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You'll never be able to get from Baltimore to NYC in 20 minutes. You'll be able to get from the Hyperloop station in Baltimore to the Hyperloop station in NYC

You'll never be able to get from Baltimore to NYC in 20 minutes. You'll be able to get from the Hyperloop station in Baltimore to the Hyperloop station in NYC in 20 minutes. To get to/from the station from/to your place of residence/work will take most people another half hour on each side. So… more like an hour and 20 minutes. Yes, it makes living in Baltimore and working in NYC reasonable, but not easy as "20 minutes" implies. Not to mention the difference in housing cost would have to support the cost of travel. Who knows what a single Hyperloop ticket will cost but a 3-digit figure wouldn't surprise me, especially during rush hour. You could be looking at $3-$4k/month for a daily commute (which granted, is not too far from the difference in housing costs between parts of NYC and parts of Baltimore).

Retric 9y ago
40min each way is a common commute. Living 5min from Baltimore hyperloop station would give you 15mim on the other side for a 40min overall commute each way. If you are saving 2k/month on rent you could pay up to 50$ each way and break even. Though, I don't know what tickets would actually cost, that not ridiculous.
- mcguire 9y ago
  5 min from the Baltimore station is a very small real estate market.
  - Retric 9y ago
    The limit on the number of hyperloop riders is probably a larger limitation. 0.6 miles radius = 1 square mile which could have 50,000+ people.
teej 9y ago
The thing is, the exact customer you are describing already exists and takes the Accela. And that trip takes 2 hours one way! Cutting that by 5x would be transformative. Plus, lots and lots of commuters in the del-mar-va area are already used to 120min+ round trip commutes and I imagine NYC/NJ commuters are similar.
- mcguire 9y ago
  I thought one of the problems with the HyperLoop conveyor was that its capacity was limited in comparison with the alternatives.
mtalantikite 9y ago
Of course door to door wouldn't be 20 minutes, the article is clearly talking city to city, but 45 minutes sounds about reasonable to assume would be in the realm of possibility for a commute in this future. Sorry if I wasn't clear. I have friends that have moved upstate from NYC and spend 80 minutes door to door commuting via Metro North, while only being about 60 miles away. Baltimore is about three times the distance and in this future would take 1/2 the time. The metrics just change with something like the hyperloop.
mtotheizhphenom 9y ago
I tend to think of the pricing issue through the corollary of commercial air travel (or any "luxury" good really). At first the cost will be unmanageable for most, but over time (through investment from the rich first adopters) it gets more reasonable. Without doing the research I imagine it was a very long time between the first plane flying and the general public being able to fly cross country affordably. Thankfully knowing that ahead of time didn't halt the technological, legislative, and business innovation required for commercial air travel to reach ubiquity.

Retric 9y ago

40min each way is a common commute. Living 5min from Baltimore hyperloop station would give you 15mim on the other side for a 40min overall commute each way. If you are saving 2k/month on rent you could pay up to 50$ each way and break even. Though, I don't know what tickets would actually cost, that not ridiculous.

mcguire 9y ago
5 min from the Baltimore station is a very small real estate market.
- Retric 9y ago
  The limit on the number of hyperloop riders is probably a larger limitation. 0.6 miles radius = 1 square mile which could have 50,000+ people.

teej 9y ago

The thing is, the exact customer you are describing already exists and takes the Accela. And that trip takes 2 hours one way! Cutting that by 5x would be transformative. Plus, lots and lots of commuters in the del-mar-va area are already used to 120min+ round trip commutes and I imagine NYC/NJ commuters are similar.

mcguire 9y ago
I thought one of the problems with the HyperLoop conveyor was that its capacity was limited in comparison with the alternatives.

mtalantikite 9y ago

Of course door to door wouldn't be 20 minutes, the article is clearly talking city to city, but 45 minutes sounds about reasonable to assume would be in the realm of possibility for a commute in this future. Sorry if I wasn't clear. I have friends that have moved upstate from NYC and spend 80 minutes door to door commuting via Metro North, while only being about 60 miles away. Baltimore is about three times the distance and in this future would take 1/2 the time. The metrics just change with something like the hyperloop.

mtotheizhphenom 9y ago

I tend to think of the pricing issue through the corollary of commercial air travel (or any "luxury" good really). At first the cost will be unmanageable for most, but over time (through investment from the rich first adopters) it gets more reasonable. Without doing the research I imagine it was a very long time between the first plane flying and the general public being able to fly cross country affordably. Thankfully knowing that ahead of time didn't halt the technological, legislative, and business innovation required for commercial air travel to reach ubiquity.