2 firms top list for airport transit
Musk’s Boring Co. offers tunnel project to downtown; BAT group has combo approach
Two proposals, including one for a tunnel system backed by Elon Musk, have been selected as finalists in a competition to build a system to ferry passengers between San Antonio International Airport and downtown.
By car, the 9.6-mile trip is about a 15-minute drive, mostly on U.S. 281 — not exactly a long haul. Nonetheless, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority has been sorting through pitches for the project and this week narrowed its list to two finalists.
One of those is The Boring Co. — a tunneling firm owned by Spacex and Tesla CEO Musk — which “is proposing twin underground tunnels that would accommodate Teslas” to haul riders from the airport to downtown, according to a staff presentation Wednesday to the Alamo RMA board.
The proposal put its cost between $241 million and $298 million.
The other is Bexar Automated Transport, a group including SAK Construction LLC, a Missouri pipeline rehabilitation and tunneling company, North Carolina’s Thalle Construction Company Inc., and Modutram Mexico, a software company in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Known as BAT, it has proposed “an autonomous bus traveling via a combination of elevated and underground tracks,” according to the staff presentation. It would cost $330 million.
Alamo RMA board members are expected to interview the two finalists in late February or early March to decide whether they want to move forward or scrap the idea.
Bexar County Engineer Renee Green, who serves as the RMA’S director of engineering and operations, was part of the staff team that scored the proposals.
She said they did so by considering each company’s experience in building transportation systems and their plans to finance the endeavors.
The five proposals aren’t being made public during the board’s considerations, she said.
The RMA is an independent governmental agency created by Bexar County to work on transportation projects.
But some details were made available via this week’s presenta
tions.
Finalist scores
With 91.6 points, the Boring Co. received the highest grade in part because it has previous experience building tunnel systems. Among those is a transportation loop that opened in June beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center. The system, which includes three stations and 1.7 miles of tunnels, cost taxpayers $52.5 million, or nearly $31 million per mile.
The Boring Co. proposal’s score also was tops because its tunnel system is expandable, according to the authority’s presentation. Unknowns include what the privately held company would charge passengers and how much revenue the system would generate for the RMA.
The Boring Co. didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The second-place Bexar Automated Transport proposal received 80 points. Its score was lower, RMA staff said, because the companies involved don’t have as much experience as The Boring Co. Modutram Mexico has been running a $5.5 million, 0.37-mile-long test and demo facility in Guadalajara since 2011. It has logged more than 43,000 miles and completed more than 175,000 passenger trips — real and virtual.
For San Antonio, the Alamo RMA staff selected the first of three proposals BAT submitted.
It would feature six stations and 13.34 miles of track from the airport to the Convention Center, according to documents obtained from Praetor Capital, a firm that invests in automated transit networks partnering with the group.
Praetor CEO Jim Pretorius said last year plans call for passengers paying $6.50 per trip. They’d board eight-passenger electric vehicles that run at 45 mph for a trip from the airport to the Convention Center of between 12.7 and 15.4 minutes. BAT estimates ridership at about 500,000 per year, for $13.7 million in revenue.
Passengers could ride the vehicles from any of several stations between the two locations.
Who pays, profits
According to the RMA staff presentation, The Boring Co. would self finance and provide a turnkey system.
“That means they build it and they turn it over to us,” Green said. “We get a finished product. There would be no risk.”
Bexar Automated Transport said its project would require a construction subsidy and recommended it be operated by VIA Metropolitan Transit.
It wouldn’t require a taxpayer subsidy either, Green said.
“We hope to sell revenue bonds and we hope the revenue from the project pays for the bond,” she said.
The Alamo RMA, financially hamstrung by the absence of toll roads that provide revenue for other RMAS across the state, has been looking for moneymaking projects.
In October 2019, the board issued an open Request for Information to public and private groups for ideas regarding “new delivery methods for transportation projects” and “development of new revenue sources.”
Over the next two years, Green said, the RMA fielded about five phone calls or received proposals from companies pitching their own ideas.
“They lacked information and financially they weren’t viable and self-sustaining,” she said.
Then, The Boring Co. responded last July. After staff reviewed the proposal, it went to the board in August.
“The board said, ‘Let’s move forward, this has some merit,’ ” Green said.
The RMA issued a Request for Qualifications and Proposals to formally invite contractors to submit plans for “a transportation project that can efficiently and economically transport people between the general vicinity of the San Antonio International Airport and the downtown area of San Antonio.”
Five proposals were received by the Dec. 1 deadline, but the RMA didn’t disclose any of the competitors.
Other proposals
This week, the RMA staff ’s presentation also described the three other proposals.
San Antonio’s Skyshuttle Express sought to build an autonomous tram running along the U.S.-281 right of way for a cost ranging from $900 million to $1.5 billion. “The group has a lot of experience designing and building similar systems around the world,” the staffers wrote. “Capital costs would not be recoverable through fare collection, subsidies would be required in order to make this option profitable.” It’s score was 74.5.
Oceaneering International, a Houston-based engineering services company, pitched an autonomous system that would use atgrade or elevated segregated travel lanes at a cost from $332 million to $562 million.
“This team did not demonstrate the same level of project experience as other proposers,” the staffers wrote. It scored 69.3.
Tritrack Motors of Georgetown wanted to build an elevated track with three-wheeled autonomous vehicles for $24 million.
“This technology has not been implemented anywhere,” staffers wrote. “Firm has not built any transportation projects, the listed experience is all residential real estate type work.” It scored 30.1.