The Florida resort town plans to strike a deal with Elon Musk's The Boring Company to build a tunnel between its downtown and the beach.
The Boring Company would offer rides in Teslas to hundreds of people a day for $5-8 per person, say the city's leaders. A similar ride in an Uber would cost about $10 per trip at current prices. "This could be a truly innovative way to reduce traffic congestion," Mayor Dean Trantalis says. He said other firms will have 45 days to submit competing proposals.
The project will be dubbed "The Las Olas Loop," a reference to a local road that connects to the beach, reports CNN. The Boring Company offers a transit system called the Loop, in which people in standard Teslas are driven from station to station in tunnels. Its first project opened last month at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The local government envisions the Las Olas Loop as a way to alleviate parking stress at its beach. Drivers will be able to park cars at the downtown Brightline train station, which offers intercity rail service around Florida, and then ride in a Tesla to the beach.
Of course, relative to certain other boring projects, this is very small fry. In Europe, work stated many years ago building the world's longest underground train tunnel. Started in 2008, the tunnel through the Alps will, when complete, be 64km long. It's a central component in a rail service that will eventually connect Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. If you've got 5 minutes to spare, take a look at this: