What We Now Know About New Orleans' Shot at a Free Boring Company Tunnel

New details emerged this week about how New Orleans landed a spot in Elon Musk's Boring Company tunnel competition, and what the city actually proposed to get there.

Documents obtained by The Times-Picayune show that Mayor Helena Moreno submitted a four-page proposal in February to The Boring Company's Tunnel Vision Challenge — a competition the company launched in January inviting any entity, public or private, to pitch a one-mile tunnel concept. The company pledged to fund and build the winner at no cost. It ended up selecting three: the Ravens Loop in Baltimore, the University Hills Loop in Dallas, and New Orleans' NOLA Loop.

Moreno's pitch centered on one of the city's most persistent logistical headaches. The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and the Hyatt Regency New Orleans, located near the Caesars Superdome, are only about a mile apart — but travel between them becomes genuinely unreliable during major events like Mardi Gras and Saints games. A subterranean corridor connecting the two anchors of New Orleans' convention and entertainment economy, Moreno argued, could solve a problem that costs the city real money in the form of convention business lost to more transit-friendly competitors.

The business case is not hard to see. The Morial Convention Center is one of the largest in the country, and New Orleans' convention economy is a cornerstone of the city's hospitality sector. A reliable, weather-proof connection to the hotel and stadium corridor would strengthen the city's pitch to large associations and trade groups that make site selection decisions based partly on walkability and ease of movement between venues.

The Boring Company's model, refined over several years of operation in Las Vegas, moves passengers in Tesla vehicles through 12-to-14-foot diameter tunnels at high speed, bypassing surface traffic entirely. The Las Vegas Loop, the only fully operational system to date, covers about four miles beneath the convention district there. Nashville is currently under construction with a 13-mile version connecting the airport to downtown — a project that has generated both enthusiasm and political friction between the city and state government.

New Orleans would face its own set of complications. The city's below-sea-level topography and history with underground construction — including a 700-foot tunnel on Canal Street, now used as valet parking, that was built for a freeway project canceled decades ago — make the geotechnical picture more complicated than in most cities. A local construction executive who spoke to local media was measured in his expectations, noting that "there's a myriad of issues that have to be worked through."

Baltimore, for its part, withdrew from the competition shortly after being named a finalist. The Ravens, who had submitted the proposal, pulled out after additional conversations with public partners. That leaves Dallas and New Orleans as the active contenders — and it puts New Orleans in a stronger position to capture the company's attention if both projects proceed through the diligence phase.

That phase involves meetings with elected officials, regulators, community and business leaders, geotechnical borings, and a full investigation of subsurface infrastructure. The Boring Company has committed to funding the diligence process itself.

Moreno has been appropriately measured about expectations. "Whether it is feasible or not, we've opened the door for conversations that could lead to opportunities, even if it's not this one," she said. That's the right framing. The NOLA Loop is not a done deal — it may not be feasible at all. But the pitch got New Orleans in a room it wouldn't otherwise have been in, with a company that has real capital and a track record of actually building what it promises, and that is not nothing for a city that could use a credible infrastructure win.