Folks, I hate to inflict math upon you, but I was reading the multiple news stories (the Scene, the Banner and WPLN for starters) about The Boring Company having a “public” meeting about the airport tunnel on X/Twitter — the same day one of their contractors reportedly walked off the job due to not getting paid for digging a hole, the sides of which are allegedly secured with 2-by-12s. Yes, wooden planks.
Steve Davis offers Music City Loop details during virtual town hall meeting; the same day, construction crews leave site due to safety, pay concerns
My God, could you imagine trying to explain this debacle to any coal miner from 100 years ago? How we have all the safety technology a century can bring, but we’re still shoring up holes with timber? And worse! When they would have been using 12-by-12 timber, we’re allegedly using 2-by-12s. Boring now is doing less than the mining companies from the bad old days!
But that’s not the math I want to inflict upon you. The claim that caught my eye was when Boring Company president Steve Davis told the people watching on X that the tunnels would take 20,000 to 30,000 people back and forth to the airport in an hour (half in each tunnel).
Is this even possible?
Most Tesla models will hold four people plus the driver. Tesla cars are a little less than 200 inches long. That means that, bumper to bumper, there’s room for about 3,170 Teslas per tunnel, so the maximum capacity of each tunnel is 12,680 people. Cool, because if we’re just trying to send 10,000 people to the airport in an hour, there’s room in the tunnel for them. (Sorry to the people hoping for closer to 15,000 people per tunnel, but that math isn’t mathing.) Ten-thousand people sitting four per car means we just need 2,500 cars in each tunnel. And, if my math is right, that is only 7.89 miles of cars, meaning there’s room to leave four feet of space between each car. Going 60 miles an hour. In a tunnel with not a whole lot of room for maneuvering to avoid crashes.
This is glorious. The more I think about it, the funnier it gets. I mean, if Boring needs 5,000 cars for when the tunnels are running at maximum capacity, where will they store them during non-peak times? Did the state promise them a second, enormous parking lot somewhere?
The Scene’s Julianne Akers further reports that Davis told his audience, “It is by far the safest public transport system out there.” Yes, imaginary public transportation that does not yet exist is indeed the safest there is! (Well, assuming the 2-by-12s hold.) I know my imaginary light rail system that runs from Whites Creek to downtown has a 100 percent safety rating. Not one single person has been injured or killed while riding it. And my light rail won’t ultimately bolster the self-esteem of a prominent apparent Nazi, so bonus points for me!
Akers also has this from Davis:
“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.”
OK, I need to talk to Steve Davis here — imaginary public transportation impresario to imaginary public transportation impresario. Steve, you called 440 “the 440” and no one corrected you. This tells me that no one from here is taking you seriously. Next time you meet with Nashvillians about this project, check their hands for traces of popcorn butter, because I have a feeling that you’re encountering a group of people who are 50 percent hoping that letting you do this will predispose Elon Musk to contributing to their reelection campaigns (and otherwise they don’t give a shit about a tunnel because they don’t live here), 25 percent butt-kissers (disappointingly) and 25 percent Nashvillians who have broken out the popcorn and who cannot wait to see how this fails, while also hoping no one gets hurt.
Times are hard. People are broke. And this is free entertainment. Everywhere I go, people are indeed talking gleefully about your tunnel. Hell, I’m writing gleeful column after gleeful column. You started digging before you did any studies! You didn’t talk to local people about where things like underground creeks were. You keep saying stupid stuff about how hard limestone is. And now, when it turns out you haven’t paid people, according to the Banner, you were basically just like, “It happens.”
After the Banner contacted The Boring Company about [contractor] Shane’s claims, Vice President David Buss said he connected with Shane and would make good on the outstanding invoices by the end of the day Wednesday and would do a “full audit” on the error.
“It does look like we had some invoicing errors on that,” Buss told the Banner. “It was, you know, unfortunately, too common of a thing, but I assured them that we are going to make sure that invoices are wired tomorrow.”
Buss later clarified that he does not believe The Boring Company has a “common” practice of missing payments to vendors, but rather missed payments happen sometimes during “the normal course of business.”
What even is this?! Is this how things work for rich people? You just fail to pay people and nothing bad happens to you? I mean, hell, another reason people might be acting so nice to you is that they’re hoping to get the money you owe them.
The Boring Company’s Tesla tunnel is coming our way, like it or not. Here are our thoughts on what it can actually be used for.
Here’s the thing, Steve. Everyone in Nashville is nice at first. That’s how we work. That doesn’t mean we like you. And if you’re a visitor, people will absolutely not tell you the truth to your face. That’s considered rude, and we want you to enjoy your time here. And if we don’t like you, telling you the truth is a waste of our time.
But I assure you that you already have all the indicators you need to know this already isn’t going to make you real friends: You allegedly don’t pay people; your alleged safety protocols would offend coal barons; you apparently started digging before you conducted environmental studies; I’m willing to bet you’re just making up numbers for how many people your tunnels will be able to move; and you know enough to not have in-person community meetings, but instead just speak on camera. You know you’re bullshitting us, so you must also know that people who can smell the bullshit are not thrilled.
Except for me. Because I love a good boondoggle. But there are plenty of other Nashvillians who are more alarmed than amused by all this. And you’d be unwise to assume you can just ignore their concerns.
