Sustainable Transportation Lab

April 4, 2016

The “fifth mode” – Hyperloop, transportation, and urban development

Yanbo Ge

Yanbo Ge

Hyperloop could be happening

When Elon Musk started talking about the super futuristic transportation mode Hyperloop for the first time in 2013, I think a lot of people must have felt like those hearing the idea of aircraft in 1910 when the Wright brothers first introduced it to the world. It just sounds too Utopian: using two massive tubes stretching between San Francisco and Log Angeles with pods carrying passengers traveling over 700 miles per hour, one way trip between SF and LA in only 35 minutes. In the white paper on Hyperloop, Musk stated that this new transportation mode would be safer, faster and cheaper at the same time.  There has been a lot of skepticism about this idea on cost, scale, feasibility of Hyperloop as a passenger transportation mode. The usually-reserved Economist once even predicted it would be a “barf ride”.

However, the recent press on Hyperloop technologies makes me think that traveling 700 miles per hour in a new transportation mode like a vacuum cleaner, could be not that far away! Earlier this year, SpaceX sponsored a Hyperloop pod competition, inviting students from universities to design Hyperloop vehicles and the competition just ended at the end of January. More than 115 student engineering teams from all over the world participated in this event and generated some designs that were “really amazing” according to Musk’s comments, which made him think hyperloop “is really going to happen”. UWASHINGTON HYPERLOOP, the team from University of Washington, was in the race and received the Safety Subsystem Technical Excellence Award. In this summer, the next phase of Hyperloop testing will begin, which will involve students teams designing and testing human-sized pods that could someday transport people at hundreds of miles per hour inside an above-ground tube.

Besides Mr. Musk, some commercial ventures are working on their own prototype transit systems and making great progress recently as well. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), one of the companies that aim to realize Musk’s vision signed a deal with the government of Slovakia to connect three countries in Europe together with a 43 minute Hyperloop system: from Vienna to Bratislava, Slovakia to Budapest. A couple of days ago, it was reported than Hyperloop Technology Inc., another company intent on bringing Hyperloop to real life was approved tax incentives of an estimated $9.2 million from state officials. This technology may be evolving faster than we thought.

What if it happens – implications on urban development and travel demand  

If things work out according to the sketch by Musk, this new transportation mode will be too good to be true: faster, safer, cheaper and more convenient – this will make plane and sometimes driving appear obsolete for many trips. According to the route proposed in Hyperloop alpha, the stations could be built in the city centers: this will save more time for the travelers since they do not have to get to the airports. Imagine you live in Portland and work in downtown Seattle, it would take you only 16 minutes to get to work, faster than driving from University District to downtown Seattle in rush hour. With the reduction of travel cost, the very concept of a commute will have to be redefined.

All of this sounds great and it appears impossible to do any harm to the cities and transportation system, but after all, every technology has its downsides. When we are able to shorten travel time, the travel demand will increase accordingly, which could potentially increase transportation energy consumption. Even though Hyperloop may be able to self-power by installing solar-panels on top of the tube, this approach does not apply in every situation. If the vision by Mr Musk is realized within the estimated cost frame, it is not hard to imagine broader applications of Hyperloop besides interstate travel. It can dramatically change the accessibility of cities, which could induce the redistribution of residential areas, employment locations and the structure of jobs-housing balance. With a Hyperloop to Seattle downtown, Leavenworth, which is 135 miles away from Seattle, could become the new suburb of Seattle. Urban sprawl could be increased to a whole new level.