Boring isn't working: Inside Elon Musk's Vegas Loop
YouTuber Ray Delahanty explored Vegas Loop’s newest stops and walked away confused — a visit that shows boring isnt working inside Elon Musk’s tunnel network as advertised. Airport “stations” still send Teslas over surface streets, not tunnels, while missing signs leave riders hunting unmarked pickup spots.
Five years after opening, the Boring Company’s Vegas Loop still sells a futuristic promise. The reality, documented in a Mashable interview with urbanist YouTuber Ray Delahanty (CityNerd), looks a lot more like a branded ride-hail product than the high-speed underground network once pitched for Las Vegas.
Key Takeaways
- The Loop now lists about 10 stations, including two at Harry Reid International Airport, but the airport link still runs on surface streets, not tunnels.
- Delahanty called the airport stations a “farce,” citing missing wayfinding, awkward app pickups, and sparse station amenities.
- Tickets run roughly $6 to $12; an airport-to-convention-center ride can cost about $12 — far less than a typical Uber, Lyft, or taxi.
- The system carries around 1 million riders a year (about 114 people an hour), far below the 90,000-per-hour vision for a finished network.
- Public hotel-bed-tax money helped build the first tunnels; Delahanty says a convention-center people mover may have been the smarter original buy.
That gap between then and now is the story. For more snapshots of how big promises age in public, browse our Nostalgia: Then & Now coverage.
What happened when CityNerd rode the Vegas Loop?
Delahanty recently toured the latest stops on Elon Musk’s Boring Company system and came away puzzled. According to Mashable’s Neal Broverman, the video spotlighted what Delahanty framed as the “farce” of the airport stations and a broader shortage of signage telling people where to go.
The Loop does move people between the Las Vegas Convention Center and several hotels in human-driven Teslas through single-lane tunnels. But “in operation” at the airport currently means something different: a Tesla trip on ordinary roads.
After trial and error, Delahanty ordered a car at the airport and rode to the convention center for $12. Drivers in his footage came off as friendly and willing to help. The friction was less the ride itself than finding the station and figuring out which arriving vehicle was theirs.
Why does the airport service feel unfinished?
Airport stations opened in December 2025. There is still no Boring tunnel connecting Harry Reid to the rest of the network. The full five-mile route to the convention center runs on surface streets.
Delahanty asked the obvious question in the Mashable Q&A: why sell a $12 airport service before the tunnel exists? His answer was blunt — he does not know. Until the dig is finished, he said, it functions like a typical Uber or Lyft trip, except you must reach an unmarked location on an airport concourse sublevel to use it.
A Loop driver told him the company is digging the underground airport link and aims to open it before the year is out. In the same interview, Delahanty said the connecting tunnel is supposed to be complete by the end of 2026.
Elsewhere, the hybrid design is already visible. At Fontainebleau, Teslas leave Boring tunnels and then enter the resort parking garage like any other car. One-way narrow tunnels add another operational limit riders cannot see on a marketing map.
How did the Loop’s early promise compare with today’s ride?
The Loop opened about five years ago as a three-station project to whisk people around the convention center campus. The Boring Company quoted a $47 million build; other reports put the figure closer to $52 million. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, funded by hotel bed taxes, paid for that start and still covers about $5 million a year in maintenance.
Casinos and the airport pay for stations. Future tunnels are supposed to be Boring’s cost. Today the map includes five convention-center stations, two airport stops, plus Encore, Westgate, and Fontainebleau, with fares between $6 and $12.
The finished vision is still enormous: 155 mph travel, 68 miles of tunnels, 104 stations, autonomous vehicles, and 90,000 passengers an hour. Mashable notes that throughput claim is dubious — it would require every Vegas resident and visitor to use the system multiple times a day. Current ridership is about 1 million a year.
Delahanty’s on-the-ground verdict matches the nostalgia-of-hype frame: riding the Loop is “like riding an Uber or a Lyft that occasionally uses a narrow, brightly colored tunnel.” He is not claustrophobic, he said, but would not wish the experience on someone who is.
What still confuses riders — and who is paying for expansion?
Wayfinding may be the everyday failure point. Neither the casinos nor the airport offer signage to the stations, Mashable reports — a problem that has also dogged the Las Vegas Monorail. Stations can lack seating and, in Delahanty’s visit, working escalators.
Cars are requested via an app, similar to Uber or Lyft. A few riders seemed familiar with the drill. Most, Delahanty said, looked confused about which arriving vehicle was meant for them, and some struggled with buying a ticket and ordering a ride — even though the flow seemed clear to him once he found the station.
The Boring Company did not answer Mashable’s questions about those gripes. Funding so far comes from hotel room taxes and private resort contributions. Delahanty argued the original LVCVA call for proposals should have produced a people mover linking far-flung convention halls — more like an airport tram than a tunnel taxi. Boring won with the low bid; he guesses the company is “way, way, way in the red” on the project but treated Vegas as research and development.
He also noted a deal for a University of Nevada, Las Vegas station, with costs covered by the company. Political pushback may stay muted, he suggested, unless city or county general funds that could have gone to public transit start flowing into Loop expansion.
For now, the headline from Delahanty’s tour is simple: boring isnt working inside the parts of Musk’s Vegas Loop that tourists are actually asked to use — not because every tunnel ride fails, but because the product still asks riders to hunt unmarked doors for a surface-street Tesla while the underground airport future remains unfinished.