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Reports Surface that Apple Might Help Build a Hyperloop Line in its California Home City

Cupertino Mayor Darcy Paul has met with Culver City-based Hyperloop Transportation Technologies to discuss the possibility of a Hyperloop line through the city.

(TNS) — Could Silicon Valley get a transport system which shoots commuters in pressurized capsule tubes at high speeds to their destinations?

For the city of Cupertino, home base for Apple’s headquarters, such a futuristic possibility is reportedly being mulled.

Cupertino’s mayor and a councilmember suggested they have explored the possibility of a Hyperloop system running through Cupertino, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Cupertino Mayor Darcy Paul told the Business Journal he believes there’s a strong possibility that Silicon Valley tech companies like Apple might “heavily subsidize” the building of a cutting-edge transportation option in the area.

The Business Journal reported that Councilmember Barry Chang blurted out at a council meeting Tuesday night that the city is “talking to Hyperloop to have a line, hopefully, along Stevens Creek from Diridon Station to DeAnza College.”

Paul, Chang and other councilmembers on Tuesday voted down a proposal to place a head-tax measure for large employers such as Apple on the upcoming November ballot.

Paul has met with a Culver City-based Hyperloop developer, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, or HyperloopTT, to discuss the possibility of a Hyperloop line through Cupertino, the Business Journal reported.

Paul told Business Insider on Wednesday such talks are in a “very early discussion phase.”

It is unclear how expensive a Diridon-to-DeAnza Hyperloop project would be — and whether Apple would really help to pay for it.

“It’s a fine balance between,” Paul told the Business Journal. “How do we make sure that everyone’s acting in good faith here?”

©2018 the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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