The next Boring Company tunnel location? Possibly Florida
Elon Musk's third company, after Tesla and SpaceX, bid to build a new transit tunnel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The Boring Company may soon take to Florida. According to Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean J. Trantalis, Elon Musk's tunneling company bid on a contract for a new transit system in the city. Trantalis confirmed the bid in a tweet and Reuters first reported the news Wednesday evening.
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. pic.twitter.com/R7Bh2NPVnl
— Mayor Dean J. Trantalis (@DeanTrantalis) July 7, 2021
The company didn't respond to Roadshow's request for comment, though the Boring Company's Twitter account did retweet the mayor's comments. Details of the bid aren't known yet, but the tweet says the potential tunnel would run between downtown and the city's beachfront area. As the mayor noted in his tweet, other companies have 45 days to submit bids on a new transit system.
Although Musk imagined the Boring Company to include high-speed sleds for vehicles to alleviate surface traffic, the idea has shifted drastically over the years. While the goal is have vehicles autonomously shuffle people onboard at high rates of speed underground, that's not the case at present. The company's first commercial tunnel in Las Vegas features a fleet of Tesla vehicles with human drivers. The drivers take passengers in the vehicle at speeds around 35 mph, which is a far cry from proposed Boring Company speeds. That's not to say it won't happen, but the idea certainly isn't fully realized yet.
The Boring Company was also meant to build a tunnel in Chicago to transport individuals between the Loop and O'Hare International Airport, though plans fizzled out after initial proposals and excitement, the Chicago Tribune reported last year.
