Elon Musk’s Vegas Loop Won’t Transport as Many People as Promised
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for guy_:
Elon Musk's Las Vegas Loop might only carry a fraction of the passengers it promised - TechCrunch:
In pandemic-free years, America's biggest trade show, CES, attracts more than 170,000 attendees, bringing traffic that jams surrounding roads day and night. To help absorb at least some of the congestion, the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) last year planned a people-mover to serve an expanded campus. The LVCC wanted transit that could move up to 4,400 attendees every hour between exhibition halls and parking lots.
It considered traditional light rail that could shuttle hundreds of attendees per train, but settled on an underground system from Elon Musk's The Boring Company (TBC) instead - largely because Musk's bid was tens of millions of dollars cheaper. The LVCC Loop would transport attendees through two 0.8-mile underground tunnels in Tesla vehicles, four or five at a time.
But planning files reviewed by TechCrunch seem to show that the Loop system will not be able to move anywhere near the number of people LVCC wants, and that TBC agreed to.
Fire regulations peg the occupant capacity in the load and unload zones of one of the Loop's three stations at just 800 passengers an hour. If the other stations have similar limitations, the system might only be able to transport 1,200 people an hour - around a quarter of its promised capacity.
If TBC misses its performance target by such a margin, Musk's company will not receive more than $13 million of its construction budget - and will face millions more in penalty charges once the system becomes operational.
Neither TBC nor LVCVA responded to multiple requests for comment.
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