Fort Lauderdale is giving Elon Musk’s Boring Company hundreds of thousands of dollars to plan for a tunnel from downtown to the beach.
The Fort Lauderdale city commission approved the $375,000 in interim funding during a meeting Tuesday. City Manager Chris Lagerbloom explained the funding.
"At the end of this work, we should be able to answer a couple of different questions — we should be able to know a definitive path for the route. And we should also know a guaranteed maximum price. So in order to get to those two things, this is the work that's required between now and getting to those answers," he told the commission.
The city says the tunnel will alleviate traffic in the Las Olas area. Critics say it is a waste of money. All of the public comments about the tunnel were negative, with one man remarking that the city has "tunnel vision."
The mayor and several commissioners said the idea came after they used a similar tunnel built by the Boring Company in Las Vegas.
Commissioner Robert McKinzie cast the only dissenting vote. Vice Mayor Ben Sorensen was not present for the vote.
Commissioners Heather Moraitis and Steve Glassman, along with Mayor Trantalis backed the plan.
