Not content with simply sending men to Mars and conquering the automotive industry, billionaire Elon Musk has plans for a tubular transportation system that would dominate the globe.
The Hyperloop has been considered closer to science fiction since the idea’s introduction, but a new plan from the UCLA Architecture and Urban Design Suprastudio shows how the system could actually come together.
According to the UCLA presentation, “Hyperloop is a unique transportation technology based on centuries-old pneumatic tube principles, promising to provide ultra-clean, ultra safe, affordable, intra-urban travel at super-high speed.”
And while much of the report is centered on Southern California, particularly a Los Angeles to Las Vegas route, Texas’ megaregions feature heavily in the eventual Hyperloop plans.
Texas contains two of these “dense and interconnected centers of populations and economic activity.”
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The report, which can be read in full here, put the Hyperloop system in its historical place and takes into consideration the current successes and failures of air and rail travel.
See here for the background. I don’t have anything to add here. I don’t expect this to amount to anything, though it would be cool if it did. Most likely I think people fifty and sixty years from now are going to look at this stuff and react to it the same way we do to “flying car” newsreels from the 1950s. The Trib has more.