Hyperloops are the new monorails
Monday, Dec 16, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Cleveland Plain Dealer…
A high-speed hyperloop line that could zoom passengers through a vacuum tube from Cleveland to Chicago and Pittsburgh could cost from $24.7 billion to $29.8 billion to build, depending on variations in the route and stops along the way.
But the profits and economic benefits would justify the expense and attract the substantial private investment needed to make it happen.
Those statements are among the key assertions of an 18-month, $1.3 million feasibility analysis scheduled for release Monday by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency and Los Angeles-based Hyperloop Transportation Technologies.
The report, led by TEMS, a consulting firm based in Frederick, Maryland, constitutes what the authors believe is the most extensive hyperloop feasibility analysis released publicly to date, anywhere, said NOACA Executive Director Grace Gallucci, who discussed some of the report’s core findings ahead of Monday.
A hyperloop system would consist of large-scale vacuum tubes with magnetic-levitation tracks that would carry capsules with 28 to 40 passengers at speeds of up to 760 mph.
First envisioned by entrepreneur Elon Musk as a high-speed alternative to other modes of transportation, hyperloop has yet to be proven safe for human travel. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, or HTT, is testing capsules on a track in Toulouse, France.
* From January of 2017…
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) may be a step behind its rival Hyperloop One but is making its own plans to go global — starting with an announcement today HTT has signed an agreement to explore connecting a hyperloop system from Slovakia to the Czech Republic.
That plan failed.
And nobody has yet achieved anything approaching that claimed 760 mph speed.
In other words, beware of promises from booster groups.
* Tribune…
The current study does not address where the stations would be, land acquisition or the cost of fares, though Gallucci said the goal is to make them affordable. She said stations, which could be downtown or at airports, would link to public transit.
* Duncan Black…
My whole life I’ve seen reasonable transportation projects derailed by insane ones
[Headline explained here.]
- Skeptic - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:19 am:
I wonder what the positive economic impact of spending $24B to stop climate change would be?
- Huh? - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:21 am:
Another pipe dream. (Pun intended)
- LTSW - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:23 am:
760 mph, I hope there’s some safety testing done. Not sure how I’d feel getting in a vacuum tube.
- Batman - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:25 am:
Laugh all you want, but brockway, ogdenville, and north haverbrook all have them and it put them on the map…
- Donnie Elgin - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:28 am:
Just fix/build roads.Both parties love infrastructure spending and Americans love their cars.
- efudd - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:28 am:
How’s about we get reliable, high-speed rail as a infrastructure mainstay first, before going all sci-fi.
Elon Musk thinking this is a good idea should be the first warning. Dude would make P.T. Barnum blush.
- DuPage Saint - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:29 am:
It is silly to waste money and time on this stuff. Just build the transporter it always works on Star Treck
- Anon III - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:31 am:
“Beam me up, Scottie!”
- Montrose - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:32 am:
I can put racing stripes and flame decals on Amtrak engines for half that price.
- Anon - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:33 am:
All kidding aside but I recently returned from a trip to Spain. I traveled from Madrid to my final stop on one of their new high speed trains - 180 mph and smooth as glass. I avoided taking a 6 hour bus ride or an expensive connecting flight that stopped in Africa. I have preached for years that this country needs to pursue these forms of transportation and make it a priority.
- Northsider - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:36 am:
Every time I see “hyperloop” I think of the Chicago New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Take a good, long look at that fiasco before committing public dollars to this one.
- 47th Ward - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:37 am:
Proven high speed rail technology exists now. See Europe, Japan and China. What the US lacks is the will to connect our cities via modern rail lines. If 200mph train lines existed, there’s be no reason to fly (much less drive) from Chicago to Minneapolis, Detroit, Cleveland, Indy, St. Louis or Omaha.
We need a 21st century complement to the Interstate Highway Act. That’s the kind of infrastructure project that would have incredible economic impact in metropolitan areas and in rural communities.
Think about it: if you could commute to Chicago for work, reliably in an hour, but live in Springfield, it would be a game changer for many people.
- lakeside - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:41 am:
My dreams of frequent, no-hassle travel to Cleveland are now one step closer to reality.
‘My whole life I’ve seen reasonable transportation projects derailed by insane ones’ - possibly the truest sentence ever written.
- Benjamin - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:44 am:
The difference between monorails and hyperloop is that one has many examples in operation, successfully doing the job it’s designed for, and the other is vaporware.
- Steve Rogers - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:45 am:
Why haven’t we implemented one of Gov. Rauner’s top ideas: build more canals.
You know, make American great again, 1824-style. /s
https://capitolfax.com/wp-mobile.php?p=38318&more=1
- Anon For Now - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:46 am:
Fast & reliable city to city and state to state transportation is nice, but if your local transportation options are not up to par then the facniest mode won’t matter. Focusing local and getting that up to ideal capacity (and routes) lets you better identify where your long-distance stations need to be.
- efudd - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:48 am:
Montrose, sir or ma’am, that is funny.
- Bruce (no not him) - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:49 am:
You had me at Monorail. Take my money.
- Bruce (no not him) - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:49 am:
forgot the /s
- ChicagoVinny - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:50 am:
We should build an escalator to nowhere, much more practical.
