By Kimball Perry, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – Imagine working eight hours every weekday in Columbus but living in Chicago or Pittsburgh and being home each night in time to walk the Magnificent Mile or chow down on the Steel City’s Primanti Brothers sandwich topped with coleslaw and fries — after a 30-minute or 15-minute commute.
Yes, a 30-minute commute in a tube to Chicago or 15 minutes to Pittsburgh at over 700 miles per hour.
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It sounds like science fiction but the Chicago-to-Columbus-to-Pittsburgh route is one of 35 international semi-finalists in the Hyperloop One Global Challenge. Hyperloop One, the California-based company holding the competition, aims to make the fast, easy shipment of people and goods via tube (below right) happen. The company says its transportation mode combines the speed of air with the reliability of rail.
“Columbus is the Midwest’s fastest growing area,” William Murdock, executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, said. “These are corridors we’ve have an interest in for a long time.”
At a station (above), passengers would enter a pod, like a small railroad passenger compartment, that seats about 6. The pod is placed inside the tube where magnets make it hover. That’s when the vacuum and forced-air in the low-pressure tube would send the pod on its way at speeds over 700 miles per hour. The Hyperloop, though, has no pilot and isn’t affected by weather. It can travel in tubes above or below ground.
The original list of 2,600 applicants from more than 100 countries has been cut to 35, with the Columbus-centered “Midwest Connect” plan among 11 U.S. entries picked as semifinalists. The 35 semifinalists represent 17 counties from six continents — sorry Antarctica — with finalists planned to be announced in May.