Hyperloop Colo.: Here's How it Would Work

DENVER, CO -- Would you make your morning commute in a passenger pod that thrust you in a vacuum at speeds up to 700 miles per hour? Colorado and the Front Range are contenders in the contest to acquire the world's first Hyperloop transportation system. On Thursday, ten finalists were named to submit proposals for the system from a field of thousands.

The brainchild of SpaceX and Tesla found Elon Musk, the envisioned transportation system would transport travelers through a low-pressure tube with in pods propelled by an electric motor.

“Colorado’s transportation network was planned in the 1950s and built in the 1960s for the population of the 1980s,” said Shailen Bhatt, the executive director of Colorado’s Department of Transportation, in a video. Today, Colorado has 5.3 million people and is expected to grow to 8 million over the next 20 years.

The Rocky Mountain Hyperloop Team says their goal is to "connect the cities along the Front Range from Cheyenne to Pueblo with commute times between any cities clocking in at under 30 minutes."

Read Rocky Mountain Hyperloop's statement here:

This would bolster Colorado’s booming sectors in aerospace, high tech, bioscience, health services, science-led agribusiness, and renewable energy by improving accessibility and connectivity between employers and talent, industry clusters, and the thirty research institutions in the state.

How does the technology work? See the video here:

The Colorado Dept. of Transportation partnered with Global infrastructure firm, AECOM, along with the Denver International Airport, the city and county of Denver and the city of Greeley to propose the Hyperloop route in Colorado.

Here are travel times released by Rocky Mountain Hyperloop:

• Denver to Greeley: 6 min
• Denver to Fort Collins: 9 min
• Denver to Vail: 9 min
• Denver to Colorado Springs: 9 min
• Colorado Springs to Pueblo: 6 min

The next step is a nine-month feasibility study, conducted by AECOM.

Thrill-seekers can't expect to get a passenger ride ride away. If constructed, the track will probably transport cargo at first, to iron out the bugs.

“I do think cargo would be a great place to start and to build out the technology and test it and see it operating over a period of time and then transition it to passenger from there,” said Alan Eckman, VP of Transportation for AECOM in a television interview about the proposed Colorado Hyperloop.

Article co-written by Tony Cantu, Patch Staff.

Image: Hyperloop One test in Nevada. Courtesy: Hyperloop One Facebook Page.