Elon Musk’s the Boring Company Tuesday revealed the proposed route for an underground people mover that would go through Downtown Las Vegas.
The proposed map shows the transit following Las Vegas Boulevard north to Ogden Avenue and west from Ogden to Main Street and south on Main Street to Los Vegas Boulevard.
The map was unveiled as part of an application to the Planning Commission, which approved it before sending it to the City Council.
Several road projects are currently underway on a large part of this route, so the city already has information that could help the project.
Las Vegas’ Director of Public Works Michael Janssen commented, “We have that entire route either under construction today at the surface level, where we’re putting in new utilities, or we’ve recently completed it.” He added, “What’s unique about that is that we have a wealth of information that we’ve been able to share with the applicant, where if not for that they would be starting from scratch.”
Boring President Steve Davis said such information on utilities could save three month of work.
Boring is currently completing its Convention Center Loop at the convention center which is planned to begin operating early next year.
Davis told the Planning Commission how the people mover will save time. “I drove here from the Convention Center, where we’ve already built two tunnels … and it took me about 14 minutes,” he said. “Our loop system, which is what we’re proposing here, would be a 3-minute ride. The point of the tunnels are to be affordable, safe public transportation and, really, to solve the traffic problem.”
The system, using Tesla model vehicles, would run point to point without having to stop at each station along the route. “If you built a subway from Fremont Street to the airport and you have 30 stops all along the way, that’s a very long ride,” Davis said. “If you have an express system, where you go from one place to another, that is a very short ride.”
