Meet the Dallas Urban Planner Behind Texas' Pursuit of the Hyperloop

Flat geography. A booming population. And a business-friendly environment. Those are just three reasons why Dallas urban planner Steven Duong says Texas is an ideal place for the hyperloop, a futuristic mode of travel that would use levitating pods to shuttle people and goods across hundreds of miles in minutes.Duong is a senior urban designer for the Dallas office of AECOM, a Fortune 500 engineering, design and construction company. He led the Texas proposal that made it onto the short list of possible routes for Hyperloop One, a Los Angeles company that wants to have at least one operational route somewhere in the world by 2021. Now, the hyperloop company will explore other factors, such as economic conditions and customer demand.AECOM has been behind other ambitious projects before including One World Trade Center, London's Olympic Park and Etihad Rail, the first railway of the United Arab Emirates. The company pitched five of the 10 winning proposals in Hyperloop One's challenge. It is also in conversations with several other companies that want to build hyperloop systems, including Elon Musk's SpaceX.  Continue reading...