Musk takes a dig at Gigafactory tunnel

Elon Musk wants to dig a tunnel beneath his Tesla Gigafactory Texas.

The Boring Co., Musk’s Texas-based tunneling company, filed an application to build a “private access tunnel with associated improvements” on Tesla Road — formerly Harold Green Road — in eastern Travis County. A permit application was filed Wednesday with the city of Austin for the project called Colorado River Connector Tunnel.

The applicant is Hunter Brauer, a senior civil engineer at The Boring Co., based in Austin. Brauer was not available for comment. It comes as the company has been pitching plans for an apparent network of tunnels across the state.

In San Antonio, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority board is considering another of its project proposals.

The Boring Co. says its proposed tunnel transit system from San Antonio International Airport to downtown could carry as many as 112,000 passengers daily on its route roughly following U.S. 281 and produce annual revenue of up to $25 million. The company based its projections on moving 10 percent of visitors who land at the airport through the tunnel. It estimated San Antonio gets about 30 million annual visitors, with 10 million arriving via the airport.

The proposed route has raised environmental and landuse concerns among cave experts and residents.

Last month, The Boring Co. won a bid to build a $3 million pedestrian tunnel project in Kyle, a city about 60 miles northeast of San Antonio along Interstate 35 toward Austin.

The Kyle City Council approved an agreement to build a pedestrian-, bicycle- and golf cart-friendly underpass beneath an existing Union Pacific railroad station as part of the city’s multimillion-dollar project called Vybe Kyle.

The Boring Co. has pitched at least eight plans to state officials over the past year, including projects to connect Interstate 35 and Texas 1 Loop, known as MoPac Expressway; another between the Gigafactory, Austin-Bergstrom International

Airport and Austin’s downtown; and multiple projects near Pflugerville, Bloomberg reported in an article published May 30.

News reports also have suggested a 2021 Boring Co. pitch for an even more ambitious project: connecting San Antonio and Austin via a tunnel. The project would include stations in Kyle, New Braunfels and San Marcos.

The Alamo RMA would have jurisdiction for such a project. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Associated Press file photo Elon Musk’s The Boring Co. has applied to build a “private access tunnel with associated improvements” in eastern Travis County.