Work on 2nd people-mover tunnel begins at Convention Center

The Boring Company dropped the first piece of its 300-foot drill into a 40-foot pit near the Las Vegas Convention Center on Tuesday to begin work on a second 12-foot-diameter people-mover tunnel.

The California company founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk completed its first 4,475-foot tunnel in mid-February. When the first tunnel bore was completed near the southwest corner of the Convention Center’s new West Hall, the mission was to extract the drill, take it apart, transport it back to the starting point just east of the Convention Center’s South Hall and lower it back into the pit a piece at a time.

Once underground, the drill will produce a second parallel tunnel to provide two-way traffic for the controversial transit system, which will cost $52.5 million.

Critics say that because such a system has never been built, Las Vegas shouldn’t be a guinea pig for an important piece of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s $1.5 billion expansion and renovation of its public convention center.

Once submerged, the drill can chew through about 100 feet of dirt a day, leaving a nearly completed tunnel as it progresses.

The people-mover is expected to be finished before the 2021 CES in January. Two above-ground stations will be built at the two endpoints of the system with a underground station beneath a parking lot near the Central and North halls.

The underground station will be 35 feet tall, about 170 feet long and 80 feet wide.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.