Tunnels are not a new response to traffic congestion. When Elon Musk created The Boring Company in 2016 and proposed tunnels as one way to transform city traffic, he was not the first to do so. Back in the early 1800s, the flamboyant French engineer Marc Isambard Brunel also promoted tunnels, and created a patented tunneling mechanism to build one under London’s Thames River.

Musk’s company says that “to solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D, which means either flying cars or tunnels are needed. Unlike flying cars, tunnels are weatherproof, out of sight, and won’t fall on your head. Tunnels minimize usage of valuable surface land and do not conflict with existing transportation systems. A large network of tunnels can alleviate congestion in any city; no matter how large a city grows, more levels of tunnels can be added.” 

I thought of Brunel and his Thames Tunnel when I read the latest Boring Company news. It has tunnelled 1.7 miles underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center in Nevada at a cost of about $47 million for two tunnels and three stations, and the Clark County Commissioners have just approved its plans “for 18 new stations and about 25 miles of tunnels” to further extend the Vegas Loop out from the Las #Vegas Strip corridor.