Kyle, a growing suburb 22 miles south of Austin, was given the okay by the Kyle City Council to seek the approvals to begin engineering work for a potential railroad pedestrian tunnel that is part of the “Vybe Trail Network”.
The deal, approved on May 3rd, is 50k worth of contract services with the Boring Company.
The pedestrian tunnel, will run from south of the city Kyle Parkway by the Union Pacific Railroad tracks towards Market 1626.
Kyle Crossing is a growing 39-acre development. The pedestrian tunnel will connect Plum Creek subdivision in the development south of Austin.
City Manager of Kyle, Scott Sellers, states:
Founder of The Boring Company, Elon Musk, created the first Boring Company operational tunnel the LVCC (Las Vegas Convention Center) Loop, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Boring Company, is a company specializing in boring tunnels underground at a fraction of the cost of regular tunnels.
The Boring Company tunnels are technically called Loops, designed specifically for electric vehicles.
As quoted from The Boring Company website, “Loop is an all-electric, zero-emissions, underground public transportation system in which passengers are transported directly to their final destination with no stops along the way.”
Without the need to ventilate the tunnels from toxic CO2 the tunnels are significantly cost effective in comparison to similar tunnels designed with expensive air ventilation systems to keep clean air in the tunnels.
When asked “Why tunnels?” Elon Musk explained —
To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D, which means either flying cars or tunnels are needed. Unlike flying cars, tunnels are weatherproof, out of sight, and won't fall on your head.
Tunnels minimize usage of valuable surface land and do not conflict with existing transportation systems. A large network of tunnels can alleviate congestion in any city; no matter how large a city grows, more levels of tunnels can be added.
The Boring Company set out in 2016 to solve traffic congestion on surface streets. Since then many short tunnel projects within a few major cities have been busy projects currently for TBC.
Boring Tunnels, the ones being built right under Vegas, are traditionally built to fit a Tesla in the the Boring Company’s typical 12 foot diameter tunnel.
Two giant boring tunnel machines doing the majority of the tunneling are Godot-Plus and Prufrock, named after TS Eliot’s written work, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.
As per TBC website, “Prufrock is designed to tunnel at a speed of 1 mile per week, which is 6 times faster than The Boring Company’s previous generation TBM (Godot-Plus). This is still 4-5 times slower than a garden snail, but Prufrock is catching up!”
Within the Teslas and tunnels there will be no carbon monoxide from exhaust, long wait times, noisy engines, or inclement weather issues.
Most of the passenger vehicles for the tunnels are Tesla model Ys that can be hailed via a specific app for the Vegas tunnels. For those with specific needs such as a wheelchair, model Xs are available.
Boring Company drivers are currently being employed in the early stages of the tunnels’ opening launch.
The 60-80 vehicle Tesla fleet that will be used in the tunnels exclusively, noted as a Ride Hailing system, will significantly cut back transfer time between different locations in Vegas. What could have been a 45 minute surface street walk will Now be 2-5 minutes. There will be no need to bother walking far or waiting on a corner for transportation help.
The LVCC Loop, is a three-station transportation system consisting of 1.7 miles of tunnels, aimed to be built in approximately one year of beginning construction and tunneling in mid 2019 and ended mid 2020, but due to Covid restrictions and closures wasn’t open to the public until mid 2021. The LVCC Loop cost was $47 million which included two tunnels and three large stations, two surface and one subsurface.
The three stations in the LVCC Loop are The South Station, Central Station, and the West Station, that anyone can select from.
The LVCC Loop is part of connecting tunnels, as well as to multiple casinos in the near future when the full Vegas Loop is finished.
As for the Vegas Boring Tunnel Systems, transportation will be 4,400 people per hour for the LVCC Loop system and it’s 3 large stations while the Vegas Loop 57,000 passengers per hour with 51 medium stations.
The Vegas Loop a significantly larger project, is expanding to 29 miles and 51 stations total. Clark County team partnered with the County Commissioners for an unanimous approval of expansion, fall 2021.
Originally, the Vegas Loop project overall was to be approximately 10.5 miles long, of two parallel tunnels, a total of 24 miles of tunnels, on either side of Las Vegas Boulevard South. The Tunnels will still be 12 foot diameter, located approximately 40 feet below ground. Total, the Vegas Loop was to connect approximately 50 stations on the Loop but now it is 51.
This is in addition to the previous work already underway to connect multiple casinos and stations, 51 sites overall, in one big 29 mile underground loop transporting passengers at a rate of 57,000 people per hour in Teslas.
The tunnels are lit-up with RGB LED lights adding a fun sensory element to the service. The tunnels are outfitted with CCTV video systems, secure wireless communication, passenger cell phone service, blue light stations, fire safety system, ventilation systems, project engineering, codes and permits, environmental engineering, all part of the packaged TBC projects.
