Opposition Beginning to Mount Against Musk’s Boring Company’s Las Vegas Loop

Tourism has dipped in Las Vegas over the last several months, and the Vegas Loop is not minimizing the congestive traffic in the city, which has triggered some to criticize the plan and its lack of government oversight.

Boring’s Baby Steps

Billionaire Elon Musk’s Boring Company secured a contract in 2019 to develop the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop with tunnels that would be filled with self-driving Teslas that would ferry tourists throughout the city for a fee. That modest proposal has been ramped up to include 104 stations and 68 miles of tunnel.

It has been projected that 700 Teslas will transport approximately 57,000 people per hour.

Although progress is being made, with the most recent tunnel connecting the Wynn Golf Club to land appropriated for Wynn West, some have increasing concerns that the private enterprise does not have enough government safety oversight.

“If at any point in the future the city or Clark County takes on large-scale projects from private construction companies, there needs to be a lot of checkmarks,” said Benjamin Leffel, a professor of public policy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Regarding the Boring Company’s project, Leffel said, “It seems to me to show the hazards of leaving too much discretion to a private company. In this situation, we have to ask, Where exactly did the policy gap occur?”

Others, like former Mayor Carolyn Goodman, have speculated about more tunnels if one is not enough to alleviate traffic. “If the system is successful enough to where it warrants a second tunnel, I am sure they would be more than happy to put in that second tunnel that it could achieve that express flow characteristics that would be desired for the rider,” said Goodman.

Although Musk’s efforts to eliminate traffic have begun, the results are congruent with the incremental progress being made. It will take much more burrowing and connecting to have the desired effect. Nevertheless, baby steps lead to unparalleled journeys, and this is what Las Vegas and the surrounding area are pinning their hopes on.

Boring to Connect A’s Ballpark

Reports are that the sparkling new A’s stadium being built on the site of the demolished Tropicana will be connected to the Loop in time for its debut at the beginning of the 2028 season.

Steve Hill, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said, “We’ve got to work with the Tropicana, with MGM, because there’s several spots (MGM Resorts properties) along the way; I think that is driving the timeline right now more than the stadium is. It is one of two or three legs to the system that they’re (Boring Co.) currently working on to get done. So, soon. It won’t be measured in years. It’ll be in the next year-and-a-half when they’ll get started on that and be working toward all of those connections.”

The Athletics plan to eliminate 200 parking spaces to make room for a Tesla station, but that makes sense considering the ballpark will get double the number of spaces it gives up.

“When you think about taking a parking spot out here, if the Boring Company delivers two cars for every spot it takes out, it’s double the amount of effective parking,” Hill said. “It’s not hard for that system to take the place of parking. It’ll improve it pretty significantly.”

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