If you are waiting with bated breath to ride a hyperloop, prepare to turn blue. I’m sorry, but it won’t happen anytime soon. But you can only get one very bad second, a car ride in a tunnel. Courtesy Elon Musk Boring company, and if you feel under-challenged, you are not alone.
Tunnel under the city of Las Vegas
Vegas Loop Expands – 29 Miles and 51 Stations!
Thank you to the Clark County team for the great partnership and to the Commissioners for their unanimous approval. https://t.co/KrfF5SUsxq
– The Boring Company (@boringcompany) October 20, 2021
This week, The Boring Company received approval from local officials to build a 51-station network of vehicle tunnels under the city of Las Vegas. The 46 km long system will allow passengers to travel through tunnels between casinos, the new soccer stadium, the Las Vegas Convention Center and McCarran International Airport.
In May 2019, the company won a $ 48.7 million contract to design and build a loop system for the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). The walk between the New Exhibition Hall and the North / Central Hall can take up to 15 minutes. Using the tunnel only takes a minute, even if it is not that exciting.
How much does a boring ride cost?
The Boring Company has pegged ticket prices somewhere between public transit and ride-hailing, with a five-minute drive between the airport and the convention center at around $ 10. A four-minute drive between the soccer stadium and the convention center is estimated at $ 6.
We were promised a hyperloop, not a boring tunnel
Let’s be very clear. The word Hyperloop largely absent from the conversation. We were promised a lightning-fast hydraulic drive in a capsule through a pipe. The reality, however, is an elevator in a Tesla, and not even an autonomous one. It’s hardly earth-shattering.
Talk about a horrific advertisement for fast people moving on a large scale. A Tesla is not a bus, and it will take an awfully large number of Teslas to carry four people at a time. Then there is the problem when a Tesla masons itself in a tunnel.
And a Tesla ?! A train or even a train of electric, autonomous buses could move over 50 people in a minute.
It’s worth noting, however, that tunnels are on the bill from the Boring Company – not the taxpayer – and ask hotel casinos to cover the cost. Last year Resorts World has been given permission to build a passenger station and an underground tunnel connecting it to the LVCC.
Let’s roll the dice in the tunnel!
But why stop here? Casinos are already using techniques like the absence of clocks and windows to allow people to lose time and play longer. You’ll be in a fucking tube. How about some casino tables? A quick UN game? Wedding in the tunnel? Elvis wedding in the tunnel?
Before people get too snooty though, don’t forget that Las Vegas is the place to go for drive-through weddings, damn fake Egyptian pyramids, and plans for one Moon themed resort. Sticky is a-ok.
Then there’s the real elephant in the room that makes me question the whole plan – the Las Vegas monorail.
Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!
Moving through Boring Company, Las Vegas has a monorail
You read that right, Las Vegas has a bloody monorail.
the driverless (take the Elon!) The Las Vegas monorail system is owned by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau (LVCVA). it covers a 6.4 km long route. A one-way trip is $ 5. When I click on the page, the article is “Best Hangover Cures In Las Vegas”. You are my power animal, monorail.
And be somehow Green. According to the company:
In just one year, the Las Vegas Monorail is responsible for the equivalent of 23 black rhinos these types of emissions.
I don’t know about black rhinos, but I’ll say that’s a lot of gasoline …
But can tunnels coexist with the monorail? Las Vegas Monorail has already raised concerns with The Boring Company over tunnels too close to monorail support posts – and if a monorail crashed into a tunnel it would be a world of pain, my friends.
We actually have to need a Las Vegas tunnel?
So tell me again why we need a tunnel when there is already a monorail ?! I know what I would most like to use to get me from the airport to the LVCC. But I think it all comes down to money. No city will turn down the free infrastructure if someone else pays.
Photo credit: Elon Musk / Twitter A drilling tunnel under construction.
However, we can expect to hear more from The Boring Company as other tunneling plans accelerate. This month the Fort Lauderdale City Commissioners 4-1 voted to work with The Boring Company to build tunnels between downtown and the beach. It’s interesting when you consider the plans for a tunnel through it Chicago and The angel failed.
What we do know is that the CES conferences of the future will be unbearable with a zillion journalists plugging those tunnels. Maybe you go with the monorail after all …
