News & Politics

Elon Musk’s Plan to Get Commuters From DC to Baltimore in 15 Minutes Appears to Be Dead

Mention of the high-speed DC "Hyperloop" has been removed from his company's website.

Photograph by JD Lasica/Flickr.

Remember Elon Musk’s proposal to build a “Hyperloop” that would allow commuters to travel between DC and Baltimore in 15 minutes? It appears to be dead, at least for now.

Musk’s tunneling firm the Boring Company no longer includes mention on its website of the high-speed transit project, as Bloomberg first reported on Thursday. The scrubbing indicates the underground system is likely no more, crushing our dreams of swift travel between the regional metropolises.

The billionaire Tesla CEO first announced his intent to build a Hyperloop connecting DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York on Twitter in July 2017, boasting that it would get travelers from New York to DC in 29 minutes. Nearly two years later, the Boring Company proposed dual 35-mile-long tunnels connecting a Loop station near Union Market and another near Camden Yards. Autonomous Electric Vehicles would shuttle passengers between the cities at 150 miles per hour—a welcome change from sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

However, even after the project garnered sponsorship from the Maryland State Highway Administration and received an environmental assessment, there had been few updates regarding the route. Now that the project is no longer listed on the Boring Company’s site, the future of the Hyperloop appears bleak. In addition to the previously listed DC route, the company has also wiped mention of Los Angeles tunnels from its site. It looks like we’ll be sticking with the MARC train indefinitely.

Daniella Byck
Lifestyle Editor

Daniella Byck joined Washingtonian in 2022. She was previously with Outside Magazine and lives in Northeast DC.