New plans for Great Lakes Hyperloop unveiled by HTT and NOACA

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) and the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA) have revealed plans for the Great Lakes Hyperloop, signing an official public-private partnership agreement.

These developments follow the recent signed letter of intent and a Memorandum of Understanding between NOACA and the Illinois Department of Transportation on 15 February 2018.

“We have said from the beginning that the hyperloop will take a movement. The Great Lakes Hyperloop is by far the largest movement of private and public organisations working with a hyperloop company to develop a system in the United States,” said Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of HTT. “We are inviting other cities and organisations throughout the region to join us in bringing the next mode of transportation to reality.”

A large body of regional stakeholders has formed to help HTT and NOACA move the project forward. As part of the partnership, HTT and NOACA will also produce a regional feasibility study which will take approximately six to nine months to complete. Together, the two companies have raised $1.2 million to finance the study.

A growing number of elected officials have provided written support for the Great Lakes Hyperloop initiative. In January, HTT worked alongside a bipartisan group of congressional representatives from several states including Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin who sent a formal letter to President Donald Trump requesting infrastructure funding support to further develop the technology.

“The Great Lakes megaregion represents a $15 billion transportation market with tens of millions of tonnes of cargo and millions of passengers connecting to the cities within the region every year,” said Grace Gallucci, Executive Director of NOACA. “Technologies like the hyperloop can take our over-stressed infrastructure into the 21st century and beyond.”