Which is why the first Hyperloop will probably be built outside the USA.
Melbourne to Sydney always seemed like a good choice to me. It's one of the busiest air routes in the world[1], there is obviously tons of solar, lots of open land beside the existing road, no seismic activity to speak of and it's a good long distance to get up to speed (~1000km).
Factor in time wasted at the airport when you show up early because the TSA is unreliable. I always give myself at least an hour extra and sometimes that's cutting it razor close.
And frankly not being subjected to the TSA is generally worth at least a few hours of my time. I'll sooner drive six hours than fly one because of those worthless assholes.
This is false. In the case of the original Hyperloop idea which crosses the San Andreas Fault, a major earthquake on that fault in line with the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco should produce accelerations the ground surface within 10 km of the fault in either direction of around 1 g (i.e., 9.8 m s^-2), corresponding to Modified Mercalli intensities of disruption to people and infrastructure of X ("Extreme: Some well-built wooden structures destroyed; most masonry and frame structures destroyed with foundations. Rails bent")[1] Vertical Accelerations above 1 g will literally throw anything not bolted to the ground into the air. Not much will make it through this unscathed.
This isn't to say that engineering around these sorts of events is impossible. The Transalaksa oil pipeline crosses the Denali fault, and during the M7.9 Denali earthquake in 2002, the pipeline survived because it was built on sliders near the fault so it would bend when the earth shifted instead of breaking [3]. However, this is a big bend in the pipe; the lateral displacements are on the order of 5-10 m in an earthquake of this size, over a similar across-fault distance. Do you want to go at Hyperloop velocities through a tube with a bend this sharp?
There's a second reason. The hyperloop tubes can slide back and forth on the pylons. If you shake the ground underneath them, the pylons can move around but the tube (tube system) stays still (like moving your hand underneath a baseball -- the ball stays still, rolling).
Melbourne to Sydney always seemed like a good choice to me. It's one of the busiest air routes in the world[1], there is obviously tons of solar, lots of open land beside the existing road, no seismic activity to speak of and it's a good long distance to get up to speed (~1000km).
[1] (actually #3 in the world by number of passengers) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_...