Tesla CEO Elon Musk (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File)
Elon Musk has his eye on a stretch of dirt between New York City and Washington, D.C., for an underground hyperloop route — and last week Maryland officials gave his tunneling company the okay.
According to the Baltimore Sun, officials said Thursday that the state had issued a conditional utility permit to allow The Boring Co. (as Musk’s tunneling company is known) to dig a 10.3 mile tunnel beneath a portion of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway that it owns.
Elsewhere in the U.S., in the Denver metro and between St. Louis and Kansas City, officials are in the early stages of exploring hyperloop systems — creating P3s and planning feasibility studies. The east coast route, however, is being spearheaded by Musk, who will have to get many more official OKs to actually get boring.
According to the Sun, the federal government owns over two-thirds of the 35-mile Baltimore-Washington Parkway, and as of Thursday, it had not publicly granted permission for digging to begin. The leaders of the major cities along the route also said they had not granted any kind of permission, the Sun reports, although Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh told the paper that she was excited to hear more.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan appeared excited by the idea, however, posting a video of himself saying “I think it’s coming to Maryland,” when asked about the hyperloop system.
Get hyped.pic.twitter.com/gPRTQWnICi
— Larry Hogan (@LarryHogan) October 19, 2017