The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s project to build underground highways to ease traffic congestion, received approval Wednesday to expand the “Vegas Loop,” an underground tunnel system beneath Las Vegas that ferries passengers via Tesla vehicles.
The expansion, approved by the Clark County, Nevada, commissioners, will extend the network by 25 miles, allowing for 18 new stations that extend the subway network from the Las Vegas Strip corridor.
TechCrunch recently reported on the proposed expansion, which would increase the underground transportation system to 65 miles of tunnels beneath Sin City designed to help people get to more casinos, retail areas, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas campus, and residential areas.
The system was originally planned to have 29 miles of tunnels with 51 stations. The Vegas Loop’s current footprint is approximately 2.2 miles, and includes five stops including four around the Las Vegas Convention Center and Resorts World. Westgate and Encore are currently under construction. The company said it only passed 1 million passengers, and that the peak in one day was more than 32,000 passengers.
The committee approved the updated plan in a 6-1 vote after TBC attorney Stephanie Allen confirmed that the company, not the taxpayer, would fully fund the project. Last year, TBC raised $675 million to scale Loop projects like this one.
Only Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick voted against it, citing concerns that the long-term transit system plan does not take into account resort and casino employees who must travel to the city to work.
“I hope there will be long-term conversations about what that looks like so that we can ensure people get there; because we have an equal number of workers that have to go on this journey and it’s getting harder and harder to get there. I’ve had a lot of calls from my area about how long it’s taking to get there because of the construction.”
Allen responded by saying that TBC has plans to expand into residential areas in the north, west and east of the strip.
Kirkpatrick also expressed concerns about the amount of infrastructure being built around the airport, and wanted to ensure that TBC was operating in agreement with the FAA.
Some of the newly planned stops will be located on Las Vegas Boulevard near the airport, as well as in Chinatown, at UNLV, Town Square Las Vegas and Harmon Square. According to Allen, a sample ride between the airport and the Las Vegas Convention Center, a 4.9-mile trip, would take five minutes and cost $10.
Around the same time TBC raised the money, Musk tweeted that the company would still try tunneling for its largely theoretical hyperloop technology, the idea that a transportation system can zip passengers and cargo into pods through low-pressure tubes at speeds over 600 mph. While the company said it would begin “large-scale” hyperloop testing last year, there was no indication TBC had advanced with the technology, nor would it be implemented in the Vegas Loop.