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Elon Musk’s Boring Co. Releases Initial Fare Costs for the Vegas Loop
By Jeff Osienya Apr 20, 2021 IndustryAfter completing its first big commercial project, Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, has released preliminary fare charges for ferrying visitors through the Las Vegas Loop. Based on the estimates, using the Loop will be faster and cheaper for visitors.After one and a half years of boring, Elon Musk’s much anticipated underground transportation chamber at the Las Vegas Convention Center was officially launched to the public earlier this month. The loop transit system constructed by The Boring Co. cost a whopping $52.5 million, and for a start, the duo tunnels running 8 miles long will be navigated using the iconic Tesla electric vehicles.
This Convention Center Loop is a huge milestone for Elon Musk’s Boring Company as it is the first commercial project that the ambitious company has completed. Event visitors will be ferried across the massive convention center campus sitting on 200 acres of property, with 1.4 million square feet of exhibition space to be added soon. And that is just a small piece of the puzzle of the bigger plan for a more expansive 15-mile Sin City Loop.
Upon completion, the Loop will also connect attractions in downtown Vegas such as the Plaza Hotel and Casino, the Freemont Street Experience, and Resorts World Las Vegas which recently received an okay from the city to jump into the Loop bandwagon. Thus, Sin City visitors will not only be able to travel to the LVCC through the Loop but also make stopovers at Vegas Strip resorts and a couple of off-strip venues such as the Allegiant Stadium, and the Palms. Of course, McCarran International Airport is also one of the Loop destinations.
As laudable as the Boring Company’s LVCC fete is, however, the other most welcome news about the Loop is the release of estimated transport charges per vehicle when the entire project is complete. The Boring Co. published the initial fare prices last week on April 13th, and they are pretty reasonable even though they are just placeholders. It will not only be faster to be ferried in Sin City through the Loop, but it will also cost much less compared to ride-hailing services in the city.
What are the Fare Estimates per Vehicle for the Vegas Loop?
Per the official website of Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, a 4.9-mile trip to the Convention Center from McCarran Airport will cost only $10 per vehicle and it will only take 5 minutes. A 3.6-mile ride on the Tesla vehicles from the Allegiant Stadium to the LVCC will be worth $6 only and the journey will be complete in 4 minutes. The shortest trip, 2.8 miles long from downtown Las Vegas to the Convention Center will be a 3-minute journey costing 5 bucks.
As it stands, the fare prices are roughly 50% less than what visitors would ideally spend on a ride-hailing service like Lyft. For example, a Lyft ride from downtown Las Vegas to the Convention Center currently costs a little over $10. The price tag is practically the same if you hailed a Lyft from the Allegiant Stadium to the LVCC.
Cheaper, More Efficient Transportation on All Counts
From the mapped images on the website of The Boring Co., the Loop feels a lot like a subway system bus route. What makes it much better than the conventional subway system though is that the Tesla vehicles will be taking express routes without making stopovers. On top of the speed of Tesla cars, the direct routes also boost the travel times in the Loop.
However, unlike what a lot of people expected, the Tesla vehicles navigating visitors in the Loop won’t be autonomously driven. They will instead be chauffeured with plans for a switchover later according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
The cost and speed of movement aside, the just-completed LVCC loop was the most affordable option of shortlisted projects aimed at making transportation in Sin City more efficient. The $52.5 million total cost of the project is only a fraction of the $215 million price tag of a midair transit system that had been proposed for the city by the Doppelmayr Garaventa Group, an Austria-based construction company.
Further, the Loop is also a bargain for the city at large as Las Vegas won’t have to dig through public coffers to finance the project. The Boring Co. struck a deal with the city to pay for the construction of the tunnel whereas the cost of designing and building stations on Loop’s route will be borne by resorts and other attractions sited along the transit system. Overall, the entire Las Vegas Loop project is expected to cost at least $75 million and a maximum of $150 million. To date, there’s no official timeline that has been announced for its completion.
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