Will These Be The Stops For Elon Musk's DC-Baltimore Loop?

• October 23rd 2018

by Nena Perry-Brown

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Earlier this year, UrbanTurf reported on the proposed route for The Boring Company's Loop to facilitate high-speed travel between DC and Baltimore. Now, we are getting an idea of where that mode of transportation could stop. 

As pictured below, the 35-mile inaugural run of the DC-Maryland Loop would have up to 17 "Lifts", or stations, spanning from a terminus ostensibly at or near 53 New York Avenue NE (map) (where the Boring Company has a vaguely-worded work permit) to a stop on S. Paca Street in Baltimore, near Camden Yards. The Boring Company recently updated the map on its website with the approximate stop locations. 

The locations of the stations are conceptual and subject to change as the company engages with local, state and federal authorities, but are currently envisioned at the following areas:

• 53 New York Avenue NE
• Langdon
• Deanwood
• Landover
• Riverdale Park*
• College Park*
• Greenbelt 1 and 2
• Ammendale
• Snowden Pond
• Laurel
• Severn
• Jessup
• Hanover
• Linthicum Heights*
• Lansdowne
• S Paca Street*

The Loop would apparently ferry passengers via "autonomous electric skates", which will each carry 8-16 people along a pair of underground tunnels at 125-150 miles per hour. This would get people from DC to Baltimore in 15 minutes (or, for example, from DC to Greenbelt in 5 minutes, or from Laurel to Baltimore in 9 minutes). Longer-term plans are to extend the line to New York for a 29-minute trip. Fares will reportedly be on par with or less than other public transit.

Realization of this transportation system will require approval from dozens of bodies, including the Federal Highway and Federal Railroad Administrations, the National Capital Planning Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, Maryland and DC Department of Transportations, and the US Army Corps of Engineers. 

Once all permits are acquired, the website states that construction will last for 12-20 months. The website also states that all subsurface construction will be "silent and invisible at ground level along the alignment, and no surface vibrations would be felt", an assertion which may surprise area residents currently experiencing disruption from construction of the Purple Line.

Elon Musk announced over the weekend that his company's two-mile high-speed transit tunnel in Hawthorne, California would open to the public on December 10th.

*Sites which could potentially intersect with the under-construction Purple Line or the existing Baltimore Light Rail system.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.production.logicbrush.com/articles/blog/will-these-be-the-stops-for-dc-baltimore-hyperloop/14604.