A groundbreaking form of transit could’ve been approved, but don’t expect it to break any ground soon.
Elon Musk said on Thursday he received government permission for his plan to build a gigantic underground tunnel for a high-speed transit system on the East Coast. If true, his Hyperloop vision could be brought to fruition, but skeptics point out bureautic loopholes the project faces.
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX tweeted he has informal approval for his Boring Company tunnel project to create an underground Hyperloop that travels to New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. It would take 29 minutes to travel from D.C. to NYC, Musk says.
Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2017
Still a lot of work needed to receive formal approval, but am optimistic that will occur rapidly
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2017
Governments at the city, state, and federal level are required to sign off on an infrastructure project of this scale. New Jersey would likely protest the plan since the state it bypassed entirely, Vox reports. Not to mention, the safety regulations for a transportation system that hasn’t proved it works yet.
Frustrated with above ground transportation, Musk jokingly started the Boring Company to avoid Los Angeles traffic. According to The Verge, it quickly evolved a serious mission to build a machine that can bore and reinforce tunnels simultaneously.
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