See, I like Elon Musk. A lot of people do. His ideas are pretty great, and the things he’s put into actual practice, also great. Teslas are almost at a price point where a middle-class family can afford one.[1] SpaceX seems to be on its way. I think the great ideas are why a lot of people don’t really look too deeply at some of the things he promises, why some scientific conventions pay him a bundle to speak at the expense of other programs (the AGU, for example, did this last year, inviting him and Al Gore and skimping, I thought, on some of the science outreach stuff), and stuff like that.
Like the Hyperloop.
He proposed it a couple years ago as a back of the envelope kind of operation. The essentials were he could build a vacuum pod system that’d transport people between a location in Silicon Valley or the East Bay to Los Angeles in under an hour and it’d cost only $6 billion[2]. There’s a context here too. California is currently the only state that is actually building a TGV-style High-Speed Rail, approved by its voters in a referendum. The other 49, even liberal places like New England and the Pacific Northwest, either aren’t interested or are actively hostile to it. The cost to construct over 30 years is quite a bit; at last estimate, it was somewhere north of $68 billion[3]. Musk is a substantial critic of it.
The hyperloop concept itself is not a new idea. It is a type of vactrain, and the first proposals for those appeared in 1812. They periodically have popped up since then, including a type in New York City, the Crystal Palace in London, and Switzerland. There’s apparently a vaporware version somewhere in China. Hyperloop is just the latest.
Musk made his idea open-source and there are several “competitions” going on to build one. They’re popping up as startups and at universities all over the world. Hyperloop One wishes to build a route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is building a test track in an imaginary town[4] called Quay Valley. HTT seems to have convinced at least one European government (Slovakia) that they’re legit. Transpod is a Canadian company. SpaceX is sponsoring the competitions. So far, I’ve no objections. His idea is actually creating jobs. Good for him.
But not enough people are asking the right questions. Musk wants his pods (which would only carry a handful of people) to travel 700 miles an hour in a 350 mile long sealed vacuum tube with 30 to 90 second headways. He assumes he’ll get the right of way from the state for free (this would never happen). It somehow will have to either bore through the mountains bounding the Los Angeles Basin or go up over them and down. In addition, it will cost only $7.5 billion at the max. Okay. Sure, Elon. [5]
And there are more questions: will it be comfortable? (It’s jokingly called the Pukerloop amongst engineers who can do math and know things about acceleration.) Will it serve more than two communities? (CAHSR will probably do its best work serving the Central Valley of California. Hyperloop would use it as a pass-through. Like flyover country.) How would the tube stay sealed and at a near-vacuum in a state that vibrates many, many times a day? Would it even be safe in a large earthquake, as it will have to cross the San Andreas and San Jacinto to descend into Los Angeles. Would it be quiet? Would costs cover its construction and operation since we don’t allow public transportation entities to also be property developers, giving them a huge revenue source like they do in Japan and much of Europe, doubtful. Would passengers even be able to board and exit the pod in fast enough time to meet the headways?
And one key question: will it go 700 MPH?
The answer apparently is no (at least not yet).
The test by Hyperloop One (which has collected a whole bunch of investors, an impressive list that includes some of the biggest engineering firms in the world), which occurred earlier this month, was basically a test vehicle, accelerated along an open-air track, up to 300 miles an hour, generating what would be an uncomfortable 2.5Gs of force. The technology was nothing all that new. It’s operating right now in Shanghai as part of the maglev train they built but don’t know what to do with and in amusement parks all over the planet. It left quite a few people scratching their head. And the test allowed no one to ask questions, which need to be asked. I’m glad someone at the New York Times asked them:
But I have questions. A lot of them.
America (and later most of the world) got excited about freeways and built them everywhere over a 30-year span. Little did we know about the negative effects to neighborhoods, the health (obesity) and pollution risks, the excesses of traffic. What are the possible unintended positive and negative consequences of Hyperloop?
Will Hyperloop exist as a series of isolated runs or as a comprehensive network?
