Image: A representative of Elon Musk’s Boring Company showed renderings of equipment used to create tunnels for Tesla vehicles during Downtown Nashville Rotary Club meeting on Sept. 29, 2025. Image Credit: Sam Stockard/Tennessee Lookout
By Sam Stockard [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
The Elon Musk-owned company preparing to dig a 10-mile tunnel from downtown Nashville to the airport is estimating a cost of $240 million to $300 million to build two underground lanes to ferry passengers back and forth.
Jim Fitzgerald, chief of development for The Boring Company, told the Nashville Rotary Club Monday that’s how much the company would charge the state under a commercial contract. Because of its engineering-based operations, which keep most facets of work in-house, Fitzgerald said his firm can do the job cheaper than the industry rate of roughly $500 million to more than $1 billion per mile for two lanes. Riders would catch Musk’s Tesla vehicles at above-ground locations and ride in tunnels to their destination.
“That is one of the ways that we are trying to disrupt the tunneling transportation infrastructure industry,” Fitzgerald said in response to audience questions.
A 2018 transportation plan proposed by former Mayor Megan Barry projected the cost for a light rail system at $200 million per mile, a total cost of $5.4 billion for 24 miles of rail along five corridors. Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s new transportation plan focuses more on bus transit and doesn’t include light rail construction.
Nashville organizations such as the Music City Center and Chamber of Commerce are backing the Boring proposal because of the possibility of reducing traffic congestion. Numerous residents raised questions about it at a State Building Commission meeting, including environmental impacts.
The Boring Company, which has the support of Gov. Bill Lee, promised to fund the “Music City Loop” project completely yet obtained a no-cost lease to launch its digging equipment in a state-owned parking lot near the Capitol. The state also plans to provide Boring with free public right of way underneath state highways for the project.
Fitzgerald told the audience once the company “proves” itself with the first leg of the plan it will decide where other lines can be constructed.
Fitzgerald, who declined to answer questions Monday from the Lookout, said the 6-mile “Vegas Loop” has 4,400 passengers per hour. The company is planning to build 60 miles of tunnels there but has hit some snags.
A ProPublica report showed the company built tunnels without permits for work on county property, dumped untreated water into storm drains and sewers, then was fined $112,000 over workers’ complaints about severe burns and muck spills. Boring is contesting those violations, according to the report.
On Sept. 11, work on the “Las Vegas Loop” was paused after a Boring Company worker suffered a “crushing injury” on the project.
Boring started looking at Nashville for its next major U.S. project in March 2024, he said.
Fitzgerald said he understands Nashville’s propensity for “hellacious floods” but noted tunnels will be waterproof and equipped with sump pumps while stations will be elevated and built with drains. In case of flooding, the tunnel would be evacuated and cleaned up by Boring, regardless of the cost.
Asked by a Rotary Club member why this plan will work when questions were raised about the underground tunnel portion of the Metro mayor’s failed proposal seven years ago, Fitzgerald said the company is conducting “substantial investigations” on the makeup of the area’s subterranean conditions. The region’s karst topography is characterized by weathered limestone that creates sinkholes, caves, springs and underground streams that change over time.
Critics of the project have raised questions about the potential for drilling into caves and underground streams, as well as the possibility for damaging utilities such as sewer lines. Boring has said it would work with local utility companies to avoid disruptions.
Fitzgerald, though, said the deeper the company digs the more consistent and predictable the rock becomes, lessening the likelihood of environmental damage.
Discussing safety, the Boring officer said he would feel comfortable letting his 16-year-old daughter ride in the Vegas tunnel by herself.
