High-speed travel is going places

The Toronto-Waterloo corridor is home to some 200,000 tech workers. It’s a yellow brick road of money and talent, with investors and entrepreneurs and coders zipping back and forth to brainstorm their ­billion-dollar ideas. The only problem is that every trip takes a miserable hour and a half each way on the 401 (and that’s assuming no traffic). But a few ambitious start-ups—and even the provincial government—are stepping in to shorten the trek. The Waterloo-based company RideCo offers hub-to-hub ride-shares, while ­Kathleen Wynne has committed $21 billion to high-speed rail travel, with stops in Waterloo, Guelph and London. And our favourite transportational idea? The Hyperloop, a pneumatic tube system that would hurtle riders from A to B at 700 kilometres an hour. The U of T start-up TransPod is working on a plan and hopes to release a prototype by 2020. If all its dreams come true, the Hyperloop would be the next best thing to teleportation.