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Ohio Planning Agency Names Partners for Hyperloop Route Study

The Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies announced they will be partnering with 18 organizations to study the feasibility of a high-speed route between Cleveland and Chicago.

(TNS) — CLEVELAND, Ohio — Hyperloop Transportation Technologies and the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency on Monday announced the names of 18 businesses and nonprofit or academic organizations that have joined their partnership to explore a potential Great Lakes Hyperloop link between Cleveland and Chicago.

The list includes: Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems, Corp., Ohio State University, ZIN Technologies, Ohio Aerospace Institute, Jobs Ohio, America Makes, Oak Ridge National Labs, Ohio Aerospace and Aviation Council, Ohio Aerospace and Aviation Technology Committee, Wright State Research Institute, The Gateway Group, Additive Engineering Solutions, Eureka Ranch, The University of Akron, The University of Akron Research Foundation, University of Cincinnati SpaceX Hyperloop Competition Team, The Greater Akron Chamber, and the City of Akron.

HTT, which is based in Playa Vista, California, said in a news release that it would lead the consortium through a 6- to 9-month feasibility study, for which HTT and NOACA have raised $1.2 million.

"We have said from the beginning that the Hyperloop will take a movement," Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of HTT, said in the news release. "The Great Lakes Hyperloop is by far the largest movement of private and public organizations working with a Hyperloop company to develop a system in the United States. We are inviting other cities and organizations throughout the region to join us in bringing the next mode of transportation to reality."

"The Great Lakes mega-region represents a $15 billion transportation market with tens of millions of tons of cargo and millions of passengers connecting to the cities within the region every year," Grace Gallucci, executive director of NOACA, said in the news release. "Technologies like the Hyperloop can take our over-stressed infrastructure into the 21st century and beyond."

The Cleveland-Chicago project is not to be confused with a separate project led by Hyperloop One, a separate company based in Los Angeles, which recently picked a Chicago-Columbus-Pittsburgh link as one of 10 around the globe that it wants to explore.

Last Tuesday, the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) said it was launching a Rapid-Speed Transportation Initiative (RSTI) to explore intercity routes that could use either traditional passenger rail and/or Hyperloop technology to link Chicago, Columbus, and Pittsburgh.

The MORPC announcement said it would conduct a feasibility study of Hyperloop technology for the corridor, followed by an environmental study. The planning agency said it anticipated the cost would reach $2.5 million.

©2018 The Plain Dealer, Cleveland Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.