In a tweet, billionaire inventor Elon Musk says that the Boring Company has received a verbal okay to begin work on a tunnel connecting New York and DC.
The train tunnel would be the largest ever constructed spanning 220 miles between New York City and Washington DC.
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
City center to city center in each case, with up to a dozen or more entry/exit elevators in each city — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2017
Of course, we don't know what "verbal approval" entails or when Musk's company could even begin work on the tunnel. It will likely be a couple of years before work can truly begin on the tunnel.
Elon Musk's New Company
Musk is known for several things, most notably, as the founder of SpaceX and Tesla. He's recently started a new venture called the Boring Company, which focuses on a digging company. A digging company certainly sounds less interesting than building rockets or luxury electric cars, but Musk's latest venture has the potential to revolutionize travel between two of America's largest cities and help out with our pollution problem.
The proposed train, called the Hyperloop, would allow commuters to make the 220-mile journey in less than half an hour. This is much faster than driving and likely a lot cheaper than buying a plane ticket. In terms of pollution, this would likely substantially reduce traffic along the interstates between the two cities.
Currently, options such as Amtrack do exist to provide consumers with a means of train travel between many of the East Coast's largest cities, but Amtrack does not have the best reputation in terms of reliability and consumer convenience.
Musk's ventures, despite some setbacks suffered by SpaceX and Tesla, have proven themselves to be reliable. One potential issue is that Teslas are not cheap cars, so there is some concern that tickets for the Hyperloop may be expensive, but cars are very different than trains. The losses that the Boring Company might incur from the cost of construction could be made up in the volume of ticket sales. Electric cars have not yet caught on, so it makes sense that Telsa would sell them at a premium.
As of right now, Musk has only discussed his plans in relation to the East Coast, but Musk does little by half measures. After all, this is the man who wants to build a colony on Mars. If this train turns out to be a success, it is possible we could see a new series of trains connecting America's largest cities. If so, this could go a long way toward reducing the number of cars currently on the road.
