What Happened
The Guardian took a ride through Elon Musk’s Vegas Loop, the Boring Company tunnel system pitched years ago as a futuristic answer to traffic. The reality described in the piece is less “jet-age subway” and more “taxi line, but under a convention center.”
The ride used standard Teslas, not self-driving vehicles or cars on electric skates. The driver said the tunnel speed limit was 30 mph. The trip was short. Some tunnels are two-way, meaning one car may have to wait for another to exit before entering.
The Guardian reported that the system began in 2021 with three stations at the Las Vegas Convention Center and later expanded to nearby casino resorts. On the reporter’s visit, the system was so quiet that there were four Teslas in circulation — reportedly three more than needed.
The Boring Company has claimed the system could one day serve 90,000 passengers per hour. But The Guardian’s math says the current maximum of six cars a minute, with four passengers each, works out to about 2,400 passengers an hour. That is not a subway. That is a valet stand with concrete walls.
Why This Matters
Las Vegas has approved a planned expansion to 68 miles of tunnel and 104 stations, connecting the Strip, downtown, the airport and Allegiant Stadium. Nashville has also committed to a Boring Company project, the Music City Loop.
Critics quoted by The Guardian said the model can dodge the normal public-transit questions because it is privately funded and developer-driven. One University of Nevada, Las Vegas public policy professor called the Loop “the biggest, most absurd transit scam” he had heard of and said the claim that Teslas in tunnels can move people faster than rail is physically impossible.
The Dumb Part With The Future Taxi
The dumb part is not tunneling. Tunnels are useful. Trains in tunnels have been useful for more than a century. The dumb part is digging expensive tunnels and then filling them with the exact thing cities are trying to use less of: individual cars.
It is public transit cosplay with leather seats. You get the claustrophobia of a subway, the capacity of a parking garage shuttle, and the civic thrill of pretending a Tesla with a driver is infrastructure innovation.
The Bottom Line
Musk promised congestion relief. Vegas got Teslas in tubes. If this is the future of urban transportation, the future apparently forgot to carpool.