3 ms·

Neat idea but I just don't see how it's cheaper than a high speed rail project?

• apendleton 13y ago
  Agreed -- seems like you'd have higher construction costs, higher energy requirements, and similar right-of-way concerns.
• dkrich 13y ago
  My only guess on this is max capacity. Theoretically if the tube were large enough you could run a few of these a day and carry thousands of people on each one. If you can get the energy consumed per passenger way down, then costs may decrease and a ticket could be much less expensive. If you could travel hundreds of miles in a half hour, you might make a lot more trips. Changing the cost structure and timing dramatically would change the way people think about long distance travel from something you do once in a while to being as common as going across town for an afternoon. Obviously this is all far-fetched given today's technology, but I'm just letting myself daydream.
• aetherson 13y ago
  I agree -- I don't think that any kind of tunnel or tube approach can be done more cheaply than HSR. And I venture to predict that if it is a tunnel or tube concept, it won't succeed in linking LA and SF. That said, if we take Musk at something close to face value, it has a major advantage that the HSR doesn't: it would be faster than the air route. That would give it at least a fighting chance to draw extremely high ridership and make up for high costs with high revenue. And if the idea is basically sound, but the implementation is impractical on the SF-LA corridor, then it could be put into use in some other intercity connection with more favorable terrain and lower land costs.