Musk may bring Chicago high-speed transport
CHICAGO — There are two ways to reach O’Hare International Airport from downtown Chicago.
You can ride the L, a sluggish crawl on a train that meanders through neighborhoods and down the middle of an expressway. Or, you can attempt driving on the expressway itself.
Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, and Elon Musk, the billionaire inventor, say they have an alternative.
Emanuel, who is running for a third term as mayor, said a Musk-owned enterprise called The Boring Company has been chosen to build a transportation system seemingly lifted from a space-age fantasy: an unimaginably zippy ride from Chicago’s Loop to O’Hare in electric vehicles that will travel through tunnels.
If completed as planned, each vehicle — called a “skate” — would transport as many as 16 riders. The vehicles could leave downtown and O’Hare as frequently as every 30 seconds, the city says. They would travel at speeds up to 150 mph and make the trip from downtown to O’Hare in 12 minutes.
Emanuel promised that no taxpayer money would be spent on the project, as Musk’s company will fully fund it. Musk, at a news conference with Emanuel on Thursday, said the system could be operational in about three years.
Emanuel scoffed at people who doubt the still-unproven technology. Musk, who is CEO of the electric car maker Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX, noted he’s successfully completed other “pretty tricky” projects.
City officials hope for construction to begin within a year, but Emanuel’s administration must still negotiate a contract with the company, and Chicago’s city council must give its blessing. It’s also unclear how much the project will cost: Early estimates have reached close to $1 billion.
Musk’s company, the Boring Co., is already working on a test tunnel project in Hawthorne, California. It has applied to build another tunnel in Los Angeles and is proposing one between Washington and Baltimore. The company has run into regulatory questions and skepticism from officials in California and on the East Coast.