment costs. In fact, the $10 million may not cover property or labor costs either.

“They’ve purchased a used boring machine,” explained Kasprowicz, referring to the device used to excavate tunnels. “They’ve put a bore in the neighborhood where they developed the SpaceX product, and they’ve taken a Model 3 and put guidewheels on it and they’re running it through the tunnel at 60 miles per hour.”

“None of that, I think, is really significant from a standpoint of moving this process forward,” added Kasprowicz.

The Commonwealth Transportation Board member didn’t dismiss the tunnel entirely and felt like it could possibly be feasible sometime in the future. However, Kasprowicz put a timeline on that future at decades away.

“The reality is it’s a great idea, but I’m not sure its time has come,” concluded Kasprowicz attempting to give some praise to Musk.

“We’ll give Elon Musk and the Boring Company credit for at least trying,” added McLaughlin.

The Boring Company has recently found more success elsewhere. The company claimsit's been given a permit to start digging a tunnel in Washington, D.C. Just earlier this month, Las Vegas approvedthe building of a Boring Company tunnel at the convention center site of the annual tech expo, CES. One Australian politician even inquiredabout the tunnel directly to Musk on Twitter.

At the same time, however, Musk’s plans to build a tunnel in Chicago -- one of the company’s earliestwins -- is close to falling through. Plans to build a tunnel in West LA were put to a haltby local residents and neighborhood associations.

It seems like the verdict is still out on Musk and his Boring Company tunnels. But, for now at least, it looks like the state of Virginia will be passing on the tunnel project.

"A" for effort, though, Elon.

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