NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – A new map from The Boring Company (TBC) shows how the route they plan to carve through Nashville for the Music City Loop.
In a new blog post, Elon Musk’s tunneling organization shared more details on its plans to bring a Tesla tunnel to Tennessee’s capital city. It also announced that tunneling may begin in Nashville as soon as January, despite recently raised safety concerns.
“It is difficult to estimate exactly when tunneling will begin, with a best guess being in January,” a post from the organization said.
Amid preparations, TBC said it is eyeing possible expansions for the project and marking major milestones on the path to finally begin digging.
Equipment and Permitting Preparation
The company celebrated “the first spin” of its Prufrock-MB1, dubbed the “first Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) in Nashville.” The massive cylindrical machine will help carve the tunnel through the limestone beneath the Music City.
That first spin was able to happen because TBC completed the blasting, excavation and shoring work needed to reach the final depth for the tunneling machine’s “launch shaft.”
In November, Musk’s company also lauded the setup of its multi-story rock removal machine.
The tech mogul’s group said in the post that it has secured 27 of the 45 permits and approvals needed for the project, with another 10 under review. The final eight permits are connected to plans to develop tunnel launch sites as part of the “the Broadway and Airport alignments.”
“TBC recently announced the planned Broadway expansion. The proposed alignment would extend southwest from Lower Broadway, continue along West End Avenue past Centennial Park and Vanderbilt, and terminate near 440,” the Monday blog post said. “TBC continues to evaluate additional expansion opportunities, identifying routes most useful to the Nashville community.”
Environmental Impact Assessment
The Boring Company said its tunnel passed an “independent Environmental Impact Assessment” as well as ” a separate review by an independent third-party evaluator of the EIA.”
“The assessment examined potential impacts across all major environmental resource categories and found positive impacts in many categories and no meaningful impacts across all others,” the blog post said.
The company did not provide a copy of the review, but said its finding will be published online by December 15. Per TBC, the review went over the following:
- noise and vibration
- air quality and greenhouse gas emissions
- hazardous and regulated materials
- land use and zoning
- aquatic resources
- rare and protected species
- cultural resources
- geology
- transportation and traffic
- visual impacts
- utilities
- and potential effects on sensitive populations.
This comes after The Boring Company was fined hundreds of thousands in Nevada after allegedly dumping toxic chemicals during construction of a similar project, the Vegas Loop.
TBC did not respond to WSMV4’s request for comment on that issue.
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Response to Safety Concerns
TBC addressed some recent safety concerns raised about the Music City Loop construction, saying that the project is completely safe.
“Music City Loop safety is—and will remain—the uncompromising top priority,“ the blog post said. ”This applies to both construction and operations.”
WSMV4 recently reported that a contractor broke away from the project, citing issues with pay and concerns about the lack of a safety director on-site. The Boring Company did not respond to our requests for comment, but in the Monday blog post, it said in part that “there have been zero safety incidents, zero injuries, and zero issues, reflecting the effectiveness of ongoing training, monitoring, and safety protocols.”
“Tunneling is a high-risk construction activity, and TBC is focused fully on safety. This is one reason TBC is so intent on perfecting the world’s first ZPIT (Zero-People-In-Tunnel) large-diameter boring machines,” the blog post said. “TBC’s newest machine (Prufrock-5) requires only 3 people in the tunnel, but the true safety and technical win is true ZPIT.”
The organization also said it is working with Nashville and Tennessee officials on emergency preparedness plans.
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