Elon Musk's Boring Company is given $72MILLION contract to build tunnels under Fort Lauderdale to alleviate traffic at beach resort - despite disappointing flops in LA and Vegas
Elon Musk's Boring Company has won a $72million contract to build an underground tunnel through Fort Lauderdale despite his widely mocked efforts in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
The tunnel, called the Las Ollas Loop, will allow commuters to avoid traffic by taking driverless vehicles - traveling up to 155mph - underneath the city from downtown to State Road A1A, which runs along its coastline and is usually bustling with traffic. It is expected to cost between $60 to $72million.
Fort Lauderdale's Mayor Dean Trantalis announced the plans on Friday which he hailed as 'the future of Fort Lauderdale' and 'the future of transportation.'
But the news received a more mixed response from locals who are concerned that the multimillion dollar project could be a flop after Musk's less than impressive tunnels in LA and Vegas.
In both cities, he promised a super speed, automated driving system which would avoid traffic and allow commuters to get to work in record time. Instead, both remain simple tunnels - albeit with flashing colored lights - which are traversed by regular cars at regular speeds.
On Tuesday, Fort Lauderdale voted to become the third city to join billionaire and SpaceX CEO Musk's vision for faster subterranean travel.
Elon Musk's Boring Company has won a $72million contract to build an underground tunnel through Fort Lauderdale. Musk is pictured at an unveiling for the first tunnel in Los Angeles, California, in December, 2018
Elon Musk's Boring Company gained approval to bring its flashy and colorful underground tunnels to Fort Lauderdale, announced Mayor Dean Trantalis in a tweet Tuesday
The tunnel, called the Las Ollas Loop, will allow commuters to avoid traffic by taking driverless vehicles, traveling up to 155mph. The exact route and distance has not been confirmed, but it will run underneath the city from downtown to State Road A1A
After the vote, Trantalis tweeted: 'Fort Lauderdale formally accepted tonight a proposal from @elonmusk's @boringcompany to build an underground transit system between downtown and the beach. Other firms have 45 days to submit competing proposals. This could be a truly innovative way to reduce traffic congestion.'
Trentalis also told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: 'It must be something the community feels it needs and we can afford. And it needs to help solve some of our acute traffic problems. We'll see where this goes.'
Charlie Ladd, a local developer and chair of the Downtown Development Authority, added he believed it t's a project worth exploring.
'Anything we can do to move people is big because we're not going to build any more roads,' he said.
Commissioner Robert McKinzie cast the only vote against the tunnels, but did not publicly explain why. He could not be reached for comment.
But Randy King, a longtime resident of Las Olas Isles, called the idea 'beyond stupid' in an email to city government obtained by the Sun-Sentinel.
'Hopefully we don't waste more money on "studying" something that doesn't work. In spite of the fact it doesn't really affect traffic, do we really want to open up caverns under the ground in light of what happened in Surfside? Do you want to lose power in that 3 mile tunnel? Please stop the insanity at the local government level.'
Trentalis, however, insists that the tunnels could withstand the hurricanes and floods that regularly afflict South Florida. 'We have two tunnels in South Florida. One is in Fort Lauderdale and one is in Miami,' he said.
The city voted Tuesday in favor of accepting a contract that would cost a total of $60 to $72Million. Pictured is Musk driving in a Tesla through the first Boring Company tunnel in Los Angeles in December 2018
Instead of the futuristic cars zipping people from place to place, it is regular Tesla vehicles, being driven by humans trundling through a tunnel at just 35mph - although the lighting is colorful and flashy. Pictured is Musk driving his Tesla through the Los Angeles tunnel in December 2018
Boring Company officials told the city that they projected it costing about $10 million to $12 million a mile or a total of $60 million to $72 million.
Initially, Trantalis and the city had reached out to the Boring Company in January about finding a better way to move train traffic north and south, reported Local10. Trantalis was seeking alternatives for another plans in the works to add a high-rise commuter rail bridge over the New River, from Miami to West Palm Beach, which could put 40 more trains on tracks every day.
'Imagine what that's going to do to vehicular traffic. People will be pulling their hair out of their head trying to get across town,' he said in the Local10 article.
When Boring Company executives visited Fort Lauderdale, they pitched the underground transit loop to 'provide quicker and more efficient access between downtown and the beach as well as alleviate street-level traffic,' reads a city news release.
'The folks at the Boring Company have traveled around our city, they've seen the opportunities we have, they've seen the pathways that we could create to try to make this city more efficient and more enjoyable,' Trantalis said.
More details about the Fort Lauderdale proposal are still unknown as the city can't release any further details until the 45-day competitive proposal process is complete.
In addition to Fort Lauderdale, the Boring Company has also proposed a $30 million loop system in Miami, reported The Verge. Previous projects, such as a proposed Chicago loop system and 35-mile Washington, DC-to-Baltimore tunnel appear to be canceled. The DC-to-Baltimore project has disappeared from the company's website altogether.
