The Vegas Loop has lost one potential stop on its route, with UNLV deciding to put the brakes on adding a station to its campus, citing parking enforcement difficulties and concerns with people abusing parking availability.
Interim President Chris Heavey told members of the Nevada System of Higher Education’s Board of Regents on December 4 that the university has officially declined the Boring Company’s offer to build a station on campus for free.
University officials did get permission from the regents to sell part of a parking lot east of University Center Drive between Tropicana Avenue and East Naples Drive to the Boring Company so it can tunnel underneath it. The tunneling would be about 50 feet underground, said Heavey, and no disruptions to campus activities or traffic are expected.
Elon Musk’s The Boring Company is aiming to install 68 miles of tunnels underneath the city with 93 stations, including stops at Allegiant Stadium, the Las Vegas Medical District, Fremont Street, various Strip hotels, Chinatown and near the Harry Reid International Airport. Currently, it has completed eight stations in the Strip corridor—five at the Las Vegas Convention Center, one at Resorts World in 2022, another at Westgate in January 2025 and the most recent one at Encore in April.
Students remain concerned about the approved plan for the Boring Company to tunnel underground near the university.
“The company’s recent business and community malpractices have caused great concern for myself and members of the graduate professional community here at UNLV,” said graduate and professional student body president Devin Lopez, who spoke at the December NSHE meeting. “I believe that rushing through this process will put students, faculty and staff’s health in danger if the company continues operations as it has done in recent years.”
In January, ProPublica and City Cast Las Vegas reported the Boring Company had allegedly worked to evade county and state oversight requirements for environmental and labor matters, showing videos from a Clark County official documenting water waste from a Boring Company worksite near UNLV spilling onto a public street.
The Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 2023 fined the company more than $112,000 after an investigation following worker complaints of “‘ankle-deep water in the tunnels, muck spills and severe chemical burns.”
Nevada state regulators have since accused the Boring Company of violating environmental regulations nearly 800 times in the last two years, according to an October 10 story from ProPublica and City Cast Las Vegas.
“The Vegas Loop is a unique, first-of-its kind system designed to help relieve congestion in the resort corridor,” the county said in a February 2025 email to the Las Vegas Sun.“It is subject to compliance with existing fire and building codes, and Clark County has been working with the Boring Company to add additional safety enhancements for the public and emergency responders as the system expands. These additional measures include placing response vehicles in passageways inside the tunnels, upgrades to camera software for an additional layer of fire/smoke detection inside the tunnels, ongoing evaluation of tunnel sprinklers, and ongoing monitoring and training of drivers.”
It was also revealed by Fortune in November that three citations issued from Nevada OSHA to the Boring Company for Clark County firefighters burned by chemicals were suddenly withdrawn after a company official met with senior state officials.
Several years ago, talks began between UNLV and the Boring Company about connecting the main campus to the Vegas Loop “Teslas in tunnels” project by erecting a station on a part of the Thomas & Mack Center parking lot.
The Board of Regents in 2023 approved two separate intents to sell land and easements to the Boring Company, first for a spot on the Maryland Parkway campus and another alternative site on Paradise Road.
Negotiations continued through 2024 and early 2025, but a final purchase and sale agreement was never reached and the Boring Company notified UNLV in May 2025 that it would not continue pursuing a location at the Paradise campus location, according to a briefing paper given to regents.
In an email to the Las Vegas Sun from February, county spokespeople confirmed the Boring Company had broken ground on tunnel work that would connect the convention center to a station at a lot on Paradise Road and University Drive near the Thomas & Mack. The line is also planned to connect with a station being built at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas.
“We’ve had quite a few discussions with the Boring Company, including contemplatingputting a station in the Thomas & Mack Center parking lot, and our team, after considering the various pluses and minuses of that, decided to simply recommend an underground easement,” said Heavey. “We do see this as an important community project which has been supported by the county; which is supported by the (Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority); and which potentially has many benefits to the residents of Southern Nevada.”
Heavey said that one of the main reasons UNLV turned down the offer to build a station on campus was because parking service does not connect directly to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles, which means the types of tickets given to people aren’t enforceable beyond UNLV’s campus boundaries. Because of that, concerns arose regarding how to manage parking that might be associated with the station.
Heavey added that university officials were also worried that the Thomas & Mack Center’s parking lot could become a “free parking lot for the airport,” where people might leave their cars and access the airport using the Vegas Loop.
Tickets being unenforceable beyond the campus borders means that problem would leave the university with “very little ability to control that.”
As part of the UNLV community, Lopez is concerned about the alleged environmental violations and public health and safety risks, pointing to the “green sludge pool” that had been left after the Boring Company was caught dumping drilling and construction fluids off Paradise Road.
Though the pool has since been removed, Lopez explained to regents that there has yet to be a scientific analysis of how those chemicals could impact the health of residents, students and employees at businesses in the area—including UNLV.
He also criticized the Boring Company for alleged “corruption of elected officials” and the chemical burns sustained by the firefighters in the tunnels.
Tyler Fairbanks, a manager of the Boring Company, told regents that “it’s extremely important” to get UNLV students excited about what they’re building, and explained that third-party environmental inspectors check on their construction sites every week to ensure regulations are being followed.
“We’re absolutely committed to ensuring that we are environmentally compliant, that we are compliant from a safety stand point. It’s actually the most important thing for our company,” Fairbanks said.
