MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Elon Musk’s Boring Company started work on an underground tunnel in Nashville without approval from Nashville officials. State Republicans in Tennessee found a way to sidestep the Democratic-leaning city where people are concerned about the impact to the environment and the lack of transparency. Marianna Bacallao from member station WPLN has this report.
MARIANNA BACALLAO, BYLINE: The Boring Company’s Nashville tunnel would connect the city’s airport to its downtown. Think a ride-share but with a private underground lane and a fleet of Teslas. Boring currently has one such tunnel in operation in Las Vegas, a nearly 2-mile loop that circles the convention center. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee says he’s excited to bring the new loop to Nashville.
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BILL LEE: The Boring Company is developing the most cutting-edge transit systems in the world. And they could’ve taken their next underground loop anywhere, but they saw something unique about Tennessee, and we are really grateful that they did.
BACALLAO: What’s unique about Tennessee, what sets it apart from other places The Boring Company has pitched to, is that it said yes. Cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., never moved forward on proposed tunnels, mostly because those cities pushed for environmental reviews. Tennessee’s governor says the tunnel is a free solution to the city’s traffic woes.
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LEE: That means that there’ll be less congestion on our roads. There will be less wear and tear on our highways. And the best part of it all, it’s 100% privately funded. There will be no cost to Tennessee taxpayers.
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BACALLAO: But state lawmakers from Nashville say there will be a cost. The city’s Statehouse delegation has argued that the development will only serve tourists, and locals stand to lose if the project fails but won’t see any of the benefits if it succeeds. City officials have had little input on the plan – by design, according to internal memos. The tunnel traces a careful arc of state roads, allowing The Boring Company to circumvent local approval altogether. Lawmakers on the State Building Commission, none of whom represent Nashville, voted unanimously to give Musk’s company access to state-owned land at no cost.
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JUSTIN JONES: What you’re doing today is an insult to the people of our community.
BACALLAO: That’s Democratic representative Justin Jones. He and other Nashville lawmakers voiced their opposition during the meeting’s public comment period.
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JONES: You’re treating us like we’re a colony where you get to dictate to our constituents what is in their best interest. You keep their representation out of meetings. You don’t even consider the impact to the health and the safety of our community.
BACALLAO: The company has yet to file all of the permits it needs to complete the project. OSHA fined the Las Vegas tunnel more than $100,000 over flooding in the tunnel. Boring has contested the violations. Environmental advocates worry that flooding in Nashville could be worse. The city gets 10 times the amount of rainfall as Vegas.
The Boring Company uses a portable drill. It touts a speed of 1 mile per week, but an internal memo from the governor’s office obtained by NPR puts the estimate for this tunnel at 1 mile per month. Boring Company CEO Steve Davis expressed concerns about potential obstacles at the project’s unveiling.
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STEVE DAVIS: Tough place to tunnel in Nashville. It’s not like – if we were optimizing for easiest places to tunnel, it would not be here.
BACALLAO: That challenge is karst, a type of limestone found in Nashville. Sinkholes could form during tunneling, says Jason Polk, a geologist at Western Kentucky University.
JASON POLK: So really any place that you are in that is karst in this part of the world – you know, Kentucky, Tennessee – any kind of karst area has a potential for sinkhole development.
BACALLAO: The Boring Company says that it will do an environmental impact study but didn’t complete it before starting the project. Excavation is already underway downtown. Boring plans to put its drill to work by the end of the year.
For NPR News, I’m Marianna Bacallao in Nashville.
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D-TENT BOYS: (Singing) Dig it, oh, oh, oh. Dig it. Dig it, oh, oh, oh. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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