Elon Musk’s Boring Company wants to dig a tunnel to Dodger Stadium

Forget about an aerial tram to Dodger Stadium, the latest panacea for Chavez Ravine’s notorious traffic is looking underground.

Elon Musk’s Boring Company has proposed a high-speed, tunnel-based transit system that would shuttle passengers from a to-be-determined spot in East Hollywood to Dodger Stadium in only four minutes.

Dubbed the Dugout Loop, the zero-emissions systems would originate near one of three Metro Red Line stations (Vermont/Sunset, Vermont/Santa Monica or Vermont/Beverly Station) before tunneling through Echo Park and terminating at or near the Dodger Stadium parking lot.

The four-minute trip would carry riders in electric vehicles that hold between 8 and 16 passengers and can travel between 125 and 150 miles per hour. Fares are expected to cost around $1. However, only a small slice of the stadium’s 56,000-capacity crowd would be able to use the Dugout Loop. Service would be limited to about 1,400 people per event, which is only 2.5% of the stadium’s capacity; pending unspecified city and community approval, that could be increased to 2,800 people per event.

The 3.6-mile tunnel would operate in a single direction at a time—which makes sense considering fans flock exclusively toward the stadium before the start of the game, and then all leave at the end of the game (or, you know, in the seventh inning). Both stations would utilize “Loop Lifts” to shift passengers into the tunnels; the western terminus would lower vehicles via an elevator-like system will the stadium-adjacent eastern end would utilize a ramp.

Courtesy the Boring Company

Courtesy the Boring Company

The entirely privately-funded project would tunnel underneath public right-of-way or land owned or leased by the Boring Company. Construction could of the tunnels and lifts could take up to 14 months, with an approximately six-week concurrent construction of ventilation shafts. The project still has a number of environmental and city hurdles to overcome, but both the Dodgers and May Eric Garcetti have expressed their excitement over the plans. Meanwhile, the team behind the already-proposed gondola seem undeterred.