- Bruce (no not him) - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 10:51 am:
Elon Musk is building a tunnel thing in Las Vegas. But it is going to use Tesla cars underground. Not as cool as monorail. But almost. once again /S
- Lyle Lanley - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 11:00 am:
It’s more of an Wisconsin idea anyway.
- Anyone Remember - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 11:15 am:
Anon 10:33
Nixon designed Amtrak to fail, and America will never support such an effort (it would require separate track infrastructure, replete with messy property condemnations). Decades ago co-worker was hosting a Japanese student, and when told Chicago was a 4 hour train ride from Springfield, the student replied “I didn’t know Chicago was 700 miles away!”
https://www.wired.com/story/trump-budget-amtrak-nixon/
- Nick Name - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 11:21 am:
For the doubters, I’ll type slow: high. speed. rail. Re-read what 47th Ward wrote.
- Nick Name - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 11:27 am:
@Steve Rogers, thanks, I think, for what we were still enduring just a year ago. Wow.
- City Zen - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 11:28 am:
Forget hyperloops. Give me Aeronautical Disneyland.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/airlines/a28576498/nasa-jetport-lake-erie/
- Donnie Elgin - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 11:31 am:
“Proven high speed rail technology exists now. See Europe, Japan and China”
It failed in CA, and the places you point out are not Constitutional Republics with power sharing between the Fed Government and 50 very diverse states. Auto ownership rates in the USA are much higher than the counties you point out at 838 per thousand population.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2017/mv1.cfm
- Stones - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 11:41 am:
Regardless of the method of high speed transportation selected, land acquisition should be planned for now. The cost and availability of land is the biggest impediment to such a ambitious project going forward.
- 47th Ward - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 11:54 am:
===It failed in CA, and the places you point out are not Constitutional Republics with power sharing between the Fed Government and 50 very diverse states===
The Eisenhower administration created the Interstate Highway Act and I think it’s safe to say that that allowed auto ownership rates to skyrocket. No one is coming for your cars Donnie. But HSR has the same potential for economic transformation that the interstate highway system had. This isn’t about replacing cars, it’s about trading short-haul flights for cheaper, reliable transportation between cities.
- SAP - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 11:56 am:
Other than (1) They haven’t figured out how to make it travel 760 mph, (2) they don’t know if it is safe for human travel, and (3) they have no idea where they can build it, this sounds great.
- Huh? - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 11:57 am:
The problem with high speed rail in the US is who owns the existing tracks - the freight train companies. Their vested interest is moving loaded freight trains, not sitting on a siding waiting for the passenger train to pass.
IDOT rebuilt the tracks from Chicago to St. Louis to get up to 125 mph. Part of the agreement was that the passenger trains were to get priority over the freight trains. The only reason why the freight companies agreed was they got a two track line rebuilt for free.
The European and Japanese high speed trains are on dedicated tracks, purpose built for the 200 mph trains.
- dlapine - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 12:06 pm:
If they can get it to go 500 or even just 300mph, that’d be fine. It’ll be safe for human travel if it gets built, at least as safe as Amtrak. But SAP has a good point about where you can run a new line.
- 47th Ward - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 12:06 pm:
===The European and Japanese high speed trains are on dedicated tracks, purpose built for the 200 mph trains.===
That’s what the federal government needs to do. President Trump keeps talking about an infrastructure bill, and this is precisely what should be in it.
- @misterjayem - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 12:28 pm:
“Auto ownership rates in the USA are much higher than the counties you point out at 838 per thousand population.”
https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/sunk-cost-fallacy/
– MrJM
- Keyrock - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 12:47 pm:
Would hyperloops succeed in Illinois the way OODA Loops did?
- revvedup - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 1:05 pm:
So we can link the Hyperloop to the metro Chicago transit system, saving people so much time that they won’t mind waiting an hour for a Metra train to a suburb. Nevermind all the logistic, technical, and financial solutions yet to be found toactually build and operate the Hyperloop.
- Anon - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 4:49 pm:
I envision a system of paved pathways for motorized passenger tubes to move over (perhaps on wheels) to quickly get from Pittsburgh to Cleveland to Chicago.
- Anon - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 4:50 pm:
Also, why in the world would Chicago to Cleveland be the chosen location? Is there a significant underserved population that lacks the ability to move between Chicago and Cleveland at a sufficiently quick pace?
- MyTwoCents - Monday, Dec 16, 19 @ 5:40 pm:
Speaking as someone who has to occasionally travel to Chicago for work I would appreciate investing in some good rail infrastructure than some pie in the sky dreams that will never happen. Currently Amtrak is too unreliable to really be worth it to take to Chicago. But if it was quicker with better on time performance then in a heart beat I would take it over driving.
- swIll - Tuesday, Dec 17, 19 @ 2:17 am:
–For the doubters, I’ll type slow: high. speed. rail–
–How’s about we get reliable, high-speed rail as a infrastructure mainstay first–
–Think about it: if you could commute to Chicago for work, reliably in an hour, but live in Springfield, it would be a game changer—-
Didn’t we have that high speed rail thing already put in and paid (2 Billion) for, STL to CHI?