Elon Musk’s The Boring Company (TBC) has passed another hurdle and is one step closer to building a pair of underground tunnels in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
At a meeting on Tuesday, city commissioners voted 4-1 in favour of officially beginning negotiations with TBC on the tunnels that would connect the downtown area with the beach.
Before the vote, Mayor Dean Trantalis urged commissioners to vote yes to help the city deal with increasing traffic levels.
“We see more and more cars on the road. You have to find alternative methods of trying to deal with traffic. And I think this is an exciting opportunity for the city,” he said. (via Local10)
According to Trantalis, the next steps will involve the city accepting TBCs proposal and work on finalizing the deal.
“The next step is to accept the proposal, and to now negotiate an agreement which we can now move forward to talk about the terms, the conditions, financing and the technological aspects moving forward as they continue to examine the underground infrastructure and how they’re best going to be able to proceed with the project,” Trantalis said.
Referred to as the Las Olas Loop, the project would see a pair of 2.5 mile (4.2km) tunnels built underneath the city. That is significantly longer than the recently completed Las Vegas Loop underneath the Las Vegas Convention Centre grounds which measure 1.28 km (0.8 mile) in length.
TBC initially approached the city about the project earlier this year. Since they submitted an unsolicited bid, they had to wait 45 days to allow other companies to submit competing bids for a similar system.
That window closed in late August, giving TBC the exclusive opportunity to work with Fort Lauderdale on the tunnels.
