How novel

If no one else has thought of this, then certainly they might try a patent. Lety's see, I wonder, has anyone else thought of this?

Barrs and Chen came up with Hyperlane after taking a close look at proposed high-speed rail systems like the troubled Los Angeles to San Francisco route. The bottom line is that high-speed rail is expensive – at its current, ever-rising cost estimate, the California rail project would cost $139m per mile. So the two researchers concocted a mashup of bullet train and dedicated toll lane, which they say would only cost about $12m per mile.