
Elon Musk says he has a green light to build a NY-Philly-Baltimore-DC hyperloop - denzil_correa
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/20/16003766/elon-musk-boring-company-hyperloop-nyc-philadelphia-baltimore-dc
======
TheCoelacanth
"Verbal government approval" sounds like bullshit. There have to be at least a
dozen different governments that would need to be involved in a project like
this: the federal government, DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, NY state and a bunch
of local governments. Who would be able to give verbal approval for all of
them?

~~~
pjscott
You're right, of course, which is probably why he's tweeting about it: once
the public is sufficiently hyped about the hyperloop happening, it becomes
harder for those governments to say no.

~~~
Sangermaine
Your naiveté regarding transportation infrastructure projects (or hell, any
infrastructure project) is endearing.

~~~
dang
Please be civil when commenting here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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njarboe
For the Boring company to really get going and work like Elon Musk is dreaming
about, I think the laws for mineral rights (underground property rights) will
have to be modified in the US. Sort of like how the ownership of airspace was
modified when airplanes became a big thing. Imagine every airline negotiating
with all of the property owners they flew over for a coast-to-coast flight.
Air travel would just have not developed in the US.

Maybe below ground property rights should not be quite as absolute and people
would have to allow tunneling below a depth where disturbance to the near
surface is far below the background. They could receive some kind of
predetermined fee and/or rent. I hope America is still flexible to implement
such a legal change.

~~~
jccooper
Even within the current framework, it shouldn't be hard to acquire an
underground easement, by market or eminent domain. Shouldn't be very
expensive, either. A deep underground tunnel means basically no diminution of
property values. Subway and water tunnel projects tend to pay very small token
amounts (a few hundred dollars) for similar underground takings. Not quite as
streamlined as a "free groundspace" regime, but not a big obstacle.

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Tiktaalik
On the spectrum of likeliness to mean shit all, how does "verbal green light"
compare to Obama announcing $8 billion toward high speed rail (which was later
obstructed by republicans).

I can't help but think of this Simpsons scene whenever I hear Musk talk about
Hyperloop and the Boring company.

[http://imgur.com/a/KRmlS](http://imgur.com/a/KRmlS)

The guy has no skin in the game, and meanwhile he's building a car company
which does not benefit from increased public transit use. It's a sham folks.

~~~
mikeash
The Boring Company is meant to work with the road system by transporting cars
underground. It fits perfectly with his car company.

What's the nature of the supposed sham? It doesn't look like he's structuring
this company in a way that will let him take the money and run, so what's the
plan?

~~~
Tiktaalik
The sham is that he's creating hype in future nonexistent tech to distract
government officials from investing in current infrastructure that would
compete with automobiles.

Governments could build high speed rail right now and significantly improve
transportation options, but with the promise of some better Hyperloop system
in the future, they could be encouraged to hold off. Of course Hyperloop may
never appear at all.

Similarly with the Boring Company Musk is asserting that increasing road
capacity with tunnels will reduce congestion and improve the transportation
system, when in reality this issue has been studied at length and has been
proven false. Due to induced demand increasing road capacity simply encourages
more people to drive, which Musk would of course be in favour of. Yet again by
putting forward a zany idea and additionally hand waving about the future
promise of autonomous cars, Musk distracts government officials from real
transportation solutions that can be implemented today.

~~~
mtotheizhphenom
He's open sourced all of Tesla patents with the goal of accelerating the
transition to EVs. For that and many other reasons it's obvious his intentions
are pure. Not to mention failures in regard to high speed rail are nothing new
in the US. To think this "announcement" was derived to thwart those efforts is
delusional. Hope you find a way to channel your nefarious thinking toward
something positive.

~~~
Tiktaalik
EV patents are irrelevant to the discussion. EVs are still cars. Public
Transport offers an alternative to automobile based transportation. It is in
his best interest for governments to invest their infrastructure dollars in
automobile based infrastructure instead of alternatives.

~~~
mtotheizhphenom
Other car companies developing EVs are a bigger threat to Tesla than
government spending on high speed rail. Sorry you didn't make the connection.

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bogomipz
I would rather see an investment in Hyperloop instead of the "US tax payer-
subsidized but still overpriced and unprofitable" Amtrak service.

I imagine if this news is true it will get very political as Amtrak has
recently secured billions from the Federal Government for new trains, along
the same corridor:

[https://media.amtrak.com/2016/08/1610/?mc_cid=d3b3f1fecc&mc_...](https://media.amtrak.com/2016/08/1610/?mc_cid=d3b3f1fecc&mc_eid=874274a502)

Amtrak is largely a political problem with no will in Washington to fix. It
would be interesting to see what would happen if Amtrak had actual
competition.

Even if the threat of Hyperloop were the kick in the pants Washington needs to
fix Amtrak, Hyperloop would be a success. See:

[https://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2014/07/amtrak](https://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2014/07/amtrak)