The tunnel would be called the 'Las Ollas Loop' and connect the city's downtown to State Road A1A, which runs along its coastline and is usually bustling with traffic
Musk began The Boring Company, with its tongue-in-cheek name completely intentional, after announcing on Twitter about four years ago that 'traffic is driving me nuts' and he was 'going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging.'
He unveiled the first tunnel in Los Angeles in December 2018. The so-called 'Test Tunnel' runs underneath the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
Musk originally wanted to use sleds in the design, but gave that idea up for retractable side wheels to help guide vehicles. In the end, he scrapped both and said, 'This is simple and just works.'
The purpose of the Hawthorne tunnel was 'for the research and development of The Boring Company's public transportation systems, Loop and Hyperloop,' according to the Boring Company's website.
At the test tunnel reveal, Musk explained his original conception for how the system, which he simply calls 'Loop,' could work on a larger scale beneath cities across the globe.
Autonomous, electric vehicles could be lowered into the system on wall-less elevators the size of two cars. Such elevators could be placed almost anywhere cars can go.
A number of autonomous cars would remain inside the system just for pedestrians and bicyclists. Once on the main arteries of the system, every car could run at top speed except when entering and exiting.
However, reality did not meet expectations and tunnels built in Los Angeles and Las Vegas were subject to mass criticism. Pictured is a Tesla parked in the Las Vegas tunnel in April
Many were disappointed by the Los Angeles test tunnel and the same went when one was debuted in Las Vegas in April, as pictured
But many were disappointed by the Los Angeles test tunnel and the same went when one was debuted in Las Vegas in April.
Instead of the futuristic cars zipping people from place to place, it is regular Tesla vehicles, being driven by humans trundling through a tunnel at just 35mph - although the lighting is colorful and flashy.
And it isn't clear if the system will ever develop into anything more like what was promised, as Musk's company didn't answer questions from the media.
Musk's underground transportation system located beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center campus was supposed to serve as a quick way to move convention attendees throughout the 200-acre campus, 40 feet beneath the ground in all-electric Tesla vehicles.
But media outlets dragged the tunnel shortly after its unveiling. 'Elon Musk's 'Public Transit' in Las Vegas Still Just Humans Driving Cars Slowly in a Tunnel,' wrote tech website Gizmodo.
'Elon Musk's Dumb Tesla Tunnel Now The Lamest Thing In Las Vegas!' added tech and motoring site Jalopnik,.
'It's about as exciting as a sheet of unpainted drywall discarded in a closed office park. It's just some Tesla Model 3s driving slowly in a tube,' wrote Jason Torchinsky. 'All this really is are some Teslas driving in tunnels lined with LED lights.
It is something that Musk appears to agree with: 'We simplified this a lot. It's basically just Teslas in tunnels at this point, which is way more profound than it sounds,' he wrote in a tweet last October.
CNET's Roadshow similarly declared the tunnel to be 'lame'.
'It seems like this project is quickly turning into Tesla cars driving people underground, rather than some sort of futuristic transport system. Unfortunately, for now, it looks sort of disappointing.' wrote Sean Szymkowski in his review of the system.
'The tunneling remains the most impressive thing about the project, with both tunnels completely excavated this past May. However, the rest of the process seems to boil down to a ride in a Model 3.'
Costing $52.5 million, the Boring Construction Company has built two one-way, 0.8-mile tunnels and three passenger stations which connects the existing convention center campus to the 1.4 million square foot West Hall expansion.
Ultimately, the system will allow for up to 4,400 convention attendees per hour to be whisked across the sprawling campus in just under two minutes. It's a journey which on foot would take approximately 25 minutes.
Early plans for the system depicted vehicles that could carry 16 people at once but for now, it is regular electric Model 3 and Model X Tesla cars providing the rides.
The vehicles only travel at 35-40 mph because of the short distance of the tunnels rather than the 150mph they might be capable.
Furthermore, the system will be staffed with drivers instead of them operating autonomously.
When fully up and running, the system is designed to transport up to 4,400 people per hour in more than 60 cars under the 200-acre campus, authority officials said.
Musk has also advocated for a futuristic underground tunnel system for trains, called the Hyperloop, which would allow passenger capsules on Tesla-built chassis to move through low-pressure tubes at high speeds.
He aspires eventually to build such a system linking Washington and New York along the busy US Northeast corridor; he has also proposed projects for Chicago and Los Angeles.
The billionaire hopes Boring's people-moving technology will help revolutionize urban transit in an ever more crowded world.
He says the idea came to him as he sat in growing frustration in his car, stuck in a traffic jam between his pricey villa in Bel Air, California and the SpaceX offices in Hawthorne, south of Los Angeles.
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