Elon Musk's Boring Company is setting its sights on Nashville for its next tunnel project, aiming to link the city's downtown to the Nashville International Airport. The company says construction will begin as soon as it gets the green light, with the first 10-mile segment potentially opening as early as next year, the Verge reports. In a news release, Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee emphasized that the "Music City Loop" project would require no taxpayer funding, describing the project as "entirely privately funded" by the Boring Company and its partners. He said the tunnels would be built under state-owned roadways.
If realized, the system would shuttle passengers between key points in about eight minutes using Tesla vehicles in underground tunnels—a model the company has been operating in Las Vegas since 2021. There, a loop beneath the convention center has already expanded to serve several resorts, but the service currently relies on human drivers in Teslas rather than autonomous vehicles.
The company's plans in other cities, however, tend to fizzle out. Proposed projects in Chicago and Los Angeles have been abandoned, along with Musk's plan for a hyperloop between Washington, DC, and New York City, TechCrunch reports.
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Democratic State Rep. Justin Jones said he was barred from the project's announcement event and criticized the initiative as a ploy by the governor and corporate interests to profit at the expense of public infrastructure. The project is expected to take over a plot of public land in downtown Nashville around the size of a football field, CNBC reports. "We're not even being informed where or what exactly these tunnels are going to run through," Jones said Wednesday. "Tomorrow they're voting to give away state land for no cost. But giving away land obviously has a cost."
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