This week we have one of the best guest posts yet from Oscar Slotboom on progress at Elon Musk's Boring Company and the implications for Houston.
TL;DR Executive Summary:
- Revolutionary Cost Reductions: The Boring Company is driving tunneling costs down from traditional transit's $900M+ per mile to roughly $10-20M per mile today, with a future target as low as $3-4M.
- Superior Service Model: The system offers nonstop, point-to-point travel with virtually zero wait times and high speeds, avoiding the "stop-and-go" inefficiency of traditional buses and trains.
- Scalable Infrastructure: Unlike subways, stations are inexpensive (often <$1M) and can be added continuously without slowing down the main line, supporting capacity up to 90k passengers/hour.
- Houston Potential: While full private funding might be difficult here compared to Vegas, the drastically reduced costs make a public-private partnership highly viable. A network connecting Downtown, the Galleria, and Hobby Airport could be built for a fraction of the cost of the now-suspended University BRT.
In the
post I did last week, I spotlighted the need for new technology to improve the cost-effectiveness and ridership of public transit, and I mentioned that The Boring Company projects in Las Vegas and Nashville offer the potential for vast improvements in public transit productivity.
Coincidentally and conveniently, a
podcast featuring the president of The Boring Company, Steve Davis was posted online a few days later. Sure, Davis is going to be a salesman for The Boring Company's service, but they are clearly making huge progress toward their goal of a revolutionary new type of public transit service.
For those not familiar, Bastrop-headquartered
The Boring Company builds tunnels for use by Tesla electric vehicles, providing private, nonstop point-to-point service between stations on the tunnel network. The first project in Las Vegas is operational with 10 miles of tunnels, providing service along the strip, with airport service slated to start in the first quarter of 2026. The system is authorized to be expanded to 68 miles. The second project about to begin construction is in Nashville, providing service from the state capitol going nine miles to the airport, with a route underneath Broadway Street, the city's main party zone, anticipated to be added.
All work is 100% privately funded with no taxpayer funds or incentives. The cost for tunneling is vastly lower than absurdly expensive traditional public transit tunneling. In fact, tunneling in the United States has become so ridiculously expensive, between $900 million and $5 billion per mile, that it is no longer an option in nearly all places, and even New York City struggles to arrange the exorbitant funding needed.
The
podcast is long, around 100 minutes, worth a listen for someone interested in the subject (except for the useless commentary from the Nashville representatives). I have excerpted the key points below. Timestamps for podcast reference points are provided in parentheses.
Cost
The cost reduction for tunneling that the Boring Company says they expect to achieve is mind boggling, reducing the cost from a minimum of $900 million per mile for traditional transit to around $10 million per mile right now (around $20 million fully loaded with stations and safety equipment), and possibly as low as $4 million per mile in the future.
(24:40) "Building infrastructure in America is unbelievably expensive," mainly due to perverse incentive structures. "To build a mile of subway tunnel will cost you between $900 million and $5 billion. ... Highest in the world, by the way. Europe is expensive but about half that, China is maybe a tenth of that."
"We're able to build Loop tunnels for order-of-magnitude $10 million a mile." (26:31) He says that stations, safety features and other expenses roughly double the cost to $20 million per mile. "I think when we're all said and done [with tunneling innovation], we're probably between two and five years away from hitting this number, I think we can get down to $3 to 4 million per mile, which is less than the cost to build a highway lane."
The graphic below is from a
post on X.
Tunneling Innovation
(26:21) "We've innovated for years on the tunnel boring technology in order to make it inexpensive to tunnel."
(49:00) Three technologies are critical to their cost reduction.
The first is porpoising, in which the tunnel boring machine (TBM) goes into the ground from the surface, typically directly off the transport truck, without needing a large hole to be excavated. After completing a section of tunnel, the TBM steers itself back to the surface, like a dolphin coming to the surface for air. This has been done many times in Las Vegas. (
Video)
The second technology is called "continuous mining". Traditional TBMs bore out a section, such as 5 feet, then stop to install tunnel lining. The Boring Company TBM is envisioned to operate continuously without stopping. They are still working to perfect this technology.
The third technology is called ZPIT, for zero people in tunnel. Traditional TBMs have many operators in the tunnel boring machine, up to 40, which necessitates complicated and expensive safety systems. Currently, Boring Company TBMs have 3 operators at the back end (opposite the boring face). A future machine, Prufrock 6, will potentially be able to achieve ZPIT.
"The day that Boring Company perfects a ZPIT, continuously mining, porpoising machine, the conversation starts to switch from 20 miles in Music City Loop to hundreds of miles connecting Nashville to Knoxville, Nashville to Chattanooga, Nashville to Memphis, because then we'll have the speeds to do that."
High Speed Service
(1:25:30) There are five components to the time required for a transit trip: time to get to the station/stop, time waiting for the transit vehicle to arrive, the number of stops on the trip, the speed between stations and the time from the terminus station to the destination.
(11:00) Boring's general policy is to have the station within 100 feet of the location being served.
There is virtually always a car waiting to provide service. The median wait time is 0 seconds (indicating at least 50% customers have zero wait time) and the average wait time is 20 seconds.
Service is always point-to-point, with no intermediate stops. This drastically improves the service speed compared to traditional transit. "This means you can add an unlimited number of stations along the way, and you're not affecting transit time." He mentions there are 50 stations on the Vegas Loop from the airport to north Vegas and the driving trip takes 6 minutes.
(1:24:00) Tunnel speed limits are based on conditions and will normally be between 40 and 60 mph.
With its features, the Loop can provide service which is much faster than traditional transit, and usually vastly faster.
No Limit for Stations
(29:30) On the subject of stations, Davis says the 9-mile initial Nashville route has 20 stations, but he expects many more to be added, as has been the case in Vegas. "When people start seeing how good it is, [stations] will keep getting added." "The great part of the architecture: if you add a station in the middle, you can do it while the system is operating, and it doesn't affect the transit time of the other stations."
(30:16) It is very inexpensive to add stations to the Loop. "A Loop station is a glorified parking lot. You just need a place for the car to go." In sharp contrast, a traditional subway station can cost from $250 million to $500 million due to very high construction complexity.
There are three types of stations: surface stations, stations integrated into underground garages of adjacent buildings and full underground stations.
"[For] a surface station ... you basically build a ramp up and a ramp down from your tunnel, and you could build them for under a million dollars, sometimes less than half a million. And what you get for that is point-to-point transportation between any other station in the entire system."
(31:20) "As long as you plan with the property owner in advance, you can actually tunnel within a foot or two of their subsurface garage, and then you actually poke a hole in the garage for the exit, and now your stations are literally the cost of cutting a hole."
(31:46) "And then the third type of station, which is the most expensive, is just a pure subsurface station", which is around $5 million for the most basic design and up to $15 million for more complicated stations. "I think most [stations] will be surface stations", which is the least expensive type.
Operating Hours and Capacity
(53:20) Operating hours will be based on demand, and the system can potentially run 24/7. Davis mentions that off-peak service will be just as good or even faster than peak service. "If you picture what happens in a bus system or a train system, ... when you're at an off-peak time in a bus or a train, what you typically do is you run less buses or trains. ... What this means if you happen to be at a bus station or a train station at this time, you'll just have a longer wait time. ... When we have an off-peak time in Loop, we'll run less cars, but the cars wait at the stations, so the median wait time during off-peak at Loop is zero. ... It actually is economical for us to generally open all the time, even if not a lot of people are riding."
For capacity, Davis cites numbers from the Vegas Loop. He says the initial section at the convention center could handle 4400 people per hour. After the recent expansion, the system can handle 6500 people per hour. After the airport connection opens in Q1 2026, they are expecting to be able to serve between 17,000 and 20,000 people per hour. The fully built-out Vegas Loop is expected to be able to handle 90,000 people per hour. The initial Nashville Loop is expected to be able to handle 20,000 people per hour.
(55:35) Davis says that the Loop system will have equal or better capacity than buses, and it is an "enormous" misconception that buses have more capacity. Davis says Loop is also more energy efficient than buses because Loop cars are lightweight compared to buses, Loop cars don't constantly start and stop, and Loop cars don't drive around mostly empty. "Loop with three people in a car is actually the lowest kilowatt-hour per passenger mile of any transportation system in the world."
Drivered vs. Driverless cars
(1:11:10) The Vegas system originally only used cars with drivers, but full driverless was recently introduced on a limited basis. Davis says Loop system self-drive is a much easier problem to solve than surface self driving on the street. For driver vs. driverless, Davis says, "What we've found is that people want both. There are some routes where full self-drive makes perfect sense, others where people like having drivers, especially for information [to] answer questions about the system." For Nashville, Davis says, "My prediction is ... that we'll start with a drivered system and then transition a certain percentage [to driverless], which may be high or low." He expects a "healthy mix" of drivered and driverless, and the business model of financial viability is not dependent on driverless cars.
(1:20:00) Vehicle drivers are Boring Company employees who receive extensive training, not contractors.
Attracting Customers
(18:30) The Vegas and Nashville Loops are 100% privately funded with no incentives or taxpayer dollars. (20:20) The Boring Company takes all the financial risk. "Our goal is to provide a public transportation system that is so good that people will want to ride it." They are actively seeking public input about station locations and other system features.
(26:00) "We have an architecture of a public transportation system that is wonderful, that people that ride it like it."
(1:33:40) Current fares charged on the Vegas Loop are around $4 for a single ride, $7 for a round trip and $12-13 for a day pass for unlimited travel. "The goal is to be extremely accessible and extremely affordable." For comparison, the
cost to Houston Metro for a single trip provided in 2024 was $13.03, the average fare collected was $0.66, and the taxpayer subsidy per trip was $12.37.
