The Boring Company's Chicago Tunnel Project Might Soon be Dead

Digging Tunnels

Elon Musk's Boring Company is hitting a lot of roadblocks in its quest to connect downtown Chicago with O'Hare International Airport, The Verge reports.

The tunnel-digging venture's plans to dig a pair of 18 mile (29 km) tunnels for just $1 billion is on shaky ground. The concept has been met with ridicule and a ton of red tape — and it even got sucked in to corruption scandals. Now, Chicago's mayoral election this Tuesday could spell disaster for the project.

Chicago's mayoral election is on Tuesday and almost all the 14 candidates are either "against or ambivalent to the O'Hare Express plan," according to The Verge.

"I’d kill it," former Chicago Public Schools head and mayoral candidate Paul Vallas told the Chicago Tribune earlier this month. "I can’t wait to kill it."

Pipe Dream

Outgoing mayor Rahm Emanuel — who's not seeking re-election — and Musk held a joint press conference back in June. Back then, Emanuel was very hopeful of the project.

"This transformative project will help Chicago write the next chapter in our legacy of innovation and invention," he said in a tweet.

But those times are over.

"To me, it was always a pipe dream, a flight of fancy. But my opinion of it has gotten even worse since I’ve been reading all of these details in the media, a lot of stories that paint a lot of doubt on [Musk’s] ability to deliver this thing," Chicago's 35th Ward municipal council member Carlos Ramirez-Rosa told The Verge.

Game Over?

Ramirez-Rosa's constituents live in the path of the suggested tunnels.

"If you look at Elon Musk’s career — he comes off as a grifter," he said.

In other words, the future of the Boring Company's project is on very thin ice.

There's one glimmer of hope: mayoral candidate Bill Daley, who has sided with Emanuel in the past. But even he is still not entirely sold on the project according to The Verge.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s Chicago tunnel project is on shaky political ground [The Verge]

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