Hyperloop hopes to connect to city centers: What should cities be doing now to accommodate its arrival?
There are many more questions at the link, which mirror a lot of the ones I’ve had since this was proposed. Alison Arieff goes on to note Silicon Valley’s “Bro culture”, reflected in Hyperloop One’s chief technology officer’s name, which is actually Brogan BamBrogan (his real first name is Kevin).
Now Ms. Arieff also wrote an op-ed about the lack of “awe” in infrastructure, some of which I agreed with but a great deal of which I did not. She’s right to note that we don’t do “awe” [6] anymore, and we barely do “functional,” but I’d argue like Jarett Walker does that we need function more than awe. Walker’s a resident of Portland, Oregon, a city that at some point in the next hundred years will be shaken violently by an earthquake exceeding M8. Portland need function so it survives that day. It doesn’t need awe. And CA’s HSR is more about function than awe. There aren’t too many “awe inspiring” segments along it planned.
Perhaps that’s why people seem to be falling for the okie-doke here. Musk promises awe, and with the Tesla, and with SpaceX, he’s given it. And his stewarding of the open-source effort to create a vacuum pod train is more of the same. I just don’t think it can work. It’s hype, and we need to be skeptical.
It’s the cold fusion of the transportation world right now.
Incidentally, Musk’s office is in Silicon Valley and his home is in Los Angeles. He commutes to and from work by air. Some people, cynics I guess, might see a motive in wanting a vactrain between the two there, just saying.
OTHER LINKS
- This article is fascinating. 40% of Manhattan would be not approved for construction under current rules. The buildings don’t conform to current zoning standards. The zoning of many of our cities is pretty rigid, and a big reason so many are overpriced and expensive.
- It’s not AirBnB or foreigners using property as a tax shelter that’s screwed San Francisco, according to this amazing analysis. I hope to see it done for many more cities.
- MTA decided to put USB charging ports on buses because that will do something or whatever. Sigh. American transit remains uncreative, because we don’t let them be creative and flexible like they are in Japan and much of Western Europe.
- No link but a comment. I had high hopes for Uber and Lyft in shaking up the ossified, broken, unworkable and gross system. Instead, they just became just that. Broken, unworkable, gross. What a shame.
- The Expo Line has opened in Los Angeles. This is great news. I’m proud of you guys. LA now has more train miles than Chicago. And kudos to LA—they seem to be able to build trains cheaper than anywhere else in the country, like NYC. Perhaps the LA transit authorities should pay a visit to those in NYC and teach them some pointers in cost controls.
[1] Most people borrow money to “buy” a car, so yes, even a $36k Tesla is affordable to a middle class family. For comparison, the 2014 Ford Focus my partner drives had a sticker price of $32k and we “paid” about $24k via trading in the old car. We are solidly middle-class, and the car does not break our household budget.
[2] Anyone who knows anything about infrastructure construction, especially infrastructure construction in the United States which is more expensive than most places for many, many complicated reasons, would laugh hysterically at this right off and many of us did so, looking for the missing zero.
[3] CAHSR’s “open for business” date is also delayed, as is what happens with megaprojects here, there, and everywhere. Incidentially I have no idea how California is going to pay for CAHSR when the ARRA and Cap And Trade funds its currently using run out, given the Federal government’s disinterest in HSR matches that of almost all of the states.
[4] Quay Valley is a planned but mostly unbuilt community. It’s widely regarded apparently as a scam. In the desert. In a state with a severe water crisis that will not improve anytime soon, if at all.
[5] Alon Levy, who’s a bit of an expert in transport construction costs, took this apart in 2013. Not much has changed, except people are throwing real cash money at this now. Private money, so far.
[6] I’ll note here if one wants awe, one will have to pay excessively to get it. The new WTC Path Hub in NYC certainly is awe-inspiring (or a hideous POS depending on who one asks), but it cost $4 billion. That’s right, $4 billion for one subway station. Apparently it will host retail. It currently is empty.