The Boring Company hosted a virtual town hall on Monday regarding the Elon Musk-owned venture's Music City Loop airport-to-downtown tunnel project.
The hour-and-a-half meeting took place via a livestream on social media platform X, also owned by Musk. The Boring Company president Steve Davis answered questions along with Charles Robert Bone, managing director of real estate investment at Southwest Value Partners, who worked on the Nashville Yards development. The conversation also included comments from Dee Patel, The Hermitage Hotel’s managing director.
Davis said the company is currently committed to building the proposed 9.5 miles of tunnels stretching from the airport to downtown, but officials are also extremely interested in creating additional tunnels that would stretch the system across Nashville.
“This would start as far west as the 440 and then head east on West End Avenue, go past Centennial Park, go past Vanderbilt Midtown, and then merge into Broadway, and then go down to Riverfront Park,” Davis said. “And if the stars align, we can go onto the river and go to Nissan Stadium.”
He said right now there will be an estimated 20 stations throughout the city, but there’s a good chance that number will be higher. Davis said many of these structures will be surface stations and inexpensive to build, what he called a “glorified parking lot.”
The Boring Company unveils potential route for pair of parallel 9.5-mile tunnels
Davis mentioned other details about the project, including wait times and fares, which he said he expects to be similar to those of the Las Vegas Loop, a similar project by the company. He said that in Las Vegas the median wait time is zero seconds, while the mean wait time is 20 seconds. A single ride is approximately $4, and a round-trip ticket is about $7. A day pass that includes unlimited travel is roughly $12, Davis said. He said the average speed of cars driving within the tunnel will likely be just above 60 miles per hour.
Metro Councilmember Russ Bradford asked questions about driver pay and whether they are allowed to form unions. Davis said drivers will all be employed by The Boring Company, make above the market rate and be incentivized for safe driving. He did not address Bradford’s questions about unions. Davis also said drivers are required to have weeks or months of training.
He said he expects the loop to be able to transport between 20,000 and 30,000 people per hour between both the airport and Broadway tunnels if both are opened.
Safety concerns have been among Nashvillians' top questions when it comes to the Music City Loop — Davis described the tunnels as “amazingly safe.”
“It is by far the safest public transport system out there,” he said, noting that the tunnel will be fully illuminated, have cameras recording the entire system, emergency exits, fire detection systems, fire suppression systems and a team that monitors and seals potential water leaks.
Davis also said it’s “highly improbable” that the tunnels would collapse underneath traffic. He said the underground limestone helps protect the tunnel, though some question limestone’s susceptibility to sinkholes.
However, according to reporting by the Nashville Banner, not long after the town hall, construction crews walked off the tunnel site due to safety and pay concerns.
"[Contractor Willie] Shane also says he and other vendors have filed multiple OSHA safety complaints since working on the site but have gotten no response," writes the Banner's Sarah Grace Taylor. "His biggest concerns have been Boring employees on the job site not wearing proper personal protective equipment, such as hard hats, and unsafe shoring, which he says he’s repeatedly complained about to the Boring Company."
The report also notes inconsistent pay schedules and allegations that a Boring Company representative was attempting to poach Shane's employees. Boring Company VP David Buss tells the Banner that his company intends to correct any outstanding invoicing errors, also saying, "Safety is existential to our company."
Worries that the tunnel system will have a negative impact on Nashville’s environment have also been top-of-mind for those opposing the project. Davis said during Monday's town hall that the company will release an environmental impact study, conducted by an independent third party, in the first week of December, as well as an analysis of that study by an additional third party. The Boring Company has not responded to Scene sister publication the Nashville Post’s Oct. 3 inquiry about which firm is conducting the assessment.
Davis said the study is looking into the project’s impact on the area’s geology, endangered species, aquatic resources, the visual impact and other aspects. Despite protests and online opposition of the project, Davis said he believes most people are viewing the loop positively.
“In my personal experience and the personal experience of our stakeholder engagement team, it has been universally positive,” he said. “We wouldn't go into a city and fight to build something that's so expensive and labor-intensive, and it's just an incredibly difficult project. We're still going because everyone has been unbelievably positive.”
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Bone and Patel both expressed their support for the project, saying they believe it can position Nashville as a competitive, technology-forward city.
“I think it's incredibly exciting — I mean, the more we learn, I think the more impressed we are by just the technology and the innovation,” Bone said, adding that it could be beneficial to not only the thousands of guests who stay at Nashville Yards-area hotels, but also the accompanying workforce that makes up the campus.
Patel, who also chairs the Greater Nashville Hospitality Association, said she sees the tunnel as a compelling proposition for the area and the larger tourism industry.
“I think the first impression when guests are visiting the city is everything,” Patel said.
A previous version of this article was published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
