The Tesla Tunnel
🚗 Utopian dreams of no traffic · Tunnel from BNA to downtown · The D7 field fills up · DCEC admin retires · Oh, Hi review · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone. Dreams of less traffic... More details on the Boring Co. tunnel... The District 7 field fills out... DCEC administrator Jeff Roberts retires... A movie review of a new rom-com cum horror flick.
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The Tesla Tunnels are cool, but let me be a curmudgeon for a moment.
The Boring Company describes traffic as "soul-destroying" on its website and promises to reduce it with its tunnels, turning a 15-20 minute commute to and from BNA into an 8-10 minute cruise underground. Does that include the line I have to wait in to get in one of the Teslas?
All this had me wondering to myself the limit to which I would accept some change in order to reduce time in transit like this.
I mean, where is that extra five minutes going to go? Am I going to bank up the saved time in my personal time bank and redeem it for an hour whenever the savings reach that level? Time obviously doesn't work like that.
Parkinson's Law Work expands to fill available time.
When I do go to the airport, I guess I could linger five minutes longer in my lover's arms. Maybe I could afford to be lazier in my haste to leave the house. But when I think about what I'm doing before I head to the airport, I'm mostly just gathering my things or waiting for a ride. Shaving off five minutes from this process seems... marginal at best. DAVIS HUNT
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🖋️ Edited by Megan Podsiedlik.
🔋 The Tunnel Is Coming Yesterday, Governor Bill Lee announced the Music City Loop, an underground rapid transit solution that will connect the airport to downtown with a transport time of about 8 minutes. The Boring Company, founded by Elon Musk, will solve a problem Nashville has wrestled with for years: how to efficiently move people to and from the airport without increasing traffic congestion. The company will break ground along state routes in about two weeks to create the underground loop at no cost to taxpayers.
The innovative project received support from U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, the Nashville International Airport, Nashville Music City Center, and the Greater Nashville Hospitality Association during yesterday’s announcement. Governor Lee also thanked Mayor O’Connell, who was not present at the event. “Our conversations along the way have been incredibly productive to get us to the point that we are today,” Lee said of his interactions with the mayor.
President and CEO of The Boring Company, Steve Davis, joked about how hard the bedrock of the area is in Nashville, but assured those in attendance that they’ve taken core samples and have the technology to cut through Music City’s solid foundation. The company is ready to start the hiring process immediately, and job fair listings will be posted on social media next week. The project is expected to be completed within two years. Davis also mentioned that they hope to offer other projects that connect commuters to the city in the future.
🗳️ Bulso Joins The Race In D7 The field continues to expand for the race to fill Mark Green’s vacated seat in the 7th Congressional District. The latest addition is State Representative Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood), who announced his candidacy over the weekend and filed his paperwork yesterday.
So far, nine Republican, five Democrat, and one Communist Party candidates have officially entered the race. Bulso will face the following Republicans in the primaries on October 7: State Representatives Jody Barrett (R-Dickson) and Lee Reeves (R-Franklin), former General Services Commissioner Matt Van Epps, Montgomery County Commissioner Jason Knight, Nashville Technology Business Leader Stuart Cooper, Army combat veteran Jon Thorp, J6er and former District 5 Congressional candidate Stewart Parks, and Franklin Republican Mason Foley.
As for the Democrats, the field includes a number of General Assembly members. Representatives Afytn Behn (D-Nashville), Vincent Dixie (D-Nashville), and Bo Mitchell (D-Nashville) have all filed their paperwork. Nashville Assistant District Attorney David Jones and political strategist Darden Copeland are also on the list.
The lone Communist Party candidate is Richard Grayson.
The candidate registration deadline is August 12, the voter registration deadline is September 8, early voting will be open from September 17 to October 2, and the General Election will take place on December 2.
📑 Nashville Election Administrator To Retire Davidson County Election Administrator Jeff Roberts is stepping down from his position in December after a decade on the job. Between population growth and redistricting in the county, Roberts has had his hands full during his tenure.
You may recall the Davidson County election data error in 2022 after district lines were redrawn. The mishap led to 438 miscast votes during early voting in the midterms. At the time, Roberts said that up to 3,687 voters could have been affected during elections that year. His office worked exhaustively to provide opportunities for those affected to recast their ballots.
With the potential for another pending adjustment to local districts if the council is cut in half by state law, Roberts’ successor will have their work cut out for them. According to the Banner, he wants to facilitate a smooth transition for his replacement. “I know when I came on, you had to jump into the deep end of the pool,” said Roberts. “And it might be better if we brought the next person on with a little less stress right off the bat.”
DEVELOPMENT
- Earls Restaurant Group lands $6.7 million permit for Nashville Yards (NBJ)
- Vanderbilt seeks San Francisco presence (Post)
- Townhome development prepped for east side (Post)
✹ REVIEW: OH, HI
Twilight and some Freddie Prinze Jr. teen movies notwithstanding, millennials never got their Hollywood rom-com. Blame the Great Recession or the rise of the type of indies that A24 typifies, but we grew up in an era when Seth Rogen was the closest we had to a bona fide leading man. Such may explain why Sophie Brooks’s Sundance crowdpleaser, for all its humor and high production value is, like many in the generation it aims to represent, afraid to fully commit.
In a premise as ripe for horror as breezy comedy, Molly Gordon (The Bear) and Logan Lerman (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) star as a couple in the early throes of coupledom who travel to a remote countryside Airbnb on their first major trip together. But when Gordon’s Iris realizes that she may not see the relationship the same way as her worse half, their idyllic retreat devolves into Coen Brothers-light mayhem.
A zany mishmash of 27 Dresses and Misery with a winky nod to Fifty Shades of Grey, Brooks’s film offers some truth about the self-doubt and posturing that has defined dating in the age of the swipe. Lerman exudes a hilarious upgraded beta energy while Gordon offers up a self-deprecating vulnerability that almost shakes off her “Nepo Baby Zohran fan” pretense enough to show she can carry a movie on her own.
Oh, Hi may lack the keen insights into a tech-obsessed world and its trust issues that Eugene Kotlyarenko brought to the similarly plotted The Code earlier this year. However, unlike many in the generation Brooks’s film caters to, it knows what is: a pleasant enough date night excursion in the waning days of summer.
Oh, Hi! is now playing in theaters.
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.
TONIGHT
🎸 Josh Hedley Happy Hour @ Dee's Lounge, 3:30p, Free, Info
🎸 Miracle Blood @ DRKMTTR, 8p, $12.16 Info
+ heavy noise-punk
🎸 Honky Tonk Tuesday @ Eastside Bowl, 8p, $10, Info
+ two-step lessons @ 7p, The Cowpokes @ 8p
📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
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Today's newsletter is brought to you by Megan Podsiedlik (Nashville), Jerod Hollyfield (Crowd Corner), Camelia Brennan (Local Noise), and Davis Hunt (everything else).