Sadly, none of the stuff I've seen on Hyperloop addresses the civil engineering problems brought up by Alon Levy and others (<a href="https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/loopy-ideas-are-fine-if-youre-an-entrepreneur/" rel="nofollow">https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/loop...</a>). In short:<p>- The Hyperloop paper doesn't mention how trains would cross San Francisco Bay, or include a cost estimate for doing so. A new bridge? A new tunnel? Both would add greatly to the $6 billion cost estimate.<p>- That $6 billion estimate also assumes that elevated concrete pylons can be built for much cheaper than any other project, with no mention of how.<p>- The proposed track doesn't go to downtown LA; it ends at Sylmar, which is still ~25 miles from downtown and even further from most of the LA area. A 30 minute ride becomes much less exciting when it takes another hour or more to reach your real destination.<p>- With the proposed 30-second headway, the system's capacity is only about 25% of a high-speed rail line, and 30 seconds still violates the crap out of typical safety standards (you can't run trains too close together without risking a collision if you can't brake quickly enough).<p>- There are no intermediate stations; this is obviously a problem for the Central Valley, but it makes life inconvenient for plenty of other people too. Eg. someone in San Jose (pop. ~1 million, greater than SF's) would need to spend an extra hour or more getting to San Francisco vs. a station in San Jose itself.
Agreements secured do not a reality make. It's one of the very first steps, now to be followed by a whole bunch more. It's a misleading headline, and I reject the notion out of hand. Running up the "mission accomplished" poster now is ridiculous. Before it becomes a "reality", there are some much larger hurdles to clear. Once they overrun their budget by 2x, complete their environmental surveys, get each town to sign off on land rights, get their work insured, work out a deal with whatever transit unions there are along the way and open for business for real, then you can call it a "reality".
<i>One thing is clear: Hyperloop is here to stay — as long as these early prototypes function according to plan</i><p>Hmm, author might not be familiar with how prototypes work.<p>I think its a great idea though, hope they get somewhere with it.
Such negative responses. Isn't prototyping and actually just doing it part of innovation? I think it's great that this is being tried, and I hope that if it become a success they will extend the existing track to other cities.
So you could build dedicated infrastructure that within 25 years might meaningfully move people and/or goods between two points at 500 mph to 800 mph via a single tube. Or you can move to complete self driving cars and trucks that without the risk of human error could travel on the existing infrastructure (in many case 2 - 5 lanes wide) at 200 - 300 mph within the same timeframe or shorter.<p>I think self driving electric vehicles on the nation's roadways make the hyperloop at best something like Amtrak today in the US. Valuable and profitable only a few short routes/use cases.<p>EDIT: I do think we'll solve for 200 - 300 mph in 20 - 25 years. But insert 150 - 200 mph. The main premise is we're not going to build multi billion new infrastructure when a "good enough" solution is organically evolving. Same reason why we don't have high speed trains in the US.