5 years later: Hyperloop project still moving forward in Northeast Ohio

Five years ago on a cold February morning, city and state leaders, along with the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, gathered at the Great Lakes Science Center to announce the funding of a feasibility study. It was a $1.3 million look into whether it would be possible to build a Cleveland to Chicago hyperloop that delivers passengers from one location to the other in 27 minutes.

"Where it should go along, what are the best right of ways that we can use, how much will it cost and how are we going to be paying for it," said HyperloopTT Founder and CEO Dirk Ahlborn at the time.

Hyperloop travel involves capsules of around a hundred feet in length using passive magnetics to levitate in essentially a vacuum tube where they can travel at speeds of up to 700 mph. Something that actually enables it to generate more energy than it uses. The study, the largest done on a hyperlooop system, came back in 2019 and found that it was not only feasible but could be built using private dollars.