The Bay Area needs to re-think traffic. Perhaps the hyperloop isn't so much needed between two already congested cities, but between lots of rural areas that can feed into congested cities. Live 5 hours (by car) from the BA and get there by hyperloop in 25 minutes.
Aside from the "hyperloop" part, the idea that an important consideration of transit planning is connecting urban centers with surrounding suburban and rural areas to support commuting, exchange of goods, etc., is hardly novel; it's fairly central to transit planning everywhere, including the Bay Area (and including projects like California High Speed Rail, whose initial operating segment will link Central Valley communities to Silicon Valley.)
Cost and congestion are driven by the commuting time to job centers.
If Bakersfield becomes a bedroom community for San Francisco with a 25 minute commute, you can count on Bakersfield housing prices converging on Bay Area costs.
This is probably a net win for the community of Bakersfield, but it may not change things very much for you as a pre-existing worker in San Francisco.
Increasing the effective commute radius into the Bay Area such that property ownership and rental prices were driven up in the new commuter towns would also reduce the upward pressure on prices in the Bay Area and it's existing commuter towns.
