* 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.]