At least it can serve to distribute the cost of living to multiple cities. Philly is incredibly cheap in comparison to NYC -- As mentioned in this article (and others) people are already commuting daily from their homes in Philly to their office in New York.
This actually isn't anything new. Growing up, one of our neighbors in exurban Philadelphia commuted into New York City for the week. I think that's probably the more common situation. Doesn't work for everyone of course, but traveling somewhere and staying there for the work week is a pretty common pattern for a lot of consulting roles, for example.
It's common in consulting roles where the company you consult for is paying for your apartment/hotel. Probably not so common for W2 employees unless you are an upper level executive perhaps. I'm sure the people in this article would elect to stay in a hotel for the week if given the option.
Yes, but if you are taking Amtrak from Philly to Manhattan every day roundtrip you already have a pretty hefty commuting bill--probably $100/day fairly easily. This is admittedly less than a Manhattan hotel but there is a fairly significant financial cost associated with these extreme commuting situations.
Yeah, for sure, but the people in these articles were buying $350k homes so they are already pretty well off. I don't think any of these people chose the commute option because they couldn't afford a place in the city (just not as big/nice of a place as they have where they live).
Yeah, good point. It could also serve to grow smaller cities. I imagine something like Albany would be an attractive option, if they could afford to build a hyperloop there.
Why bother with Hyperloop to Albany? The train right-of-way already exists (and it's beautiful), the terminals already exist. Plus, people want to go to Hudson, Poughkeepsie, Tarrytown, etc. Just make it very high speed rail and suddenly the full trip is <1 hour instead of >2.
A hyperloop terminal would probably be located in a vastly less convenient location than Penn Station. I expect for many NYC residents it'd be a shorter trip to take a high speed train through the existing right-of-way than to take a hyperloop, similar to how it's often faster to take the train from NYC to DC than to fly.
I really do not see the appeal of hyperloop in any situation involving high density land use, and I also do not see how it could work in locations without high density.
