The Trump administration just received and is reviewing design bids put forward by a group of engineers which proposes not exactly a ‘wall’ but a network of hyperloop transportation across the entire US-Mexico border.
A team of Mexican and American engineers called ‘MADE COLLECTIVE’ proposes that a $1 trillion hyperloop transportation network be built across the border instead of an actual wall that may not even result in the desired outcome. The plan would turn the border into a shared nation called OTRA Nation, with an independent local government body and non-voting representatives in the US and Mexican legislatures.
The team had submitted its design to the US customs and Border Protection’s official call for proposals in March. It has also launched a petition to replace the current border fencing with its hyperloop design. The Otra Nation’s hyperloop network would be stretched out for about 1,250 miles turning the US-Mexico border into what the experts are calling an ‘unincorporated territory’.
According to the plans, there would be stations along the hyperloop for people from any country to board. "The existence of the border wall has become more a signifier of status than a barrier that each population sustains in its own form of isolation towards the opposite side," the designers wrote in their proposal.
The network is to also host numerous solar farms for powering the hyperloop and the designers also say that an equal number of Americans and Mexicans would be building the system.
The plan’s entire approximate cost would be around $15 billion, less than the $21 billion that the Department of Homeland Security had quoted for a border wall. The designers also predict that their system would generate revenue of $1 trillion in trade.
"The 19th century brought us boundaries, the 20th century we built walls, the next will bridge nations by creating communities based on shared principles of economic resiliency, energy independence, and a trust-based society," the designers further added.
The Customs and Border Protection agency plans to announce in June the 10 companies it will be hiring to build the prototypes of the border wall.