LOS ANGELES, July 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. technology pioneer Elon Musk tweeted Thursday that his Boring Company tunnel project has received "verbal government approval" to build a New York- D.C. hyperloop, which would drastically cut the travel time between the two cities.
"Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins," said the 46-year-old behind the automaker Tesla and commercial launch company SpaceX through his favorite platform, Twitter.
It now takes about three and half hours by train to travel from NYC to Washington D.C., and over four hours by bus.
The Boring Company hopes to alleviate traffic by expanding transportation corridors. "One option is to 'go up' with flying cars. However, flying cars have issues with weather, noise, and generally increase anxiety levels of those below them. The other option is to 'go down' and build tunnels," according to the startup.
About an hour and a half later, Musk tweeted, "still a lot of work needed to receive formal approval, but am optimistic that will occur rapidly."
Later Thursday, White House confirmed its officials have had "promising conversations to date" with Musk and executives from his Boring Company, according to a White House spokesman, who added that the administration was "committed to transformative infrastructure projects, and believe our greatest solutions have often come from the ingenuity and drive of the private sector," according to U.S. media reports.
In a later tweet on Thursday, Musk said the system would run from "City center to city center in each case, with up to a dozen or more entry/exit elevators in each city."
Then the former PayPal executive added, "First set of tunnels are to alleviate greater LA urban congestion. Will start NY-DC in parallel. Then prob LA-SF and a TX loop."
The Boring Company started as a joke, but became increasingly serious as Musk began tunneling in Los Angeles. In June, Musk announced that The Boring Company completed the first segment of its tunnel under Los Angeles.
"It has begun boring and just completed the first segment of tunnel in LA," Musk announced on June 28.
In April, while he was giving a TED Talk about the project, he released a video demonstration of the concept of hyperloop.
He had also revealed the planned route of the first tunnel: "Full length of first tunnel will run from LAX to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood and Sherman Oaks. Future tunnels will cover all of greater LA."
Currently, tunnels are really expensive to dig, "with some projects costing as much as 1 billion U.S. dollars per mile. In order to make a tunnel network feasible, tunneling costs must be reduced by a factor of more than 10," The Boring Company said on its website.
