Literally. The Boring Co., currently at work drilling in Southern California, aims to create what the public sector sometimes cannot: cheap mass transit.
TECH UNDER THE WARM ASPHALT of West Los Angeles, beneath bumper-to-bumper traffic and swaying palm trees, Elon Musk is searching for answers. There, a boring machine named Godot may soon grind away at a 2.7-mile tunnel to run below Interstate 405, a key reason that L.A. retains its crown as the U.S. city with the worst traffic.
The tunnel currently awaits a permit, and Angelenos may be waiting a while before it’s complete. (Paging Vladimir and Estragon.) But Musk, who spends his days juggling CEO roles at electric-auto maker Tesla and aerospace outfit SpaceX, has something to prove. Practically speaking, the Bel Air resident wants easier transit between his homes and the SpaceX campus in Hawthorne, 17 miles to the south. From a theoretical standpoint, Musk hopes to demonstrate that subterranean, supersonic public transit isn’t just a futuristic fantasy but a realistic solution for what ails many of America’s busiest (and most cash-strapped) metropolises.
This story is from the August 2018 edition of Fortune.
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This story is from the August 2018 edition of Fortune.
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