Safety, Flooding and Fires
(1:01:40) Davis says they've served 3.5 million customers in Vegas with no safety incidents, and only one vehicle which became stuck and was corrected in 170 seconds. If a vehicle becomes stuck or disabled, occupants can safely walk out the 100% lighted tunnel to the nearest station or emergency exit. Tunnels have "zero internal touch hazards", in contrast to train tunnels with electrified third rails. The 10-foot width of the tunnel provides ample space for evacuation in one direction and first responders going in the opposite direction. Davis says they have an extensive 5-layer plan to deal with water intrusion in the event of floods, and the Vegas tunnels continued to operate normally during recent floods in Las Vegas.
(1:07:00) For fires, there are extensive safety systems including a bidirectional redundant fire-rated ventilation system, a water supply outlet approximately every 100 feet, emergency responder radio and LTE cell phone functionality in tunnels, frequent first-responder training, and special emergency-responder vehicles. Davis says there have not been any fires in the Vegas system, but in anticipation of one occurring at some point, there are evacuation plans and the capability to blow the smoke in the safest direction.
(1:17:40) A huge number of permits are needed to allow a project to move forward. Inspection is extensive and continuous.
Tunneling in Soft, Wet ground
High water content and soft soils are surely the tunneling environment in Houston. (59:00) Perhaps surprisingly, this is also the environment in Las Vegas, which has a water table between 8 and 20 feet below the surface. "Our tunnels in Vegas are about 30 feet below the surface, which means 100% of the work we do in Las Vegas is underwater."
(1:15:53) One of the two biggest lessons learned in Vegas is "just how extreme subsurface water is. ... The amount of paranoia that our team has for handling water is very, very high."
With their experience in Las Vegas, Boring Company will be equipped to handle wet environments like Houston in the future.
Construction Disturbance
(42:00) The boring machine is usually between 20 and 90 feet underground. For tunneling, Davis says noise and vibration is undetectable for people at the surface or in nearby buildings.
Tunneling through soft ground (as is done in Las Vegas, and would also be true for Houston) requires more precautions to prevent surface disturbances. Tunneling through rock, as will be done in Nashville, presents virtually no risk of surface disturbance.
In Las Vegas, "We have settlement sensors on the road. So, on the actual surface, you have these little prisms every 50 to 100 feet, and 24/7 there's automatic monitoring of those sensors. And, you have thresholds [such as 1/10 inch]. In the history of our tunneling, we've never even crossed the first [1/10 inch] threshold." (47:48) "It is critical that this is safe and the general public sees that this is safe, and settlement monitoring is a large part of that." "We will never, for tunneling, shut down a lane of traffic on a road." The only closures would be brief periods during the night for core sample acquisition.
Not Discussed in the podcast
There was no discussion of the possibility of Tesla Robotaxi service using traditional street driving for part of the trip, then entering the tunnel for the rest of the trip. To me, this seems like it should be totally possible, and could further extend the feasibility of Robotaxi and Loop service.
Implications for Houston
Houston may not be as attractive as other cities for a 100% privately financed Loop system because we're not a tourist city and Bush airport is much farther from downtown than the Las Vegas and Nashville airports.
On the other hand, the lack of a legacy fixed-route transit system in most of the city (including everywhere west of Main Street) will make Houston a better candidate, since it is an untapped market with no political concerns about competition with legacy public transit.
If Boring delivers on their vision of low-cost, high-speed transportation with enthusiastic public acceptance, it will be revolutionary and transformative. Houston will surely want to get the benefits of this technology. It is easy to envision a system within the Loop 610 area and beyond, with tunnels serving destinations including downtown, the Washington Avenue corridor, Rice Military and Memorial Park, Post Oak and Uptown, the Galleria, Highland Village, Greenway Plaza, Upper Kirby, Rice Village, Montrose, destinations along Main Street, Hobby Airport and possibly high-density populations like Gulfton.
Realistically, I don't think we can expect future Loops in new cities to be 100% privately funded like the Las Vegas and Nashville systems. But with drastically reduced cost compared to traditional public transit, a public-private partnership should be very affordable. Public contribution could be direct contributions for tunnel construction, or as simple as authorizing a certain amount of Metro fare subsidies (which were $939 million in 2024) to apply to Boring system riders. For perspective, the suspended University BRT was estimated to cost $2.2 billion ($88 million per mile), with half or more of the cost being local money. Even at the current Boring Company cost of $20 million per mile, $1 billion could build 50 miles of tunnel (which would be 25 route miles due to twin tunnels.)
We can hope that Houston political leadership will closely monitor the progress of The Boring Company in Las Vegas and Nashville. If Boring delivers on their vision, local leadership should position Houston to be a contender for future Boring Company transit Loop systems.
