Elon Musk quotes $1 billion to tunnel under the Blue Mountains
A radical proposal to build a high-speed transit tunnel under NSW’s Blue Mountains has caught the eye of two billionaire entrepreneurs – including Elon Musk.
Elon Musk has used Twitter to quote on a Blue Mountains tunnel. Photo: AP/Chris Carlson
Independent NSW MP Jeremy Buckingham floated the idea on Twitter, asking the Tesla boss and the Australian Mike Cannon-Brookes how much it would cost to build a 50km tunnel to connect Sydney to the state’s west.
“About $15M/km for a two way high speed transit, so probably around $750M plus maybe $50M/station,” Musk replied on Wednesday night.
Cannon-Brookes, co-founder of Atlassian, said it “sounds like a bargain for Sydney”.
Buckingham has been pushing for the project since the 1990s, when he was a councillor in Orange in regional NSW.
He believes the tunnel, which would allow vehicles to be transported on platforms at high speeds, would help ease traffic congestion in Sydney and open up the state’s west.
“For about the price of knocking down one stadium, Elon Musk says he can build a transport loop for NSW that would be the envy of the world,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
“Autonomous, electric vehicles that generate zero pollution are the future of transport. It would be madness not to further investigate what could be an infrastructure and planning game changer for Sydney and our regions.”
– AAP
