The Boring Company (TBC) has proposed a few projects in Texas, like one connecting San Antonio’s airport to its downtown core. However it appears that project may be part of a much larger plan that could see San Antonio and Austin connected through an 80-mile underground tunnel.
The ambitious plan was revealed in emails obtained through an information request by Chap Ambrose, who lives next to TBC’s test site in Bastrop, Texas.
In an email exchange from August 2021 between Brian Gettinger, TBC’s business development lead and an unnamed official with the City of Kyle, the plan would first see smaller tunnels built in Austin and San Antonio.
Once complete those tunnels would then connect the two cities which are about 80 miles (128km) apart through a larger main tunnel.
Gettinger explains that TBC would likely have to work with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to have the route follow a right-of-way (ROW) along Interstate 35.
The tunnel wouldn’t be direct, but have several stations built along the way in places like Kyle, New Braunfels, and San Marcos.
In the email, Gettinger asks that neither he nor TBC be mentioned in conversations about the idea.
“With the leaked articles about ATX and SATX, there is enough in public space for you to start having ‘what if’ conversations with folks. Just don’t implicate me or TBC directly. TBC and I are most useful operating in the background, not in the front of the parade,” Gettinger writes in the email first reported by MySA.
The unnamed Kyle official seems interested, responding less than two hours later that he has already spoken with another unnamed official who is “pretty excited about potentially resurrecting the Lone Star rail concept in a different form,” and requests cost specifications so that they can find a location and explore funding.
There are likely to be some obstacles before a plan like this is approved. One may come from San Antonio’s mayor, who said last month that he does not see a need for the Boring Company to provide its services to the city.
You can read the full emails below.
