Overland Park, Kan.-based engineering firm Black & Veatch released a feasibility study Oct. 17 that said building a hyperloop transportation system along the 1-70 corridor—connecting the cities of St. Louis; Columbia, Mo.; and Kansas City—would be buildable and commercially viable and could cut travel times by three hours and generate $410 million in economic development locally.

Black & Veatch’s study, which has not been fully released yet, was commissioned by public stakeholders and Virgin Hyperloop One, a Los Angeles-based company that seeks to build the first such system in the U.S. A hyperloop is an elevated vacuum-tube system that transports people and cargo in pods at supersonic speeds at a fraction of the cost of air travel or even gasoline for driving.