A plan to dig a tunnel from downtown Nashville to the airport took another step forward this week when the State Building Commission approved a no-cost lease of a state-owned parking lot for the firm spearheading the project: Elon Musk’s Boring Company.
The parking lot on Rosa Parks Boulevard will be a staging area for the project and its machinery.
But the vote wasn’t without vocal opposition from Democratic lawmakers and residents. One of whom, Jack Slagle, says he used to work at Tesla and now fears this project is being done in haste and without the proper vetting.
“My concern with this project is that first principals, and perhaps most principals, are being ignored here in favor of an open-ended science experiment on my community and an essential piece of South Nashville’s infrastructure,” he said.
About a dozen people spoke in opposition to the project, with concerns ranging from the region’s heavy rainfall potentially leading to flooding and the impact on ride share drivers who rely on airport traffic as income.
In the end, Tennessee lawmakers on the committee — all of whom live outside Nashville — voted unanimously to approve the no-cost lease.
More: Tennessee partners with Elon Musk on Tesla tunnel between downtown Nashville and airport
Sen. Heidi Campbell, who represents part of Nashville, said Democrats and Nashville lawmakers were blindsided by the tunnel deal.
“It’s a direct assault on the democratic self-governance of our city. And this is not about bureaucratic convenience. It’s about allowing a private billionaire to bypass public processes entirely, and to waive rent on terms that were authored in secret,” she said.
Campbell accused the state legislature’s Republican supermajority of steamrolling local interests for a project that primarily benefits tourists.
“That means no public scrutiny, no competing proposals and no community input even though all of Nashville — and this cannot be emphasized enough — all of Nashville bears the risk.”
Those risks aren’t yet known. But this tunnel is not Musk’s first project in Tennessee.
Last year, an artificial intelligence company owned by Musk opened a supercomputer facility in Memphis, near a predominantly Black neighborhood. That facility is powered by turbines that emit hazardous air pollutants and is currently the subject of a lawsuit from environmental groups and the NAACP.
“Long story short, there is a significant human cost to doing business with the richest man in the world,” said Richard Massey, a community organizer with the Equity Alliance in Shelby County. Massey pointed out that a similar tunnel project by Musk’s Boring Company in Las Vegas has been plagued by permit issues and safety complaints.
“We’re here not to instill fear or uncertainty, but to give you all a warning before the groundbreaking takes place,” he said.
Similar proposals for tunnels in California and Illinois died after public scrutiny and calls for environmental reviews of the projects.
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