Tesla and SpaceX CEO and 1997 College and Wharton graduate Elon Musk announced that his first high-speed transit tunnel will open in December.
On Oct. 21, Musk tweeted that the tunnel dug by The Boring Company was almost done and would open on Dec. 10.
Musk, who studied physics and entrepreneurial management at Penn, founded The Boring Company to “solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic.”
The two-mile-long demo tunnel is located near the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, a city in Los Angeles County, according to PhillyVoice. The route will serve as a testing ground for the company’s “Loop” project, one of its high speed transportation systems that Musk hopes to bring to cities across the country.
Loop systems, when completed, will transport passengers across short routes at speeds between 125 and 150 miles per hour, The Boring Company website indicates. The company also has plans for a “Hyperloop” system, which will transport passengers across greater distances in pods traveling at over 600 miles per hour.
Musk has touted the cost benefits of his plan for a large network of high-speed tunnels between cities. Rides in the Hawthorne tunnel will cost only $1. In celebration of the opening, Los Angeles County residents will be offered free rides on Dec. 11.
The first fully operational tunnel is slated to be built in Chicago, but the plans have not yet been approved.
Musk has recently been embroiled in various controversies. In September, he agreed to step down as chair of Tesla and pay a $20 million fine in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over securities fraud charges. Musk was accused of misleading investors by tweeting that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420.
In September, Musk was also sued for defamation by a diver named Vern Unsworth, who helped rescue the Thai soccer team that was trapped in a flooded cave during the summer. Musk repeatedly called Unsworth a pedophile.
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