A record: 3.7 km bored in a single run
On March 10, 2026, the Prufrock-2 tunnel-boring machine completed the longest continuous bore in the history of the Vegas Loop: 2.28 miles — about 3.7 km — in a single run, near the Westgate station in Las Vegas. The operation removed some 68,000 cubic yards of material (around 52,000 m³) using a continuous 7.7 km conveyor. To put that in perspective: a single bore of this kind would already cover more than the whole Bergen bike tunnel — and our 150 km network would represent about forty of them.
No one in the tunnel: machines operated from Texas
The most structural change is perhaps the least spectacular. The recent Prufrocks are designed for Zero-People-In-Tunnel: in normal operation, no worker is inside the tunnel, and the machines deployed in Las Vegas and Dubai alike are supervised remotely from headquarters in Bastrop, Texas. Expertise is centralized while the machines multiply — exactly the kind of automation that drives down the costs we detail on our technology page, with the added bonus of a jobsite safety argument.
Las Vegas: 11 stations and more than 4 million riders
The Vegas Loop remains the company's showcase. In spring 2026, the network counted 11 stations in service and had passed 4 million riders carried, with more than 16 km of tunnels bored, of which about 6.5 km are open to the public. The plan approved by Clark County authorities targets 109 km of tunnels and 104 stations, which requires more than 600 permits in all. In late 2025, the service also reached Harry Reid International Airport — at first via a partly surface-level route, pending the opening of the twin 3.6 km tunnels of the "Airport Connector." One thing Las Vegas already demonstrates: getting the permits often takes longer than digging, a lesson we build into our study process.
Dubai: the first project outside the United States
In February 2026, The Boring Company signed a definitive agreement with Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority to launch the Dubai Loop. The pilot phase calls for 6.4 km of tunnels and 4 stations for about US$154M, with drilling aimed to begin in the second half of 2026 — the time needed to obtain some fifty permits from about a dozen agencies. The full vision speaks of 22 km and a daily capacity of tens of thousands of riders. It is proof that the model exports beyond Nevada — a useful precedent for any city, Québec City included.
Nashville and Reno: the queue grows longer
In Nashville, the Music City Loop project is moving forward: test bores took place near the Vanderbilt University campus in fall 2025, and the company is deploying there a machine adapted to the region's limestone rock — a particularly interesting test for us, since Prufrock's performance in hard rock is at the heart of our geology page. In Reno, a feasibility study was commissioned for a possible tunnel to the industrial park of Tesla's Gigafactory — still conceptual, but telling of the demand.
The target that interests us: about US$2.5M per kilometre
The Boring Company's president, Steve Davis, put a number on the target: bringing the boring cost down to US$3 to 4M per mile — roughly US$2 to 2.5M per kilometre — within two to five years, notably thanks to the coming Prufrock 6 generation. At that level, digging would cost less than building a highway lane, according to him. This is precisely the order of magnitude on which our construction cost scenarios and our price comparison rest. An honest reminder: The Boring Company today digs tunnels for electric vehicles, not for bikes — our bet is to use the same machine for an even simpler use, as our how it works page explains.
The headwinds, without hiding them
Not everything is rosy, and saying so strengthens the credibility of anyone following this file. The company was fined by Nevada's occupational health and safety authority (US$112,000 in 2023) over the conditions on its jobsites, and in May 2026 Clark County tightened its requirements for fire safety, ventilation and emergency exits. Some observers also judge the ridership projections optimistic. A Québec project will have to aim higher than the minimum on these fronts — that is the spirit of our critiques and responses page: taking objections seriously rather than brushing them aside.
The bottom line. In 2026, The Boring Company shifted from curiosity to a company that delivers: a continuous drilling record, a network carrying millions of riders, a first international contract signed and a machine that no longer requires anyone underground. The targeted costs are approaching those that would make our project financeable.
Sources and further reading: The Boring Company — Dubai Loop · The Boring Company — Projects · Las Vegas Review-Journal · Interesting Engineering · Fortune · Wikipedia — Vegas Loop.