~~~
apendleton
If they succeed, you'll likely get your wish in more ways than you bargained
for. The NE corridor is the only part of the entire Amtrak system that's even
close to solvent, and it subsidizes the rest of the system. This project would
take the bottom out of the part of the network that pays for the rest of it.
It would probably kill Amtrak, everywhere, even in places that will never see
a hyperloop.

~~~
bogomipz
>"If they succeed, you'll likely get your wish in more ways than you bargained
for. The NE corridor is the only part of the entire Amtrak system that's even
close to solvent, and it subsidizes the rest of the system."

Yes exactly, and that is the point being made in my Economist link. Amtrak
should be broken up. Why should commuters along the NE corridor be subsiding
the rest of it? In 1971 when Amtrak was founded this made sense but in 2017
with budget air travel it's to believe it still does.

Let Amtrak continue to operate the NE corridor and be profitable. But why
should they be protected from competition? Or stated a different way - why
should commuters be denied an alternative?

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pascalxus
Whilst, I'm always pro on anything that can ameliorate our transportation
network, I'd much rather see them connect areas where people work with areas
where people can live - I think this is the biggest problem of our times.
Optimize for the trips that are made the most frequently - people's commute to
work.

~~~
mtalantikite
If someone can get from Baltimore to NYC in about 20 minutes you're changing
the scale of where people can live and commute from. I have plenty of friends
that spend 45 minutes commuting from Brooklyn to Manhattan and I'd guess a not
insignificant number of them would be willing to live in Baltimore where
housing is cheap if they could get to the city in 20-30 minutes.

~~~
colanderman
You'll never be able to get from Baltimore to NYC in 20 minutes. You'll be
able to get from the _Hyperloop station_ in Baltimore to the _Hyperloop
station_ in NYC in 20 minutes. To get to/from the station from/to your place
of residence/work will take most people another half hour on each side. So…
more like an hour and 20 minutes. Yes, it makes living in Baltimore and
working in NYC _reasonable_ , but not _easy_ as "20 minutes" implies.

Not to mention the difference in housing cost would have to support the cost
of travel. Who knows what a single Hyperloop ticket will cost but a 3-digit
figure wouldn't surprise me, especially during rush hour. You could be looking
at $3-$4k/month for a daily commute (which granted, is not too far from the
difference in housing costs between parts of NYC and parts of Baltimore).

~~~
Retric
40min each way is a common commute.

Living 5min from Baltimore hyperloop station would give you 15mim on the other
side for a 40min overall commute each way.

If you are saving 2k/month on rent you could pay up to 50$ each way and break
even. Though, I don't know what tickets would actually cost, that not
ridiculous.

~~~
mcguire
5 min from the Baltimore station is a very small real estate market.

~~~
Retric
The limit on the number of hyperloop riders is probably a larger limitation.
0.6 miles radius = 1 square mile which could have 50,000+ people.

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abalone
Even IF this means there are magically zero problems with tunneling rights...
There's no way this gets approved without detailing fire safety.

Tunnel fires are NO JOKE. Especially with very, very long underground tunnels
with particularly narrow diameters and primarily (or exclusively) elevator-
based access. A thousand firefighting and evacuation questions there that I
haven't heard a single reporter ask.

~~~
aquadrop
If it's Hyperloop, there supposed to be very low amount of air in the tunnel.
That theoretically solves many fire problems.

~~~
abalone
The video does not illustrate an exclusively hyperloop system. But even if it
is exclusively hyperloop, what if there's a fire or toxic gas release inside a
pod and you have to escape?

~~~
aquadrop
Planes are dealing with this somehow, so I'm sure hyperloop can come up with
the solution.

~~~
abalone
My claim is not that The Boring Company and related government public safety
agencies can't figure this out. It's that the tunnel project is not going to
get approved without detailing fire safety, which is a BIG deal and probably
more complicated in terms of government approvals than "mere" tunneling
rights.

You mentioned planes. There are tons of regulations and engineering codes and
procedures and training and on-board safety personnel that go into making
airplanes fire safe. Including emergency landing and evacuation and
firefighting procedures which need to be reimagined for deep underground,
elevator-accessed tunnels.

Even the existing procedures for subway systems probably need to be reimagined
for deeper depths, narrower diameters and elevators which are the hallmark of
The Boring Company's approach.

And I should reiterate that the video shows cars using surface elevators and
riding on electric sleds, not a more tightly controlled hyperloop system. So
that further complicates safety.

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pizzetta
I'll be reservedly optimistic about this. Besides money, right of way is going
to have to be an issue. Hope DoT does all it can without having to get into
eminent domain much.

