Enlarge / A view of the parking lot The Boring Visitor has permits to dig up (partially obscured by a tree, the parking lot on the left is for McDonald's). To the right is a mural that local cars editor Jonathan Gitlin hopes will not be destroyed. (credit: Google Streetview)

The municipality of Washington DC has tried a permit that will indulge Elon Musk's Boring Visitor to dig up a parking lot just north of Capitol Hill and just east of downtown. The lot, at 53 New York Avenue NE, is on a rented street proximal to a McDonald's, near the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

The Boring Visitor doesn't have permits to dig under any streets yet. But according to the LA Times, the city's Department of Transportation is working to find out what other kinds of permits the visitor would need to pass under municipality roads and public spaces.

The permit is an interesting step forward in a project that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO spoken vaguely last July. At the time, Musk tweeted that he had "verbal government approval" to build a New York-DC Hyperloop tunnel, although it was unclear who had issued such approval. The Boring Visitor later commented that it was engaged in discussions with local, state, and federal officials to make the project happen. In October, the visitor received official clearance from the state of Maryland to dig a 10.1-mile tunnel under the state-owned portion of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway using a utility permit (which is often easier for a state to grant). Still, spare permits would be required for any construction vastitude that limited scope.