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Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has said he has received "verbal" approval to start building an ultra-high-speed underground transport system linking New York and Washington DC, which would cut travel time between the cities to about half an hour.
Key points:
- Current high-speed train takes three hours to go from NYC to DC
- Mr Musk mentions Los Angeles, Texas and Chicago in high-speed tunnel tweets
- NYC mayor's press secretary says any approval is "news to City Hall"
He offered no details on what entity had greenlit the project that could result in the world's longest tunnel.
Amtrak's high-speed Acela train currently takes nearly three hours to cover the roughly 355 kilometres between the two cities, assuming no delays.
Mr Musk, the chief executive of electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, is seeking to revolutionise transportation by sending passengers and cargo packed into pods through an intercity system of giant vacuum tubes known as the hyperloop.
Officials in DC and New York said they had not approved any project and under federal rules Mr Musk would need extensive environmental and building permits to mount such an ambitious project.
Mr Musk recently started an enterprise called the Boring Company to build transport tunnels for the system, which he says would be far faster than current high-speed trains and use electromagnetic propulsion.
Mr Musk wrote on Twitter he had been given "verbal government approval for the Boring Company to build an underground" hyperloop connecting New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC.
"NY-DC in 29 mins," he said.
"City centre to city centre in each case, with up to a dozen or more entry/exit elevators in each city."
Asked for details on who had offered approval, the Boring Company said in a statement it expected "to secure the formal approvals necessary to break ground later this year".
Mr Musk also tweeted about the possibility of a Los Angeles system to "alleviate greater LA urban congestion", adding that the company would also probably do a loop from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and another in Texas.
He tweeted that he had also been approached by a Chicago official about doing a high-speed tunnel between O'Hare Airport and downtown Chicago.
Signalling that Mr Musk's tweets may be premature, the press secretary for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted a reply: "This is news to City Hall."
Mr Musk said in a later tweet that supporters should lobby government officials.
"If you want this to happen fast, please let your local & federal elected representatives know. Makes a big difference if they hear from you," he wrote.
Last month, Mr Musk tweeted that he had "promising conversations" about a tunnel network with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.
By traveling in vacuum tubes on magnetic cushions, hyperloop trains would avoid being slowed down by air pressure or the friction of wheels on rails, making them faster and cheaper to operate, supporters say.
A number of start-ups have begun to develop the technology, despite concerns about the cost and practicality.
On its website, the Boring Company says some tunnelling projects today cost as much as $1 billion per mile but its goal is to lower costs by a factor of 10 or more.
In 2013, Mr Musk said a hyperloop covering the roughly 640 km between Los Angeles and San Francisco would cost less than $6 billion and take seven to 10 years to build.
Reuters
Topics: transport, science-and-technology, united-states