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The technical hurdles are enormous but they are nothing compared to the economic hurdles. Just look at the planned LA-SF high speed rails. It suffered delays a

The technical hurdles are enormous but they are nothing compared to the economic hurdles. Just look at the planned LA-SF high speed rails. It suffered delays and cost overruns over and over again. The latest figure of $68B most likely will not be enough[1]. And that is a garden-variety high speed rail that has been proven all over the world for decades. Hyperloop is completely unproven and requires construction of end-to-end airtight tubes. If a few hundred miles of vanilla high speed rail costs $70B and counting, how much would hyperloop cost? $500B? $1T? It'll never work economically. [1] http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-cost-final-20151025-story.html http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-c...

khuey 10y ago
Hyperloop boosters also seem to ignore that it will require the same sorts of right-of-way acquisition as high speed rail, which is an enormous component of both the cost and political difficulty of building HSR.
- jshevek 10y ago
  Some hyperloop proponents insist that right-of-way acquisition will be so much easier that that of a train, because the tube is elevated and might be engineered to have a small footprint of pylons. I think it remains to be seen whether it can actually be built in this manner. Regardless, there may be still be noise concerns and the problem of creating an unsightly above ground structure. Plus, the very idea of having one close by might be frightening for many.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  The original Hyperloop paper addresses this issue; HSR can't run down the middle of I5 for most of its length. I have no idea what the costs will be, but if you're going to attack Hyperloop for getting this wrong, it'd be a good idea to attack what they actually proposed instead of something different.
  - Gibbon1 10y ago
    The reason HSR rail wasn't routed down I5 is because the I5 corridor is unpopulated vs the HWY99 corridor which has several major cities.
    - greglindahl 10y ago
      HSR can't fit in the median of I5; if you're going to have to buy a huge chunk of land, sure, you'll run it where there are more people.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    That was part of the basis for low costs, the other part was that the original Hyperloop paper avoided the costs of connecting population centers by putting its termini far from the population centers it was supposed to service on either end. Of course, that makes it kind of silly to compare it as an alternative to HSR, whose high costs include acquiring land in the very expensive neighborhoods of the population centers it was supposed to serve, so that it would actually be a useful means of connecting population centers.
- Gibbon1 10y ago
  One thing I remember was the cost estimates for hyper loop vs the California High Speed Rail are an oranges to apples comparison. A significant and costly part of the high speed rail project is the commuter rail bit which requires of extensive/expensive work on right of ways in developed areas. And big engineering challenge is constructing tunnels to connect to the Los Angles basin[1]. A hyper loop system would need the same infrastructure to provide the same service[2]. [1] 14 mile tunnel under the San Gabriel Mountains. This is part of the reason they punted and decided to work on the northern section first. [2] The original design I saw for the hyper loop made it seem to be a way for wealthy people to get from their ranchetts north of Los Angles to the Bay Area.

khuey 10y ago

Hyperloop boosters also seem to ignore that it will require the same sorts of right-of-way acquisition as high speed rail, which is an enormous component of both the cost and political difficulty of building HSR.

jshevek 10y ago
Some hyperloop proponents insist that right-of-way acquisition will be so much easier that that of a train, because the tube is elevated and might be engineered to have a small footprint of pylons. I think it remains to be seen whether it can actually be built in this manner. Regardless, there may be still be noise concerns and the problem of creating an unsightly above ground structure. Plus, the very idea of having one close by might be frightening for many.
greglindahl 10y ago
The original Hyperloop paper addresses this issue; HSR can't run down the middle of I5 for most of its length. I have no idea what the costs will be, but if you're going to attack Hyperloop for getting this wrong, it'd be a good idea to attack what they actually proposed instead of something different.
- Gibbon1 10y ago
  The reason HSR rail wasn't routed down I5 is because the I5 corridor is unpopulated vs the HWY99 corridor which has several major cities.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    HSR can't fit in the median of I5; if you're going to have to buy a huge chunk of land, sure, you'll run it where there are more people.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  That was part of the basis for low costs, the other part was that the original Hyperloop paper avoided the costs of connecting population centers by putting its termini far from the population centers it was supposed to service on either end. Of course, that makes it kind of silly to compare it as an alternative to HSR, whose high costs include acquiring land in the very expensive neighborhoods of the population centers it was supposed to serve, so that it would actually be a useful means of connecting population centers.
Gibbon1 10y ago
One thing I remember was the cost estimates for hyper loop vs the California High Speed Rail are an oranges to apples comparison. A significant and costly part of the high speed rail project is the commuter rail bit which requires of extensive/expensive work on right of ways in developed areas. And big engineering challenge is constructing tunnels to connect to the Los Angles basin[1]. A hyper loop system would need the same infrastructure to provide the same service[2]. [1] 14 mile tunnel under the San Gabriel Mountains. This is part of the reason they punted and decided to work on the northern section first. [2] The original design I saw for the hyper loop made it seem to be a way for wealthy people to get from their ranchetts north of Los Angles to the Bay Area.