Dive Short:
- Town officials in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are considering a proposal from The Tedious Business for an underground transportation loop developed to relieve street targeted traffic.
- The metropolis commission voted to assessment the Elon Musk-owned company’s proposal for a transit procedure built to connect downtown Fort Lauderdale to the seaside, Mayor Dean Trantalis announced by way of Twitter July 6.
- Other companies have 45 days to submit proposals to compete with TBC on the undertaking, dubbed “The Las Olas Loop.”
Dive Insight:
Critics of TBC have pointed to the firm’s very first project — the 1-mile-extended transit loop at the Las Vegas Convention Middle — saying it includes essential failures other transit devices previously resolve. The product works by using autonomous Tesla cars to ferry passengers along the tunnels, at speeds slower than TBC had to start with indicated. These inefficiencies have drawn criticism from transit experts, though that has not slowed TBC’s efforts to find and commence new initiatives.
Since finishing the conference center task previously this year, TBC has a number of projects beneath thought, while none have entirely appear to fruition however.
In December 2020, the Las Vegas City Council voted to progress options to prolong the convention centre loop underneath the Strip, connecting it to significant casinos and the airport.
In February, TBC started negotiations with the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority to make a 4-mile-extended transit loop from a Metrolink educate station in Rancho Cucamonga, California, to Ontario International Airport.
And in March, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez stated that he required to use federal dollars to construct a TBC tunnel below the city. Nevertheless, the fate of this job is unsure as it would not slide below Suarez’s purview for the reason that in Miami-Dade County, the county controls the roadways. Also, South Florida has a significant h2o desk, indicating basements, tunnels and other underground operate are unusual.
The condition has only two tunneling assignments, and its limestone makes it tough to improve tunneling, according to CNN Enterprise. On top of that, Florida has guarded underground aquifers that can make tunneling price prohibitive.
Nonetheless, other probable jobs could be popping up quickly. In May perhaps, Gapped Bass LLC — an entity tied to TBC — purchased 73 acres in Bastrop County, Texas, outdoors of Austin, NBC affiliate KXAN noted. The buy hints at some type of task there, be it tunneling or usually.