Secrecy shrouded Kyle’s shelved, Elon Musk-backed tunnel project

After spending $50,000 and entering into an agreement that was shrouded in secrecy, the Hays County city of Kyle has scrapped its plans for a pedestrian tunnel to be built by the Elon Musk-owned Boring Co. underneath a set of railroad tracks. The $3 million tunnel was planned for the Plum Creek subdivision and billed as an effective solution for getting pedestrians safely from one side of the Union Pacific railroad tracks to the other, eventually plugging into the ambitious Vybe trails project. But city spokeswoman Rachel Sonnier said the city had decided not to move forward with the tunnel. “That project has proven not to be viable, and the city of Kyle is no longer pursuing that option,” Sonnier said in an email, offering no further explanation.

Sonnier told the Express-News about the cancellation Thursday afternoon. City Councilwoman Yvonne Flores-Cale said the council was collectively informed of the city’s decision Friday morning. Flores-Cale said city staff’s stated reason was that Union Pacific, the company that owns the railroad under which the tunnel would have been built, declined the city’s request to dig the tunnel. “We can’t override” Union Pacific, Flores-Cale said. “Today was the first day that council has been collectively informed that the railroad said ‘no.’” The city paid $50,000 for pre-engineering services related to the project before scrapping it. But even though the tunnel plans are no more, the yearlong effort to bring The Boring Co. into the fold with the city exposes how the secretive Musk-backed company is trying to do business with municipal governments in Texas. The Boring Co. is based in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville, not far from the headquarters of Tesla. The company’s stated mission is to help relieve traffic backlogs across the United States by building a network of high-speed tunnels underneath the country’s roads and interstates — eventually filled, of course, with fleets of Musk’s electric vehicles. The Boring Co. appears to be starting its tunneling mission in Central Texas. The company recently built and opened a tunnel manufacturing plant in the small city of Bastrop, southeast of Austin, and its former business development lead, Brian Gettinger, began meeting with city officials in the region last year.