The city of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has reached an agreement with Elon Musk’s Boring Company to build an underground transit system offering rides in Teslas between downtown and the beach, CNN Business reports.
"Fort Lauderdale formally accepted tonight a proposal from [Elon Musks’ Boring Company] to build an underground transit system between downtown and the beach. Other firms have 45 days to submit competing proposals," Mayor Dean Trantalis said in a tweet on Tuesday. "This could be a truly innovative way to reduce traffic congestion."
"The Las Olas Loop," will likely resemble the Loop that the company built and recently opened at the Las Vegas Convention Center, a project that has come under fire as inefficient since the project uses cars for public transportation instead of a larger vehicle like a bus or train that could carry more passengers in a single trip.
CNN Business notes that even if the tunnel were to carry hundreds of passengers every day, it would still fall short of the thousands that ride the Broward County Transit department’s bus lines. Local officials hope that the tunnel will reduce congestion at the beach’s parking lots since it will allow people to park their cars downtown and take the loop the rest of the way.
"This is the type of big, bold idea that we should be exploring," Ben Porritt, a Brightline spokesperson, told CNN Business. "Good transportation is ultimately about the functionality of a city."
The Boring Company is also in talks with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who earlier this year toured the Las Vegas loop.
This system “will revolutionize the modern-day, transit-oriented lifestyle of our City,” he said in a tweet last March.
“I can’t wait to see what we can do for Miami. We want to connect all of downtown Miami to make it a cohesive, walkable drivable area,” Miami World Center lead developer Daniel Kodsi told Fox Business after the mayor’s trip.
Suarez told Fox Business that his "goal is to do a procurement that's similar to what happened in Las Vegas, maybe even piggyback off Las Vegas. And in Las Vegas, [the Boring Company] financed it and had a guaranteed maximum price. So the idea would be potentially for them to finance it as well."
He also said that people who have doubts about the proposal should go to Las Vegas to see the loop for themselves.
“Get on a plane and go to Las Vegas and check it out for yourself,” he said. “It’s there. It’s real.”
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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