Table of contents
Open Table of contents
Why publish the backlog?
Most blogs hide uncertainty. This experiment does the opposite: the research pack’s open questions are part of the product.
Sources of questions:
- YouTube comments on the Farzad tour (safety, satire, UX)
- Tony’s watch notes (
user-notes-tony-vegas-boring) - Exa expansion files under
20_expansion/exa/(leads, not gospel)
Related: main field notes · method
High priority
| ID | Question | Status | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | Authoritative passenger + station counts right now? | open | Official pages disagree (3M/8 vs 4M/11) |
| Q9 | Public map of tunnels/stations (built vs approved)? | partial | Hotlinked official figures on field notes; pack catalog 20_expansion/maps/; no free perfect TBC PDF of full network |
| Q10 | Clipping / easements under private land (NV + TN)? | partial | Company easement FAQ noted in pack (CLAIM-025); statutes still open |
| Q7 | Evacuation / breakdown procedures in a blocked tunnel? | open | Top comment concern |
| Q14 | Fire hydrants, smoke fans, Fire Marshal control — primary docs? | open | Safety credibility |
| Q20 | Primary confirmation of Harry Reid drop-off/pickup status? | open | Secondary LVRJ ~Dec 2025 limited drop-offs; do not over-claim “airport is live” |
Engineering / ops
| ID | Question |
|---|---|
| Q2 | Measured Prufrock advance rate (not 1 mi/week target)? |
| Q3 | Has <$8–10M/mile been achieved on a completed segment? |
| Q11 | Conveyor belt lifetime, failure modes, recovery teams? |
| Q12 | Spoil: truckloads vs tonnage; % into liners? |
| Q13 | Vehicle dispatch: central control vs simple signaling? FSD mods for tunnels? |
| Q15 | Real TBM cost (tour ~$1M at ~56:00 — likely needs verify)? |
| Q16 | Large multi-tunnel stations: cut-and-cover vs mined? |
Product / stations
| ID | Question | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Q8 | How many annex stations; how do riders experience them? | open |
| Q19 | Why “Loop” if maps are not circles? (branding / network / twin tunnels — no definitive quote) | partial |
| — | “Taco shop station” — surface twice, or annex drive-in? | open |
| — | Small drop-off: lift room vs portal to surface parking? | open |
| — | All tunnels bidirectional? Cross-passage spacing? | open |
Business / dual-use (speculative)
| ID | Question |
|---|---|
| Q4 | Music City Loop “privately funded” — who pays what? |
| Q17 | Do they sell utility capacity in tunnels (power, water, data, other)? |
| — | Water/sewer/oil dual-use — policy reality vs thought experiment |
Maps + airport (2026-07-23 pass)
Pack updates that feed this backlog:
- Maps catalog — Vegas ops vs vision, Nashville airport spine (
20_expansion/maps/) - Airport contrast — Nashville airport-first by design; Vegas hotel-first with layered airport status (field notes)
- New claims — CLAIM-021..025 (airport, naming, easement framing)
- Exa re-run — Q1, Q2, Q3, Q7, Q9, Q10, Q14 + map/airport/naming adhoc
How Exa fits
We ran a high-effort Exa pass over priority IDs and stored Markdown under the pack’s 20_expansion/exa/. That material is leads + extracts, not a second encyclopedia. Next iteration should:
- Promote only well-sourced bullets into claims with confidence upgrades
- Link 2–3 best URLs per question into this page as footnotes
- Drop dead or low-quality hits
- Land primary sources for Q20 (Harry Reid status) before upgrading CLAIM-022
Feedback loop
If you are reading this as a human editor: mark questions answered / still open / wrong question and push notes back into the pack’s 10_wiki/open-questions.md. The site is the display surface; the pack is the system of record.
Grok hub experiment · pack boring-company-intro