This transit innovation could very well change our lives, so we're crossing our fingers that it becomes a reality soon.
Last Thursday, California tech company Hyperloop One announced during an event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., that it plans to connect 80% of the United States through electromagnetic tubes that will facilitate high-speed travel, reports NBC 4 New York.
A high-speed tube could transport passengers from New York City to Washington, D.C., for example, in just 20 minutes. We are seriously impressed: This is less time than it takes most of us to get to work — thanks, delayed subway lines. Currently, it takes just over three hours on Amtrak's Acela Express to travel from NYC's Penn Station to D.C.'s Union Station, and longer if you take the bus — about five hours if you don't run into major traffic. Around 83 million people would benefit from this East Coast route.
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The concept was originally proposed in 2013 by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. The goal is to start moving cargo by 2020 and passengers by 2021.
The really cool part is that this wouldn't even be a train in the vein of boring old Amtrak. Instead, passengers would travel on magnetically levitating pods moved by electric propulsion. With pods moving at over 700 mph, any cross-country trip would be possible within a five-hour timeframe. The longest proposed route is from Wyoming to Texas, spanning four states.
"Connecting the entire nation within five hours of each other, cities become metro stops," Hyperloop One cofounder Shervin Pishevar said at the unveiling.
Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the idea is more possible than it may seem. "The airplane was pie in the sky and the car was pie in the sky," Foxx said, according to NBC 4.
This may be true, but we'd still love to hear about the transport mode's safety features and price. After all, we've never traveled in a magnetically levitating pod. Plus, everyone should have access to convenient transportation, so we hope a ticket onboard this tube doesn't cost an entire month's food budget.
Hyperloop One is currently testing a 1,640-foot-long tube in the desert, outside of Las Vegas.
The future is here, guys.