That's because the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, based in Columbus, Ohio, has stopped actively developing a potential route linking Pittsburgh, Columbus and Chicago until the hyperloop technology receives federal government approval. It had been working for more than six years with Virgin Hyperloop One, which last month indicated it would shift its emphasis from moving passengers and cargo to mostly cargo.
The other proposal, a route from Pittsburgh to Chicago by way of Cleveland, is still under development by Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. That company is working with the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, another regional planning organization.
"We're not advancing any of our studies at this time," said Thea Ewing, director of transportation for the Mid-Ohio group. "We went as far as we could go. Nothing else has been scheduled. We understand that their technology isn't ready [for government certification] yet."
Hyperloop technology — first proposed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and initially developed by Hyperloop One engineers who formerly worked for the billionaire — involves pods propelled at 500 mph or more through low-pressure tubes using magnetic force. A 2020 feasibility study declared the system could deliver passengers from Pittsburgh to Columbus in about 20 minutes at a cost of $33 and to Chicago in about 56 minutes at a cost of $93.
The system would cost tens of billions of dollars to build under a public-private partnership and wouldn't be complete until about 2050. Virgin Hyperloop officials weren't available for comment.
Currently, Virgin Hyperloop has a test facility in the Mojave Desert north of Las Vegas. The U.S. Department of Transportation has indicated a willingness to review emerging technology, and Virgin Hyperloop is working with West Virginia University and others to plan a 6-mile, $500 million certification center in Tucker and Grant counties in the Mountain State.
The West Virginia development team submitted a grant application last fall to the Federal Railroad Administration to fund the engineering of a hyperloop demonstration system on the former strip-mining site.
"We have seen how the pandemic created stressors to the food supply chain and we believe we can address the problem of food insecurity and many other challenges confronting the United States by transitioning Hyperloop from an idea to an operating model," the university said in a statement.
"To that end, WVU continues to pursue an advanced surface transportation center in West Virginia in partnership with the West Virginia Department of Transportation, private companies and collaborative academic institutions in other regions, among others, [to] certify the system, and have grown our list of other commercial partners to make it a reality."
Ms. Ewing said her agency remains interested in the possibility of a hyperloop system. Their former partner Virgin Hyperloop's shift to concentrate on cargo movement makes sense with supply-chain problems nationally and would remain an interest for her organization in the future.
"It didn't really surprise us from a long-term viability standpoint that they would want to shift to freight," Ms. Ewing said. "If our stuff can travel at that speed, it's good for us."
For now, Ms. Ewing's organization is concentrating on developing better passenger rail connections within Ohio.
"I think we're in a good place," she said.
Cleveland Connection
Meanwhile, Hyperloop TT continues to work on its plan for a hyperloop system for a Pittsburgh- Cleveland- Chicago route. The company expects to complete an environmental study by the end of the year and is continuing to look for investors, said Rob Miller, chief marketing officer for Hyperloop TT.
"We feel strongly about moving ahead with passenger development," Mr. Miller said. "We are, in a sense, doubling down on passenger service. We're seeing more interest than ever."
Mr. Miller said Virgin Hyperloop's decision to shift mostly to cargo development probably is tied to its investors, several of whom are Middle Eastern shipping companies.
"We knew that was coming for a little while," he said. "It makes a lot of sense for them. I think it's just more based on who's putting the money in than anything else."
As far as his company is concerned, Mr. Miller said, "the technology is ready." Once a certification facility is available, it should win approval and at least part of a system could be open by the end of the decade, he said.
Hyperloop TT has its own testing facility in France. Although there has been some concern that hyperloop works well in a straight line but has to substantially reduce speed to navigate curves, Mr. Miller said his company's engineers have found that pods can maintain most of their speed if the track is banked.
"Obviously, the straighter the line, the faster you can go," Mr. Miller said. "But turning radius really is not a problem at this point."
Is hyperloop needed?
Vincent Valdes, president and CEO of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, thinks hyperloop is at a critical crossroads in its development.
Mr. Valdes — an aerospace engineer who worked for more than a decade as associate administrator of the Federal Transit Administration's Office of Research, Demonstration and Innovation — said developers and society have to decide not whether the technology can work but whether it is useful and sustainable as a business.
For passengers, hyperloop may offer a distinct advantage if it can deliver them from one downtown area to another in substantially less time and for about the same price as air travel. But is the cost of developing a passenger system prohibitive because of the expense of meeting extensive federal regulations and the need for stations and other amenities at numerous points along the way?
For cargo, development costs could be less because of reduced federal regulations to meet and fewer amenities required at loading and unloading stops. But is there a real advantage in having shipments of disposable diapers or canned beans arrive an hour or two earlier?
Mr. Valdes says those are the kinds of issues the industry is dealing with and what led to Virgin Hyperloop's decision to shift its emphasis to moving cargo. As an engineer, he's attracted to the technology, but he understands that operating a hyperloop system has to be a sustainable business, too — what he calls "the utility of the technology."
"It's a societal/structural issue," he said. "What they are trying to develop is a business model for the technology. That's the first thing they have to get right. I really give [the developers] credit for thinking expansively."
Because the price could be comparable to air travel, Mr. Valdes said he believes the best use of hyperloop could be moving passengers.
"What is the advantage of hyperloop freight?" he said. "Maybe there is an advantage in the longer-distance trips over rail and truck. Are you going to provide a product where time is important?"
If a system moves to actual development locally, the regional planning group would be extensively involved. With the proposed timetable around the end of the decade, Mr. Valdes said, it's too early to know whether a hyperloop system will reach that point.
"That's eight long years from now, and a lot can happen," he said.
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