All the best, and please make up all the way to Boston.

~~~
peller
It sounded ridiculous the first time I heard it but trains actually have right
of way over cars/pedestrians... I wonder if those rights transfer if you could
buy up an old train line?[0] (Of course, a HyperLoop isn't as easy to just
drive over like train tracks, but if the tracks are already there, it's
actually the towns/taxpayers that are responsible for the cost of building a
safe crossing for cars/people.)

[0] The wiki article is pretty thin on details but it sounds like they do me:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-of-
way_(transportation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-of-
way_\(transportation\))

~~~
jsmthrowaway
> it's actually the towns/taxpayers that are responsible for the cost of
> building a safe crossing for cars/people.)

Depends. In some states, the costs are shared between the rail owner and the
locality (by law). Michigan is one of those.

~~~
peller
Ah okay. Certainly that sounds like the fairer way to handle it!

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voidbip
If this is true, what is needed to cement public confidence in this techology
is a quick and definite win. Maybe a tunnel between lower Manhattan and Staten
Island? Both landings are government owned and would greatly improve upon the
current 20 minute ferry ride across. It can also be the first link on the NYC-
DC route.

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saalweachter
If we could efficiently dig straight-line tunnels under the Northeast
Corridor, would it actually make sense to stick a hyperloop in them?

The reason trains are slow on (some of) the Northeast Corridor is because (1)
tracks aren't straight (2) population density means you're frequently running
through cities and (3) trains stop all over the place, so people can actually
get on and off.

The hyperloop sacrifices throughput for speed, but if you ran a conventional-
style train fast through straight tracks underground, you could still do DC to
NYC in 90 minutes or less, with a much higher throughput. Letting an order of
magnitude or two of people make the trip in 2-3 times the time seems way more
valuable than letting the smaller number make it faster.

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flexie
Ok, so let's say there is 350 km in an almost straight line. A great tunnel
boring machine excavates around 20 meters per day in average (80 m on good
days; next to nothing on other days). So that's 140 meters per week or 7 km
per year. With 10 of those he could cover the distance in 5 years. For one
tube. If he wants 2, 3 or 4 tubes, which would make sense on such busy
stretch, he would need 2, 3 or 4 machines more. Musk claims the Boring Company
will drill faster than traditional tunnel boring machines. If he could go
twice as fast, he could do with half the machines.

It's doable, I guess, but I think the regulatory obstacles, archeological
excavations, etc would slow it all down more than the machines.

~~~
DeBraid
EDIT: refers more to cost, and not directly time.

Musk claimed[1] existing tunnels are far too big/wide as they're over-
engineered for safety + regulatory FUD. Boring plans to reduce tunnel diameter
by half (from 28ft to 14), and then build a better machine to tunnel + support
the walls simultaneously. Estimates would reduce costs by ~10x.

[1]:
[https://youtu.be/zIwLWfaAg-8?t=3m10s](https://youtu.be/zIwLWfaAg-8?t=3m10s)

~~~
pcl
I would imagine that cost and time are pretty interchangeable on a tunnel from
DC to NYC, since you could simply add more boring machines all digging
different sections of the tunnel.

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otoburb
>> _" City center to city center in each case, with up to a dozen or more
entry/exit elevators in each city"_[1]

This alone will drive up required funding exponentially. Almost all of the
named city centers have onerous space, security and tunneling red tape that
will intuitively drives up the marginal per-mile costs the closer to the city
centers one tries to bore.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/888053729919877120](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/888053729919877120)

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syphilis2
I was surprised to hear this, since there's already a rail line from DC to
NYC. But maybe that's why they're so receptive, and 30 minutes is a whole lot
better than 3 hours. I hope this succeeds, I'd love to see some lines between
cities without rail connections.

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Robotbeat
Title should be changed. "Verbal government approval" doesn't imply green
light.

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haspok
Hyperloop? A concept for which not even one single working prototype exists?
And even if there was a prototype- who would pay for this? Dream on.

Why not fix the train instead - you know, in some other parts of the world the
high speed train is a reality, and works quite well.

~~~
Romanulus
Big Government seems to be really hooking into the trend of these new and
unproven tech trend, like solar roadways, because lets face it, it's a great
way to soak millions into great sounding/feeling things and run away while
everyone is still dreaming with their heads in the clouds.

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dzaragozar
Relevant Thunderf00t video discussing the hyperloop
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk)

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elchief
Such cynicism! This is super cool. This is 1950s sci-fi stuff.

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bane
It's more interesting in what this leaves out.

Suppose this happens, some cities like Boston become simple "suburbs" to a
more connected mega region.

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danr4
Wait, was that his plan all along?

I mean, is it feasible he released the idea of Hyperloop into the wild and let
other companies battle it out and spend an enormous amount of money on R&D,
only to build a "straightforward" company and sell it's "product"
(infrastructure) to Hyperloop and the others?

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janemanos
Think it will happen. Sooner or later

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evanwolf
No New Jersey city on the route?

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Zaskoda
The DFW/Houston/Austin triangle needs a hyperloop.

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trimal
I will wait till final confirmation. Maybe he forgot to mention to Trump it
won't be running with clean coal technology and it might get axed.

