I think Joe's one the first to get a tour in Bastrop did a great breakdown of what's going on in Texas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV07jqwCy0A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oXlNIsxQTM

https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/traffic/boring-company-digging-error-caused-a-monorail-shutdown-in-2023-3035781/?utm_campaign=widget&utm_medium=parsely_related&utm_source=post_3033992&utm_term=Boring%20Company%20digging%20error%20caused%20a%20monorail%20shutdown%20in%202023

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Finding conflicting info online. Staying at Fountainebleau for NAB next week and wondering if the Riviera station (above ground) is open (and loading/unloading passangers there). I thought it was open during CES but can't remember.

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https://preview.redd.it/fbvzzk8jbqsc1.png?width=398&format=png&auto=webp&s=de71ef2efbde20c60f9b5922c31d445b77e18245

I’ve not seen any updates on the Vegas tunnels lately. Are the Westgate and Encore stations anywhere near opening? Where are the next batch of stations going to be and have TBC started digging towards those sites?

This Fortune article has more direct quotes and emails than any I've seen and wanted to make sure they weren't lost behind a paywall.

The most telling to me are those from the former safety manager who made OSHA complaints, was fired, and did this interview on the record because of their concerns:

I have been undercut and isolated from my ability to do my job correctly. I have tried to be accommodating and professional, to no result. I feel my job is in jeopardy because I have spoken out and pushed to do the correct things and address the root causes of all of the injuries, accidents, and failures to comply with laws, regulations, and company policy.

There are still men and women out there putting themselves at risk every day, so I want to make sure that they’re taken care of.

The conditions they were told to work in were honestly almost unbearable … I couldn’t fix any of the things that were wrong.

The whole time this is happening [muck storage collapse], [workers] were told to keep mining. Nothing stops the mining.

The safety department was always given the absolute minimum amount of support and development.

The article also included emails to the safety manager from anonymous employees:

I feel that the company as a whole has been very fortunate these past few months that there hasn’t been a fatality.

We have consistently flirted with death.

I have watched my friends get injured due to the fast pace we’ve been running, I refuse to be the first fatality in this company’s history. No tunnel is worth a single person’s life.

And other anonymous employee quotes:

The company can only teach you about the dangers you are working with. It’s on the operator to work with that knowledge. I did it by the book. I was never burned.

Safety was not a priority. Getting the tunnel done was Steve [Davis’s - Boring Co president] only goal—no matter what cost.

Everybody’s running on fumes. And once everybody’s running on fumes, that makes the conditions 10 times worse. They didn’t care about the people. They just cared about the results.

It was a freaking mess.

I’ve had accelerant in my face, in my eyes, in my mouth. I’ve thrown up from it. It seemed like it was constant. All the electricians at some point were burned by chemicals. Yeah, I mean, engineers, miners, you name it.

It will get in deep—third-degree-burn type stuff; it’s not a joke. If you don’t get up in there and get it cleaned off with neutralizers, it’ll just continue to burn … Once it gets in there, it’s going to eat.

It’s not that the crew refuses to clean. It’s that Steve [Davis] refuses to clean. That’s part of the mining operation. Mining isn’t just turning the cutterhead and driving forward. You’ve got to stop and clean and get your utilities right and fix stuff. And anytime that happens—[Steve] just screams and threatens to fire people.

The company will run out of PPE; we are required to wear dirty gloves over and over. There were no showers on-site to wash off chemicals. The pool of water is in the tunnel daily. The chemical goes through clothes. Then I will feel a burn.

There would be times in the tunnel that I would request water, and we wouldn’t get water for a couple of hours. During tough situations like that, especially in the heat, your judgment is impaired. Your reaction time has slowed. You make poor decisions because you’re not thinking clearly—because you’re not operating on a normal level.

You’ve got to be able to look at an individual and realize that when he’s tired, he’s going to make mistakes—the increase of injury risk is high right now.

It wasn’t even a big enough budget to cover [high-visibility vests] and stuff like that.

There’s this saying in construction: Safety is our number one priority. People would get mad at you—specifically engineers would get mad at you—if you said that at the Boring Company,

Safety is bottom of the totem pole. Top of the totem pole is, by all means necessary, try to be maniacally urgent and get things done, even if it’s not by the book.

It goes back to culture. You want to work safely, but you get reamed out for doing things the right way. If you have to keep taking off your safety glasses because they are fogging, [you just won’t wear them, because] you get in trouble for going too slow.

[Steve Davis] can say it as much as he wants that safety is first, but it’s not true. Nothing he does reflects that.

It’s a top-down misalignment of what’s good for the people at this company.

https://www.fox5vegas.com/2024/03/12/boring-co-gets-approval-build-two-additional-lines-help-alleviate-traffic-las-vegas-strip-airport

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https://preview.redd.it/9h101xllsjoc1.jpg?width=1364&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d2154630695d466718a58715448bcc26725b21a

https://fortune.com/2024/02/27/flirted-death-elon-musk-boring-company-employees-injuries-osha-citations/

Anyone past the paywall?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-26/elon-musk-las-vegas-loop-tunnel-has-construction-safety-issues?embedded-checkout=true

Anyone owns one of the 20,000 made? Seem to be fetching a lot more than their original price of 500 USD:

https://www.fabcollectibles.com/toys/outdoor/boring-company-flamethrower.html

https://twitter.com/peterdog15/status/1754969425889874194

https://nitter.net/JoeTegtmeyer/status/1748044470996676617

I was searching through Clark County's permit system and came across an encroachment permit for work along Paradise Road. Within that permit there is a proposed tunnel alignment for Paradise Road that stretches from UNLV up to LVCC.

Nothing too surprising but it looks like this work might be imminent. Notably the alignment curves to the west north of Harmon Avenue where it will most likely have a Virgin Hotel station. The tunnels also look like they will split apart near the north end to avoid the monorail footings.

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E5uLt46TsFBFk9GMEZ1Oc9jRhyy-kaRQ/view?usp=sharing

https://preview.redd.it/64dvj8avjpcc1.jpg?width=3294&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b2ca4ee6dc94f4d66b4188bdf4e99185053afa5

Tracked by drone observer Joe Tegtmeyer, it is clear preparations for a new tunnel bore are beginning at the Tesla factory in Austin, Texas. Progress can be tracked at his twitter or youtube account.

https://x.com/JoeTegtmeyer/status/1745904636496605233?s=20

Has anyone seen relevant permits filed about this this project, or other evidence of it's eventual form and layout? In summer 2022 this permit was filed for a private tunnel at 12733 Tesla Road:

https://abc.austintexas.gov/public-search-other?t_detail=1&t_selected_folderrsn=12962830&t_selected_propertyrsn=5940796

This permit is not active and it's not clear it's directly connected. The location of the current excavation is to the southwest of the factory grounds, while this address is to the north of the main factory building. What do people here think the route of this tunnel will be, and it's length?

https://preview.redd.it/hiqfh45savbc1.jpg?width=719&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5835d442aa75a2250f3cb0b964252b8b04849129