A San Bernardino County transportation agency voted Wednesday, June 3, to pursue a proposal from Elon Musk’s The Boring Co. for a high-speed tunnel linking Rancho Cucamonga with Ontario International Airport.
By a unanimous vote, the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority’s Board of Directors supported the idea, directing staff to flesh out the proposal and postpone a $3 million study of other airport-rail connections.
The tunnel idea is seen as a cheaper, faster alternative to above-ground rail projects, including the extension of the electric-powered “L” Line light-rail, formerly the Gold Line, from Pomona into the airport terminal. A zero-emission train off the Metrolink San Bernardino Line, and a connection from the Riverside heavy-rail line that has a stop south of the airport were also on a list of rail alternatives.
“It gets us thinking in a new way. This is something that can be done relatively quickly and inexpensively,” San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman said after the meeting. Hagman introduced the idea to SBCTA after touring The Boring Co. facility in Hawthorne and taking a ride in a modified Tesla through the test tunnel there.
“I think it is a great way to inexpensively improve transportation corridors,” said 1st District Supervisor Robert Lovingood, an SBCTA board member, shortly after the vote. He said he’d like to consider The Boring Co. for transportation needs in the high desert.
The Boring Company Loop system pic.twitter.com/xVpDHzZKXB
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) December 19, 2018
The Boring Co.’s unsolicited proposal would build a 2.8-mile tunnel, 14 feet in diameter and about 35 feet underground. It would take passengers in electric vehicles with rubber tires traveling up to 127 mph to and from the airport. Each ride would take about 90 seconds to two minutes, Hagman said.
Originally, the proposal called for specially designed Tesla cars. But Hagman said the company is working with Tesla to develop electric vans that can seat up to 12 people and their luggage, enlarging the capacity to 1,200 people per day, or 10 million-plus per year.
Known as the Ontario Airport Loop, the project has a cost range of between $45 million and $60 million, said Carrie Schindler, SBCTA director of transit and rail. That could jump to $75 million when adding an operations center, management services and paying operators prevailing wages, Schindler said.
At $60 million, the Loop would cost considerably less than the $1- to $1.5-billion light-rail extension from Pomona and could be built in three to four years rather than the 10 years it would take to extend the light-rail, according to the SBCTA.
“It is much more cost-effective,” Schindler said. “I do anticipate the need for outside funding but at a reduced level” as compared to building surface projects.
Hagman said the agency could use the $40 million or so set aside for the Gold Line extension to build the Loop, with grant monies from state, federal or the South Coast Air Quality Management District making up the difference.
Instead of building a station at the Day Creek flood channel off the San Bernardino Metrolink line, as originally proposed when the project was endorsed by the agency’s Transit Committee in May, Schindler said SBCTA is exploring a Loop station closer to the existing Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink station.
She said the latest configuration would involve digging the tunnel under either Haven Avenue or Milliken Avenue to ONT’s Terminal 2.
Some have said tunnels in earthquake-prone Southern California are dangerous. The Boring Co. website said during the 1994 Northridge quake, the 1989 Loma Prieta quake and the 1985 Mexico City quake, no damage occurred in any subway tunnel.
Routes, costs and environmental concerns will be outlined in a staff report to the SBCTA’s Transit Committee either in August or September, Schindler said.
