Hyperloop: A Reality or Pipe Dream?

Local officials from across the country traveled to DC in order to see the transit system.

US state officials from Texas, Ohio, California, and Massachusetts traveled to DC for Hyperloop One’s official US Launch, according to a report. Cities and states were tasked with creating the most feasible hyperloop routes for the future.

Hyperloop promises to provide quick travel between cities for passengers and freight while creating brand new infrastructure for the country.

“We can dream about putting a man on the Moon, and within a decade we actually made it happen,” said Shervin Pishevar, co-founder and executive chairman at Hyperloop One. “That’s what we’re inspired by.”

The technology isn’t cheap. Financial documents from Hyperloop One estimate the cost of a route from San Francisco to Los Angeles to be $13 billion.

“It is very difficult to build anything new in the US of scale,” Dean Wise, vice president for network strategy at BNSF Railway, said, “particularly when you go into port areas where there is many competing interests. And as someone who’s primarily privately funded, we have a billion dollars of hot money in our hand, ready to build some facilities on the West Coast. And we saw the five-year delays, the eight-year delay, and now nothing happens... When projects don’t get built at all, why should someone engage in that effort?”