The proposed Hyperloop route connecting Boston and Providence has lost out on a global competition that would have provided with it with key resources to study its viability.
Hyperloop One, the Los Angeles-based transportation startup running the competition, announced the 10 winning proposals on Thursday, and the Boston-Providence route was not one of them. The winning proposals in the United States were Chicago-Columbus-Pittsburgh, Dallas-Laredo-Houston, Cheyenne-Denver-Pueblo and Miami-Orlando.
Conceived by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Hyperloop is a proposed form of super-fast mass transit that would be powered by electric propulsion pod technology. Hyperloop One, one of the companies developing the tech that has raised a total of $160 million in funding, successfully tested its first passenger ride in August, reaching a top speed of 192 miles per hour. The company hopes to eventually reach speeds of up to 670 miles per hour.
The company said the winning proposals will receive "meaningful business and engineering resources" to study their commercial viability, which will help Hyperloop One determine where to break ground for its first full-bodied line. The winners were chosen based on specific criteria, the company added, including "well-defined routes and implementation strategies, key stakeholder involvement from public and private sectors, compelling business cases, and innovative and creative applications of a Hyperloop system."
Holly McNamara, the project leader for Hyperloop Massachusetts, told BostInno in an email that the project "is definitely not over." She said Hyperloop One told her team "to stand by for more information on next steps." She added that her team will also be reaching out to Musk to discuss whether The Boring Company — Musk's company that plans to bore large underground tunnels for his own Hyperloop project — can support the proposal.
"Hyperloop MA did not lose support because we weren't chosen as the top tiers," McNamara said. Other states' transportation departments, she added, "were directly involved from the start so those teams had a leg-up to become the teams that Hyperloop One chose to prioritize. We have a few more steps to follow to bring this technology to fruition."
Hyperloop Massachusetts has been proposed as a 64-mile route that could transport passengers from Boston to Providence under 20 minutes. But one of the key underlying ideas was that it would make a stop in Somerset that McNamara, who's an elected official there, said would give southern Massachusetts an economic boost. "We figured it would be a perfect opportunity to put the South Coast back on the map," she previously said.
