RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – We all know that the lack of mass transit in the Triangle is an Achilles’ heel in the battle to win Amazon’s HQ2 project and the promise of 50,000 jobs. Here’s a way to turn the vulnerability into a strength with $1 billion available to get things started:

Commit to building a high-speed hyperloop transit system.

Imagine so-called “high-throughput corridors” and “dedicated, automated lanes” handling traffic from Downtown Raleigh to Cary to Durham and on to Chapel Hill with big stops in Research Triangle Park and at Raleigh Durham International Airport.

Amazon says it wants mass transit. Here’s a solution. (Oh, and as we continue to wait for news about the Apple campus, a move to embrace hyperloop just might speed things up, so to speak.)

How to fund hyperloop? A $1 billion line of credit is available. That ought to be enough cash to get things started.

Los Angeles-based Arrivo has teamed up with China General Technology to offer the $1 billion to a “project owner” who would utilize Arrivo products and services in the building of a network.

Here’s a video about the Arrivo tech that it says is the solution to “ending traffic.”

There’s precedent for this kind of what would likely be a private-public undertaking. Arrivo is already working with partners in Colorado to design and build a hyperloop system for Denver.

“We are reaching max roads in many cases in Colorado. Arrivo has a unique and practical approach to implementing hyperloop technology to eliminate traffic and dramatically improving the way people and goods move around the city,” said Shailen Bhatt, Executive Director of Colorado’s Department of Transportation when the project was announced last November. “As part of the next steps, we are committed to working with Arrivo on the feasibility of how we address mobility in our state.”

“Reaching max roads” sounds like the Triangle, doesn’t it?

Arrivo says its “dedicated, automated lanes allow for very high throughput, with one lane of Arrivo doing the work of 5 – 10 freeway  lanes. Denver’s Super Urban Network by Arrivo will connect the entire region within 20 minutes of all destinations.”

W-o-w.

A mass transit plan for the Triangle that involves a variety of people movers such as light rail is already well developed. So why not bolt on a hyperloop to what’s already being considered?

Make the hyperloop a toll-based system to avoid a big tax increase.

Go for it, GoTriangle. You’re the region’s thought leader on people moving.

What is hyperloop?

A look at a vehicle on maglev system

Best known from work done by Elon Musk, hyperloop technology revolves around a concept known as vactrain.

Here’s an explanation of what a hyperloop is:

“A Hyperloop is a proposed mode of passenger and/or freight transportation, first used to describe an open-source vactrain design released by a joint team from Tesla and SpaceXDrawing heavily from Robert Goddard‘s vactrain, a hyperloop is a sealed tube or system of tubes through which a pod may travel free of air resistance or friction conveying people or objects at high speed while being very efficient.”

Here’s the definition from Wikipedia of vactrain:

“A vactrain (or vacuum tube train) is a proposed design for very-high-speed rail transportation. It is a maglev (magnetic levitation) line using partly evacuated tubes or tunnels. Reduced air resistance could permit vactrains to travel at very high speeds with relatively little power—up to 6,400–8,000 km/h (4,000–5,000 mph). This is 5–6 times the speed of sound in Earth’s atmosphere at sea level. Vactrains might use gravity to assist their acceleration. If these trains achieve the predicted speeds, they could surpass aircraft as the world’s fastest mode of public transportation.”

The Arrivo offer

Arrivo is not the only company pursuing hyperloop strategy. And N.C. State is studying people mover technology.

So there are options for North Carolina’s leaders pursuing the Amazon project to take to Amazon as it continues HQ2 due diligence about the Triangle and the other 19 metro areas the company has named as finalists.

But the Arrivo offer is the latest proposal to emerge from the evolving hyperloop industry, having been announced earlier this week.

“The demand for urban mobility is increasing, and technologies such as autonomous vehicles will only increase demand,” said Arrivo CEO Brogan BamBrogan in a statement.  “We expand the supply side of this equation with our high-throughput corridors.”

So what about it, Triangle and North Carolina leaders?

Have you already submitted a proposal for the $1 billion?

Such a commitment couldn’t hurt.

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