Elon Musk’s Boring Company To Build Baltimore-To-DC Tunnel In Two Years

Elon Musk’s Boring Company is set to bag two high-speed underground tunnel projects connecting Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

According to reports, Boring Company has promised to complete it in two years.

The project details of the 35-mile underground loop have been outlined in a draft environmental assessment report released by the U.S. Department of Transportation and Maryland Department of Transportation.

The underground route would be 30 to 44 feet below the surface and most parts of it will resemble the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

On completion, the two tunnels will allow autonomous Tesla vehicles to zip at super speeds of 150 miles per hour. The number of riders would be restricted to 1,000 riders per day in the initial phase and the numbers would increase after intermediate loop stations add up.

Project’s timelines

According to the report, the time table for two tunnels including excavation of 2,000,000 cubic yards of soil would be 20 months.

The construction work covering stations and two 70 ventilation shafts would take 23 months. The project is expected to kick off after environmental review and regulatory approvals which may come within this year.

Criticism of over-promising by Boring company

However, many analysts are skeptical about how Boring Company would deliver on the timelines. Musk’s company is known for offering awesome delivery dates and aggressive timelines. But the ground reality is quite different.

One example is the company’s deal with the city of Chicago to build a high-speed tunnel. The project of underground transportation loop was to connect downtown Chicago and O’Hare Airport for 18 miles.

Musk said in June 2018 that digging for the project would start in three months and the project would be complete in 18 to 24 months if regulatory approvals are in place.

Despite the promise, nothing has progressed. A year later the Chicago project is nowhere near approval.

“I would consider it dead,” commented Gilbert Villegas, alderman for 34th Ward.

Villegas said despite a team of smart, young engineers, digging tunnels in such tiny periods would be too ambitious.

Rebuffing criticism that the Baltimore tunnel plan is car-centric and is drifting away from the Hyperloop model, Musk’s infrastructure company backers point to the varied benefits.

They say the privately funded transportation system would create a significant public benefit in terms of decreased commute times, reduced urban congestion, decreased trip times, low fares, and decreased pollution.

A Teslarati blog also extrapolated the tunnel plan as a prelude to the loop system in the East Coast. It said, if approved, the Boring Company will be tasked with building a hyperloop system for the D.C.-Maryland route.

That loop will press into service autonomous electric vehicles that can transport passengers at speeds of 150 mph. It claimed that East Coast tunnels will be compatible with hyper-loop technology and may allow speeds of over 600 mph for passenger commuting.