With permit to dig, Elon Musk’s plan for a 29-minute ride between NYC and D.C. inches forward
The tunnel-digging machine; photo via The Boring Company
The Boring Company, led by Elon Musk, received a building permit this week from the Washington, D.C. government, potentially jumpstarting the tech entrepreneur’s plan to bring a high-speed tube system between New York City and D.C. Although Musk said last summer he received “verbal” approval from officials, the new, written permit allows preparatory and excavation work to begin on a parking lot on New York Avenue in D.C., the Washington Post reported. The Hyperloop One would be able to take passengers from NYC to D.C., with stops in Philadelphia and Baltimore, in just 29 minutes via a tube moved by electric propulsion.
On Hyperloop One, riders would board magnetically levitating pods that can travel more than 700 miles per hour. Once passengers are loaded into a pod, which can fit about 16 people each, it would gradually accelerate through a low-pressure tube. The pod then lifts above the track using magnetic levitation and moves at airline speeds.
Talks of the Hyperloop are just beginning between Musk and D.C. officials. D.C. Mayor Murial Bower’s chief of staff, John Falcicchio, told the Post: “We’re just beginning, the mayor’s office, our conversation to get an understanding of what the general vision is for Hyperloop.”
Designs for Hyperloop stations are expected to be much more simple than D.C.’s Union Station or Grand Central Station in NYC. A spokesperson for Boring said, “Stations in a Loop or Hyperloop system are small in size and widely distributed in a network. [That’s] very different from large-station [terminals] considered for train systems.”
[Via Washington Post]
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