Elon Musk of SpaceX fame wants you to contact your local lawmaker to speed federal approval of his plan to build a Hyperloop tunnel from New York City to Washington, D.C.
Hyperloop is a system of underground vacuum tubes through which trains or pods can be shot at high speeds.
The Guardian noted: “The Tesla executive took to Twitter this morning to tantalize his legion of fans and the tech press with the ‘news’ that he had ‘just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins … City center to city center in each case, with up to a dozen or more entry/exit elevators in each city.”
After getting pushback on the appropriation process, Musk tweeted: “If you want this to happen fast, please let your local & federal elected representatives know. Makes a big difference if they hear from you.”
Earlier, he had noted: “Still a lot of work needed to receive formal approval, but am optimistic that will occur rapidly.”
Musk didn’t immediately respond to questions from the Guardian, which said his claims drew “considerable consternation” from government agencies.
“Several spokespeople who answered the phones at relevant city, state and federal government bodies laughed upon hearing of the claim that an interstate transit project with a significant street-level footprint in four of the east coast’s largest cities could be approved verbally.”
In New York, the mayor’s spokesman said: “Nobody in City Hall, or any of our city agencies, has heard from Mr Musk or any representatives of his company.”
In Baltimore, that mayor’s spokeswoman said: “Mr Musk’s announcement on Twitter was the first that the city heard of the Hyperloop project.”
And Washington’s mayoral rep said: “This is the first we heard of it. We can’t wait to hear more.”
But a White House spokesperson confirmed that officials have had “promising conversations” with Musk and executives from the Boring Company, adding that the White House is “committed to transformative infrastructure projects, and believe our greatest solutions have often come from the ingenuity and drive of the private sector,” the Guardian said.
Meanwhile, people are still waiting on Musk’s original idea for a Hyperloop between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, with speeds hitting 760 mph and a travel time of 35 minutes.
Here is Musk’s Twitter chain:
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
Still a lot of work needed to receive formal approval, but am optimistic that will occur rapidly
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2017
If you want this to happen fast, please let your local & federal elected representatives know. Makes a big difference if they hear from you.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2017