Urban Transportation and Infrastructure

The Nashville Metro Council narrowly approved a resolution Tuesday registering formal opposition to Elon Musk’s planned “Music City Loop,” a Tesla tunnel project being advanced by The Boring Company and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee largely without city sign‑off. The 20–15 vote, with two abstentions, cannot stop the state-backed project but cites concerns over safety, transparency, free use of public land and what sponsors call a lack of “meaningful” local input on a 25‑mile tunnel system that would link Nashville’s airport, downtown and western neighborhoods via more than 30 stations. Announced last July as a 13‑mile route and later expanded, the loop is slated to open its first segment by early 2027 and would use a fleet of human‑driven Teslas, with the company saying it may explore autonomous vehicles in the future and that rides would be cheaper than other options. Supporters on the council warned that the resolution could shut down dialogue with The Boring Company, while backers said it was necessary to insist that “public land needs to be for public good” and that major shifts in the city’s transit roadmap must be driven by residents, not by a tech billionaire and state officials. The clash highlights a growing pattern of state governments and politically connected corporations working around local authorities on big-ticket transportation experiments, from tunnels to AVs, raising questions about who carries the risk if ambitious projects go sideways.