The Boring Test Tunnel is a tunnel in

Hawthorne, California Hawthorne is a city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located in southwestern Los Angeles County, California. It is part of a seventeen-city region commonly called the South Bay. As of the 2020 US census, Hawthorne had a population of 88, ...

for testing

hyperloop A hyperloop is a proposed high-speed transportion system for both public and goods transport. The idea was picked up by Elon Musk to describe a modern project based on the vactrain concept (first appearance in 1799). Hyperloop systems compr ...

and

loop Loop or LOOP may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Loop (mobile), a Bulgarian virtual network operator and co-founder of Loop Live * Loop, clothing, a company founded by Carlos Vasquez in the 1990s and worn by Digable Planets * Loop Mobile, ...

-based transportation. It was completed by

The Boring Company The Boring Company (TBC) is an American infrastructure and tunnel construction services company founded by Elon Musk. Its ongoing and proposed projects are designed for intra-city ("loop") transit systems. After six years TBC has completed on ...

in late 2018. The single-bore tunnel was constructed during 2017 and 2018 using a diameter

tunnel boring machine A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole", is a machine used to excavate tunnels with a circular cross section through a variety of soil and rock strata. They may also be used for microtunneling. They can be designed to bore throu ...

, giving a finished internal diameter.

Route

Most of the route runs outside and set back from the perimeter of Hawthorne Municipal Airport, with a very short section under the corner of the airport fence, without going under the runway. The tunnel starts between the Dominguez Channel storm drain and

Crenshaw Boulevard Crenshaw Boulevard is a north-south thoroughfare in Los Angeles, California, that runs through Crenshaw and other neighborhoods along a 23-mile (37.76 km) route in the west-central part of the city. The street extends between Wilshire Bouleva ...

at an entrance pit constructed on parking lot land owned by

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

. A short straight section heading northwards is followed by a curve westwards under West 120th Street, then a long straight tunnel, a slight curve and a final short straight to the Exit Shaft. The midpoint of the tunnel is planned to connect with a very short northwards spur to a small car parking system-style car elevator leading up inside a residential garage behind a house at 3834 West 119th Place.

Timeline

On December 17, 2016,

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The ...

stated that he was frustrated with traffic jams, and would start building a tunnel. By April 2017, The Boring Company had obtained a second-hand tunnel boring machine, transported the machine to Hawthorne, and had it repainted in Boring Company colors. On January 31, 2018, the Boring Company acquired the land around a family house at 3834 West 119th Place for $500,000. On May 9, 2018, the Boring Company acquired land on the corner of West 120th and Prairie Avenue for $2 million, purchasing the corner plots 309 and 308 at 12007 Prairie Avenue and Plots 304‒307 behind. On October 5, 2018, the Hawthorne City Council granted an

easement An easement is a nonpossessory right to use and/or enter onto the real property of another without possessing it. It is "best typified in the right of way which one landowner, A, may enjoy over the land of another, B". An easement is a property ...

for up to of tunnel, in exchange for a structural encroachment fee of $2.5 million. Permission for the first of tunnel under SpaceX's own land had been obtained earlier. On October 17, 2018, in preparation for opening "The Brick Store", the company applied for permission to paint the building at 12003 Prairie Avenue in The Boring Company black-and-white corporate colors. An opening ceremony for the test tunnel was originally scheduled for December 10, 2018, then moved to December 18, 2018.

Operation

During the launch day on December 18, 2018, cars operated using

guided busway Guided buses are buses capable of being steered by external means, usually on a dedicated track or roll way that excludes other traffic, permitting the maintenance of schedules even during rush hours. Unlike trolleybuses or rubber-tired tra ...

-style side-facing guide wheels. This fleet of

Tesla Model X The Tesla Model X is a battery electric mid-size luxury crossover SUV produced by Tesla, Inc. since 2015. Developed from the full-sized sedan platform of the Tesla Model S, the vehicle is notable in that it uses falcon-wing doors for passen ...

vehicles travelled at up to .

References

External links

* * * * * {{Elon Musk The Boring Company Tunnels in Los Angeles Transportation buildings and structures in Los Angeles Road tunnels in California 2018 establishments in California Tunnels completed in 2018