With or without Elon Musk’s participation, local transportation officials are purposed to proceed with the underground shuttle system that would carry passengers between a Rancho Cucamonga train station and Ontario airport that the quirky billionaire proposed to construct more than four years years ago.
In May 2020, through one of his corporate holdings, the Boring Company, Musk proposed excavating a 2.8-mile underground tunnel linking Rancho Cucamonga to Ontario International Airport, and then using modified Tesla Model X electric vehicles to convey passengers through the tunnel at speeds reaching more than 100 miles per hour.
Musk, who initially earned his fortune as a cofounder of the on-line money exchange system PayPal, is the founder of the Tesla automobile company and the founder of the private sector space exploration company SpaceX.
As originally conceived, Musk’s brainchild was to serve as the final span in the transportation system that is intended to link Los Angeles with Ontario Airport. A significant portion of that yet-to-fully-achieved transportation mode – composed of a light rail system known as the Metro Gold Line – already stretched at that point 24 miles eastward across Los Angeles County from Union Station to Azusa. The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority Board in Los Angeles County is committed committed to extending it to Pomona and ultimately Claremont. Before reachin Claremont it is to be extended to a station now under preparation in Glendora. There was an understanding at one time that the Gold Line, now sometimes referred to as the A-Line, would cross into San Bernardino County, with the first extension to be completed terminating at the Montclair Transit Center. Thereafter, it was to eventually reach Ontario International Airport and then, by mid-century or beyond, extend out to San Bernardino, Redlands and Yucaipa and by the late 21st Century, all the way to Palm Springs. In 2019, however, at the prompting of San Bernardino County Transportation Executive Director Raymond Wolfe, San Bernardino County transportation officials abandoned the construction plans on the east side of the San Bernardino County/Los Angeles County line at the Claremont/Montclair border.
While there is the potential that at some point San Bernardino County transportation officials will renew their joint efforts with Los Angeles County transportation officials to undertake a continuation of the Gold Line/A-Line from its eventual terminus at the county boundary and take it to Ontario Airport and beyond, at this point those plans are on indefinite hold. Over $1 billion has been expended extending the Gold Line, consisting of a light rail train on two separate tracks running generally east west, currently to Azusa.
The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority, as its name implies, is San Bernardino County’s regional transportation agency. With a board composed of representatives from all 24 of the county’s cities as well as its five county supervisors, the agency, known by its acronym SBCTA, is charged with managing the expenditure of Measure I money. Measure I was first passed by San Bernardino County’s voters in 1989, providing for a half-cent sales tax override countywide, with the proceeds dedicated to paying for road improvements.
Another commuter rail system running from Los Angeles County into San Bernardino County – MetroLink – already exists and that there is an existing freight-carrying rail line linking the two counties as well. MetroLink commuter trains, however, run at a rate no more rapidly than one every 72 minutes, considerably less frequency than the Gold Line, which has with departures and arrivals every five to seven minutes during peak commuting hours and every 12 to 15 minutes during off-peak hours. Because of that, ridership on the MetroLink is relatively poor and Gold Line use is approaching capacity on its current schedule. If the goal of transitioning commuters from their automobiles to trains is to be effectuated, these advocates say, the Gold Line needs to be completed.
In the meantime, Assemblyman Chris Holden (D-41st District) and State Senator Anthony J. Portantino (D-25th District), whose districts straddle east Los Angeles County and west San Bernardino County, introduced legislation aimed at providing financial mechanisms to complete the faster rail travel methodologies in the region, most notably the Gold Line. With the Gold Line project have stalled out, however, Elon Musk, without actually having been asked to, in 2020 leapt into the breach and acting entirely on his own initiative had one of his corporate entities, the Boring Company, provide the San Bernardino County Transportation Agency with a proposal to undertake the underground tunnel project, one that would either use, partially use or parallel the existing flood control channelization constructed decades ago by the Army Corps of Engineers, and run from a station near Foothill Boulevard and the Day Creek flood control channel in Rancho Cucamonga to Terminal 2 at Ontario International Airport. That would have in some fashion dovetailed with the efforts to extend the Southern California region’s west-east commuting options that had at one time centered on the Gold Line extension, ultimately to Palm Springs.
Musk calculated the Rancho Cucamonga to Ontario Airport project could be completed for $60 million, largely because the purchase and monopolization of above-ground real estate would be bypassed and no construction of a rail system or purchase of trains would be necessary. Off-the-shelf or adapted Tesla Model X vehicles were to be used to provide transportation.
He proposed that a Musk-owned company operate the system.
In 2022, for reasons that are not altogether clear, Musk and Boring abandoned the project. Still, San Bernardino County Transportation Authority decision-makers remain convinced that Musk’s approach represents a far less-costly means of creating a usable public transportation system between Rancho Cuamonga and Ontario Airport than a rail system. One estimate is that extending the Gold Line to the airport would cost at least $1.1 billion and more likely closer to $1.5 billion.
On Wednesday, November 13, the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority will conduct an online public hearing that is to begin at 6 p.m. in which a proposal to .,as it evaluates the project’s
. Residents can share their opinions next month on a construct a 4.2-mile underground shuttle system running from the Rancho Cucamonga rail plaza to Ontario Airport, one that will cost in the neighborhood of $538.5 million to complete, will be previewed. Thereafter, input from any who are logged in with regard to the project, extending to potential environmental impacts, including those on the general ambiance, ground stability, air quality, flora and fauna and any random or specific consideration, will be invited. What is known at present about the plan is it will use what are termed “fuel-free-autonomous, zero-emission shuttles” to carry passengers, luggage and baggage through a tunnel 65 to 70 feet beneath or below and paralleling Milliken Avenue and East Airport Drive that is to stretch between Rancho Cucamonga’s Metrolink Station, which is ultimately to become a station for the high-speed train linking Southern California with Las Vegas, and Ontario International Airport.
Unless Musk agrees to return to the fold and have his company become involved again, Omnitrans, San Bernardino County’s public transportation agency which runs the area’s busses, would operate the system.
An 18,000 square-foot station and an adjacent maintenance facility are set to be built at the Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink Station in Rancho Cucamonga. Additionally, two 10,000 square-foot stations would be constructed at ONT, located across from terminals 2 and 4 in the city of Ontario.
Under the California Environmental Quality Act, a draft environmental impact report has been prepared for the project. In addition, in compliance with the the National Environmental Policy Act, an environmental assessment has also been prepared. Both the California and the federal documents are available for public review and comment between October 18 and December 2, 2024. All input must be received by December. 2, for consideration during the environmental phase. To Visit  goSBCTA.com/ONTConnector  To view the draft environmental impact report and the environmental assessment or to find a list of locations with printed copies publicly available, visit goSBCTA.com/ONTConnector.
San Bernardino County transportation officials invited members of the public to attend the on-line hearing on November 13 or peruse the environmental documents as “an opportunity to learn more about the project and the environmental studies, and to provide feedback.”