Texas Takes the Lead in the Race to Land Near Supersonic Tube Travel

Is Dallas leading the pack in securing the nation’s first Hyperloop route? It sure seems that way.

Transportation officials in North Texas have already begun the process of the federal environmental impact study for a possible route between Dallas and Fort Worth — and they’ve gotten a head start on the rest of the country.

The futuristic, high-speed tube system would use vacuum technology to zip passenger pods from station to station at speeds up to 700 mph. Engineering firm AECOM proposed a Hyperloop Texas route late last year that would connect Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston and Laredo in a matter of minutes.

In September, the route was chosen as one of the Top 10 finalists in the Hyperloop One Global Challenge (the company was later rebranded as Virgin Hyperloop One).

Hyperloop Texas was a hot topic at the 9th Annual Northeast Tarrant Transportation Summit last Friday. The summit presented possible solutions to transportation problems, and this year was focused on technological advancements. Uber Elevate – the company’s flying car initiative – was another space-age item on the agenda.

Nathan Roth, assistant general counsel at Virgin Hyperloop One was one of the summit’s guest speakers. Roth seems optimistic about the possibility of Hyperloop coming to Texas.

“The fact that Dallas-Fort Worth has started that process where no one else has yet basically means they’re in the lead,” Roth tells the Dallas Business Journal.

Billionaire Elon Musk first championed this type of tube travel, probably never expecting it’d hit Texas first.