Nashville Mayor On Elon Musk's Tunnel: 'Ideal Scenario...No One Dies'

Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell didn't pull any punches when asked about Elon Musk's plan to build a pair of tunnels beneath the city: "If it happens," O'Connell said (via Bloomberg), "the ideal scenario would be: mostly harmless, no one dies." He's half-joking, but he has reason to make light of the Boring Co.'s proposal. After nearly ten years of talking about similar hyperloops in other major cities across the U.S. (and very little to show for it outside of the Vegas Loop in Las Vegas), Musk doesn't seem to have O'Connell convinced this thing will ever legitimately materialize.

The project, dubbed the Music City Loop, would require blasting through limestone bedrock beneath state roadways to build a pair of 10-mile-long tunnels from the airport to the state capitol in downtown Nashville. The Boring Co.'s projections say thousands of passengers could pass through the tunnels an hour, all being chauffeured in Teslas. Despite the mayor's insinuation, company executives insist the tunnels will be totally safe and privately funded. In other words, at no cost to Tennessee taxpayers.

The mayor's joke aside, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee is all in on Musk's plan — especially if it can help lighten up some of that infamous Nashville traffic heading in or out of the city. The state's even gone as far as to give the Boring Co. access to a publicly owned parking lot for its tunneling operations. They've also gotten permission from the federal government to lease out the underground rights-of-way at no cost.

Still, not everyone's thrilled by the idea. City leaders and industry veterans have both made it clear that optimism and reality are two very different things... and being excited about the idea of a project doesn't directly translate to progress being made on it. Beyond that, they say the company has also struggled to answer even the most basic questions about emergency responses, fires, flooding, sinkholes, and other common hazards in the area.

Veterans of the tunneling industry have been particularly vocal, arguing that the technical challenges alone should be enough to hold off on going full steam ahead with this. Engineers say large-scale tunneling into limestone requires extensive testing and meticulous planning, both of which they say remain unclear in the Boring Co.'s current public materials.

Doing the math also raises some questions. For instance: To meet even the company's lower estimates of passenger capacity, vehicles would need to be departing every few seconds. That's pretty implausible, according to experts. Not to mention, even at that unlikely speed, a car-based tunnel simply can't match the throughput of a traditional mass transit system (like China's Fuxing Hao trains, for example).

Before the project can begin, city officials need more detailed plans and written guarantees from the Boring Co. that nearby property owners won't be damaged by the tunneling. City leadership is also wary of Musk's track record, which is riddled with tech failures and past projects that were announced but never actually happened. Maybe that's exactly what the mayor's hoping for, though: After all, if the project never happens, no harm or loss of life can come of it.