Summary

Elon Musk’s Boring Company is rapidly expanding the “Vegas Loop,” a 68-mile underground Tesla-based transit system approved with minimal public input and regulatory oversight.

Backed by the Las Vegas tourism authority, the project bypasses federal environmental reviews and standard public transit scrutiny.

Despite safety, labor, and environmental violations, Boring faces modest fines and continues construction.

Critics, including former Mayor Carolyn Goodman, highlight concerns over safety, accessibility, and untested technology, but local officials and businesses support the project, viewing it as a vital traffic solution.

The Loop may set a precedent for deregulated infrastructure projects.

  • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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    18 hours ago

    Despite safety, labor, and environmental violations, Boring faces modest fines and continues construction.

    Ah, the cost of doing business.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Shit like this is a potential problem where the tunnel gets transferred to a shell company, the tunnel doesn’t make money or beings to fail, the shell declares bankruptcy and the tunnel and all of its problems get handed off to the taxpayer.

  • archonet@lemy.lol
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    1 day ago

    ah, yes, dipshit manchild reinventing the subway. I’d almost forgotten about that.

    Someone really needs to show him public transit sometime. Then again, if it keeps him busy, perhaps we should just let him. I would rather his attention be focused on making a shittier version of a subway than on trying to fuck up Europe too.

    • d00phy@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I have news for you: he not “busy” with anything past the idea phase. How can you tell? You don’t see news pieces about Boring Company workers being effectively forced into slave labor a la Twitter post-takeover and Tesla during the Model 3 roll-out. He expects everything to run like a startup because it’s the only thing he’s ever remotely “managed” in his life.

    • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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      1 day ago

      yeah but… he’s not doing shit. he uses his only power, money, to delegate. the trouble is that as the world’s richest dickhead, he has a lot of power to delegate

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I’m not sure he’ll even be able to see the public transit from the private jet he flies in all the time.

  • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Eventually one of his cars is going to blow up in the tunnel and they won’t be able to get fire and rescue personnel to it.

    • pdxfed@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      “some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.” - Lord Farquaad

    • chingadera@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Not only that, but this just sounds like a fuck load of lithium bombs waiting for a fuse. That fuse would be water buildup in the tunnels. You couldn’t pay me to be in a Tesla underground with that same companies workmanship.

  • Dogiedog64@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Bro, Las Vegas is gonna collapse for this shit. “Let’s just drill a bunch of random tunnels beneath our DESERT CITY with no oversight or plan, THAT’LL GO WELL!!!” - a moron. When the ground gives out and half the strip collapses into it, I doubt Musk will pay the fees for it.

    • nickiwest@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      If the tunnel has decent structural integrity, Musk will be long dead before he would need to pay the piper on this one.

      50 years from now, teenagers in Las Vegas will tell stories about the “secret tunnels under the city.” And at some point a very expensive building is going to collapse into a tunnel and the kids will be shocked that the urban legend was real.

      And everyone will have basically forgotten that Elon Musk was responsible for, and later abandoned, this ill-conceived vanity project.

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Creating a strong tunnel is the easy part though. The hardest part is the boring itself and safety for people in the tunnel. Tunnel fires are far more common than a collapsing tunnel. So I’d be more scared of the extremely dangerous firehazard you’ll be cruising in at high speeds than the tunnel itself.

      • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 day ago

        There is no high speed, it’s not a hyperloop, it’s just some Teslas bumbling through tunnels, sometimes successfully.

        • kungen@feddit.nu
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          21 hours ago

          Teslas tend to get very toasty when crashing? I’m not sure I’d want to be in a tunnel with a lot of them. Imagine if it’ll become like the Salang Tunnel after a while?

  • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    I hope it ruins the foundation of one of the bigger casinos, the fight would be amazing.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I’m hoping it makes the site of the new stadium they are building for the A’s cave in, they did Oakland dirty and deserve whatever bad karma they get.

    • pdxfed@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Lol, MGM owns most of the strip and it’s entire enterprise value is ~$40B. Not market cap, that’s only $9B. In the year of our Lord 2025, I’m not sure I see courts making for a fair fight when you throw in politically targeted retribution that would come.

      • GreyBeard@lemmy.one
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        1 day ago

        Historically, casinos didn’t engage in legal fights. They had the mob to do that work for them.

        • pdxfed@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          Absent a functioning, fair political and judicial system, all sorts of things are going to start reappearing on the US landscape that have been dormant for generations. Very doubtful in the current environment, but when transparent political retribution is transpiring and powerful, rich folks are on the receiving end, there will come a point where drastic measures will become among the most reasonable options they have.

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    Elon Musk’s Boring Company spent years pitching cities on a novel solution to traffic, an underground transportation system to whisk passengers through tunnels in electric vehicles.

    Author has never seen a subway… Or doesn’t know what “novel” means.

    • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Comparing it to a subway is totally unmerited. This system is all the bad parts of a subway combined with all the bad parts of roads, with not an ounce of the benefits. It’s truly a stupid thing.

      • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        I wasn’t comparing musk’s solution to a subway. I was comparing the author’s description of “an underground transportation system to whisk passengers through tunnels in electric vehicles” to a subway system.

  • bblkargonaut@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Vegas floods almost every time it rains. Sometimes it floods when it rains nearby like on Mt Charleston. I’ve nearly avoided flash floods hiking in red rock canyon, and seen people on the news get killed in washes on a regular basis. I trust the casinos to care more about their victims than president Elon.

    • mx_smith@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I was looking for this response, as I thought the same, those tunnels are gonna flood so easily.

  • Blackout@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    It’s just going to be a private highway for Tesla’s to drive in lol. Sooooo dumb.

  • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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    16 hours ago

    All I see is free housing and the possibly for casinos to collapse. Also cars being forced underground if it somehow doesn’t fail.

    I support all of these things.