It doesn’t look like much now, just an old parking lot with a discarded gin bottle and some rained-on fast-food trash.

But this little slice of cracked pavement near the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington, D.C., could very well be the gritty precursor to Elon Musk’s dream. His dream is a tunnel network that could propel people-filled pods and speeding platforms topped with Teslas and other vehicles between the nation’s capital and New York City in less than a half hour.

Or it could just as easily remain an old parking lot littered with dashed futuristic transportation dreams.

Electric vehicle (EV) visionary and intragalactic pioneer Elon Musk has his eccentric eyes set on a new target: underground tunnels hosting a magnetically-levitating, electrically-propelled, high-speed transportation system called the Hyperloop.

Last year, the internet slammed Musk for his tweets in which he exclaimed he’d gained “verbal government approval” for his tunnel-digging firm, The Boring Company, to break ground on its “NY-Phil-Balt-DC” Hyperloop tunnel.

But government officials vehemently refuted Musk’s tweets, stating they’d granted no such thing, thus inciting the social media backlash against the billionaire entrepreneur.

But this time, it’s different.

Although everything is still in its preliminary stages, he at least has the approval in writing.

The Boring Company team has received an early but extremely vague building permit from the Washington government. The permit allows for some preparatory excavation work at the fenced-off parking lot on New York Avenue, amid the construction cranes of Washington’s booming neighborhoods.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser along with Washington’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has been in contact with The Boring Company to figure out what other permits might be needed to cut underneath city roads and other public spaces.

The New York Avenue parking lot location, if fully constructed, could become a station in a broad network of such stops all across the new Hyperloop system.

“We’re just beginning, in the mayor’s office, our conversation to get an understanding of what the general vision is for Hyperloop,” says John Falcicchio, Bowser’s chief of staff.

When asked whether or not the Bowser administration supports the Hyperloop project, he appeared somewhat upbeat but noncommittal, adding, “We’re open to the concept of moving people around the region more efficiently.”

Musk has received further support from the White House Office of American Innovation (OAI), led by Jared Kushner, and also backing from Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, whose administration practically rolled out the welcome mat.

Hogan and his administration have already provided a utility permit. However, more permits are still needed in order for any tunneling to begin.

Maryland officials say the tunnel would run under Maryland Route 295. The Baltimore-Washington leg would be the initial stretch of the East Coast Hyperloop system.

The overall concept of the system includes pods, carrying approximately 16 or so people, speeding around underground on electric sleds. Those same sleds would carry individual cars to and from numerous stations, too.

There would be a main “artery” of the system with numerous spurs connecting to various stations.

Elevators would take people to and from the tunnels. And the tunnels would be built relatively close to the surface without disturbing existing buildings and other structures. The stations would be modest affairs, too — numerous but nothing grand in scale like NYC’s Union Station.

The Hyperloop system will stand apart from the typical subway system because it will eliminate any wind resistance. The system will be vacuum-based, allowing for the fastest and most efficient underground transportation, compared to anything else currently in use.

The only slow part of the Hyperloop will be its construction. Tunneling is technically feasible, albeit slow and costly.

As for how to safely orchestrate the underground system of multiple high-speed pods, transportation experts say the challenges are legion.

It’s still unclear how long such a project would take, how much it would cost, what other approvals Musk and The Boring Company would require, and when a system like the Hyperloop could even enter service.

That’s all for now.

Until next time,

John Peterson
Pro Trader Today