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Seattle to Portland in 15 minutes? 700 mph vision ready for next step

Local visionaries – who want to connect Seattle to Portland in a 15-minute high-speed route – say they need support for an upcoming competition hosted by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

A pool of over 2,600 applicants worldwide submitted ideas to the Hyperloop One Global Challenge; it’s a competition that encouraged teams to submit cases for cities and regions to have the first SpaceX-envisioned hyperloop networks.

KIRO 7 News’ Natasha Chen talked to University of Washington students competing in the challenge in January.

David Coven, one of the directors of the UW Hyperloop team, told KIRO 7 News their task is to design a safe and fast pod that would carry people through a near-vacuum chamber. The test pod for the competition would run close to 200 miles per hour, but the eventual hyperloop built for commercial use would run more than 700 miles per hour.

Coven said a commercial project of building a hyperloop and its pods from San Francisco to Los Angeles is estimated to cost $8 billion to $9 billion. An individual ticket for someone to travel that distance would be about $20.

“It’s just so cool to wake up and think of us, building the new age of transportation,” Coven said on the topic of Seattle’s 1962 World’s Fair and the then-futuristic monorail.

His campaign, now called Pacific Hyperloop, will prove the viability of their proposed Seattle-Portland hyperloop to judges in April, alongside 34 other semifinalists.

With just weeks to go, Pacific Hyperloop is asking people to sign their petition on why the Northwest region needs this technology -- with the notorious congestion that builds along Interstate 5 between the Jet and Rose cities.

Their petition reads, "Your signature is a testament to the innovative and forward-thinking culture we embody and are known for in the Pacific Northwest. This petition will be passed along to stakeholders responsible for moving Hyperloop forward and your voice is absolutely essential; we cannot do this without you!"

GeekWire writes that even may Pacific Hyperloop progresses in the competition, it doesn’t mean residents will be getting 15-minute trips anytime soon.