NASHVILLE, TN — Elon Musk’s Boring Company is beginning excavation work outside Tennessee’s capital building on Rosa L Parks Boulevard for its Music City Loop project, which they’re proposing will connect to BNA Airport via an underground tunnel.
However, Nashville citizens and representatives continue to loudly voice deep concern. Democratic District 51 Tennessee House Representative Aftyn Behn said she does not feel Musk or Boring are being transparent enough about the public concessions that would have to be made for the project.
Behn said there are also major equity and community concerns, especially from Black neighborhoods in Nashville, about how the Loop could impact, while simultaneously excluding them.
“This is set to bypass local communities,” Behn said. “It’s without any stops in predominantly Black and immigrant neighborhoods. There’s the absence of public transit integration. It doesn’t connect to any of the We Go local systems, which I have heard is very concerning for long-term residents. And then the big one is the lack of community engagement and the risk of displacement.”
Behn said that with the current plans, she thinks the Music City Loop could catalyze more gentrification and displacement along its corridor. Nashville Council Member Delishia Porterfield brought up several issues during a press conference in late July regarding the Loop, including a lack of transparency with elected officials. “You can’t have support for something that you don’t know anything about.
The fact that the state and a billionaire are doing backroom deals without involving the local government, the local legislators in the community does not sit well with us,” said Porterfield. Many elected officials representing parts of Nashville that the Music City Loop would burrow under were not notified of the project before a press conference at the airport Hilton late last month.
This is despite the office of Mayor Freddie O’ Connell learning of a Musk-owned company being interested in developing in the area around late spring or early summer of 2024.
“There is no way they’re breaking ground in Nashville without the mayor’s know-how, or without some authority being given locally to do so,” said Tennessee State House District 86 Memphis Representative, and one third of The Tennessee Three, Justin J. Pearson, while speaking on the drastic pollution concerns from Musk’s other Volunteer State project located in his city, the xAI power plant. Behn said one of the biggest issues involving the Music City Loop involves its potential impact on the overwhelmingly popular transit referendum that just passed in Nashville.
Behn said the Loop is projected to run through Murfreesboro Pike, which is where a lot of the referendum’s implementation was going to be executed. Behm said focus could be better spent on publicly funded projects with the goal of being available to assist Nashvillians.
“I understand that the tunnel is being privately funded, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be public concessions,” Behn said.
Behn said many other questions for the Music City Loop are also coming up, including who will be responsible for responding to emergencies within the Loop, and whether the Loop itself has the potential to be an effective means of traffic relief. Behn said she spoke to Tennessee construction specialists who raised questions on whether the Loop is even possible with the limestone that needs to be burrowed.
She said ongoing maintenance is also in question, including whether a percentage of the Loop’s profits will be rerouted for said maintenance. She said the best thing Nashvillians against the Loop can do is contact their representatives, and that groups organizing against the Loop include The Equity Alliance and Stand Up Nashville.
