Not unaccustomed to naysayers, Elon Musk’s latest plan, to create a system of tunnels beneath LA for the transportation of people and cars by electric powered sleds, just another so-called impossible dream from the tech giant, or so say detractors. This time the challenge isn’t so much the technology or science itself as it the bureaucratic process of permits.
Even Musk admits this obstacle saying the obtaining “the permits is harder than the technology.” Still, he remains optimistic in his aim after meeting with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who may be a new partner in the project. After reports from city managers came out last month, the bureaucratic red tape standing the way of Elon Musk’s plan for The Boring Company became known.
Rick Cole, the city manager for Santa Monica, told the LA Business Journal that “We would laugh them out of our office. It’s a completely absurd pipe dream.” Again, Musk has faced this kind of response, previously, in regards to his previous projects at his company Space X, like purposely landing a rocket booster, or with his company Tesla and building an affordable electric car. The laughter of disbelief is not an obstacle for Elon Musk.
More receptive than Santa Monica city managers, John Nachbar, the city manager of Culver City, another neighborhood where Musk would need to dig to complete his tunnels, still has doubts. However, there is the reason for optimism. In a tweet, Musk revealed that permits were already approved in Hawthorne, south of downtown LA, where The Boring Company is located. Musk and his companies have a lot of pull in the town as job creators through his many various companies.
The Boring Company is in Hawthorne and has already approved the permit
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 7, 2017
And in April, after taking delivery of their initial boring machine, digging began in Space X’s parking lot. But the tunnel plans expand across a number of cities in LA County.
“Full length of the first tunnel will run from LAX to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood and Sherman Oaks. Future tunnels will cover all of Greater LA,” said Musk.
But Hawthorne officials aren’t the only in the government working with Musk rather than against him. Los Angeles Mayor, Eric Garcetti has come out in support of the project, as mentioned in a recent television interview. Musk confirmed that they’d been in talks in another tweet: “Promising conversations with @MayorOfLA regarding tunnel network that would carry cars, bikes & pedestrians. Permits harder than technology.
There could be an #express train @unionstationla to @flyLAXairport–Here’s @MayorOfLA @ericgarcetti on #Newsmakers. #WATCH 11AM Sun @ABC7 pic.twitter.com/zJAFTge2VO
— Adrienne Alpert (@abc7adrienne) June 17, 2017
So, it appears that Musk has the permit issue, or at least the beginning of the process, under control, even though there is a fair amount of work still left to do. In the meantime, we haven’t heard much about the tech side.
The Boring Company aims to improve the current state of tunnel boring tools in an effort to reduce costs and accelerate the time it takes to dig a tunnel. They are also working on the electric rails, cars, and sleds that would travel through these tunnels. Such advances would make creating wide networks of tunnels under major metropolises, in order to reduce traffic, cost-effective and less time to consume, compared to conventionally built lanes, for any city.
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