Elon Musk’s underground transit system in Las Vegas is falling far short of his lofty promises, plagued by construction delays and concerning safety violations. Workers have reported unsafe conditions including tunnels filled with two feet of toxic chemical wastewater.
Bloomberg reports that The Boring Company’s Vegas Loop was meant to showcase Elon Musk’s vision for high-speed “hyperloop” transit, whisking people between hotels and casinos at lightning speeds. But years into construction, the system consists only of two short tunnels linking the Las Vegas Convention Center to nearby hotels. Expansion plans to other major destinations on the Strip have stalled and even the existing limited system faces major problems.
Elon Musk strikes a pose (Hannibal Hanschke-Pool/Getty Images)
Las Vegas casino (stokpic/Pixabay)
In 2022 Breitbart News reported that shortly after the company unveiled its Las Vegas Convention Center Loop tunnel, it was quickly labeled a “death trap” after footage from inside the tunnel showed a traffic jam in an enclosed space with no emergency exits visible — although the Boring Company claims the tunnel has multiple exits.
Footage showed a passenger in the back seat of a Tesla driving through the white tunnel before coming to a standstill behind other vehicles. Many users online quickly noted that the situation seemed unsafe, with one saying, “if a car catches fire, people will die.” Another Reddit user commented: “Ok eh…. what happens if there’s a crash and a fire? How will people get out? This is a death trap and a disaster waiting to happen. Especially with Tesla battery fires…”
According to an investigation by Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), employees have reported unsafe working conditions and alarming construction incidents. Workers described spending entire 12-hour shifts inside the muggy tunnels, forbidden even to take lunch breaks outside, and were forced to wade through chemical-laden wastewater that pooled up to two feet deep inside, resulting in painful burns. The accelerant chemicals splashed on workers’ arms, legs and faces as they maneuvered hoses, scarring some permanently. One employee narrowly avoided being crushed when a two-ton concrete bin collapsed from being overloaded with tunnel muck.
OSHA cited Musk’s Boring Company with eight “serious” violations and fined the company over $112,000 last fall. But the company contests the findings, claiming the agency “failed to establish that the alleged violations occurred.”
The tunnels were dug hastily, with crews working grueling shifts up to seven days a week, but Boring’s promises of breakthrough tunneling speeds never materialized. The company’s special boring machine reportedly took three times longer than expected to dig just 0.4 miles of tunnel near the Encore casino.
Boring claimed its upgraded “Prufrock 2” machine could bore a full mile per week. But multiple employees say that is untrue — with the prep work required, it took a full year to dig just 1.7 miles of tunnel. Even after finishing the Encore spur, the station still isn’t complete 7 months later.
Mayor Carolyn Goodman opposed Boring’s “unrealistic” plans from the start. She warned they lacked experience, having never built an operational transit system before. Even completed, the limited system moves Tesla sedans at just 40mph — a far cry from the ultrafast hyperloop Musk promised. At peak capacity, it can handle just 4,500 people per hour, a drop in the bucket for tourist-heavy Las Vegas.
The unfinished Westgate tunnel is set to open soon, but connections to other major hotels and destinations remain conceptual. Goodman doubts the project will ever be expanded citywide as originally pitched.
For now, the Link serves a small convention center audience. On one February day, most cars sat idle while a few passengers trickled through. Musk’s revolutionary transit solution has turned out a modest, unremarkable reality.
Read more at Bloomberg here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
