Plan For 29-Minute Commute Between NYC and D.C. Gets 'Verbal Approval,' Billionaire Says

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NEW YORK CITY, NY – A new rail link could whisk you from Washington, DC into Manhattan in the same amount of time it takes to pass underneath the Hudson River right now.

As New Yorkers continued to grapple with a commuting “Summer of Hell,” the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted on Thursday that he’d received “verbal government approval” to build an underground tunnel to carry passengers from NYC to Washington, D.C. in just 29 minutes.

The project sounded like it was very much in the brainstorming phase, with Musk subsequently tweeting, “Still a lot of work needed to receive formal approval, but am optimistic that will occur rapidly.”

It was not clear who had given Musk the verbal approval.

The inventor said the “hyperloop” that would be built by his Boring Company would include stops in Philadelphia and Baltimore.

“City center to city center in each case, with up to a dozen or more entry/exit elevators in each city,” he added.

The website for Musk’s Boring Company says, “To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D, which means either flying cars or tunnels.”

It cites benefits for building tunnels including, “There is no practical limit to how many layers of tunnels can be built, so any level of traffic can be addressed.”

Initial Twitter reactions to Musk’s boast of verbal approval ranged from supportive to skeptical.

“Verbal? Not on the dotted line? Seems premature to announce ... unless you're drumming up support for the project?” @DaveLeeBBC tweeted.

Nevertheless, Musk sounded confident about the future of “hyperloops.”

“First set of tunnels are to alleviate greater LA urban congestion. Will start NY-DC in parallel. Then prob LA-SF and a TX loop,” he tweeted.

Watch: Elon Musk Wants To Build A Hyperloop On The East Coast

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Lead image by AP.