Elon Musk has been given approval for The Boring Company to start digging – and this time, it’s official.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the entrepreneur has been given the go-ahead to dig up a small piece of pavement near the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives building in the District of Columbia.
The Washington D.C. government will allow The Boring Company to do excavation work at the fenced-off parking lot. Even still, it is far from the “verbal government approval” which Musk claimed to have received last year about constructing a “NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop.”
According to D.C.’s Department of Transportation, work is still being done to determine what permits are necessary for The Boring Company to dig under city roads and other public places.
“We’re just beginning, in the mayor’s office, our conversation to get an understanding of what the general vision is for Hyperloop,” D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s chief of staff John Falcicchio said. “We’re open to the concept of moving people around the region more efficiently.”
Musk has previously received the support from the White House Office of American Innovation as well as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.
Musk’s vision would see The Boring Company construct numerous tunnels across the United States. These tunnels would support the Hyperloop, a series of vacuum tubes that could transfer people in pods at speeds of up to 600 mph (970 km/h).