Elon Musk has taken on a task perhaps more challenging than launching rockets into space: getting passengers from Chicago's O'Hare airport to the Loop in 12 minutes, roughly three to four times as fast as the current taxi journey.
The plan for the "Chicago Express Loop," announced early Thursday by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Musk's tunneling firm, calls for the construction of an underground tunnel with concrete tracks on which "skates" - individual vehicles built on a modified Tesla X chassis - would carry 8 to 16 passengers at between 125 to 150 mph (193 to 240 kph) from one of the world's busiest airports underneath some of the country's most congested roads. O'Hare is roughly 17 miles from the heart of the city.
Musk's firm, The Boring Company, won a four-company competition to build and operate the underground loop. The skates, according to a fact-sheet from the company, would likely run every 30 seconds, 20 hours per day, the company said. The skates would be battery-powered and "autonomous," of course, meaning no driver.
The project will be entirely privately financed, Musk's company said. The operating firm will keep the revenue collected from passengers and any revenue from concessions. The fare would be about $25, less than the average $45 taxi trip but more than Chicago's current Blue Line route from O'Hare. No opening day for the Chicago Express Loop was offered. It should also be noted that historically, big transportation projects almost never finish on time or on budget and sometimes are never completed at all.
Indeed, the shell of the station to be used for Musk's loop already exists, deep below the spot known as Block 37 between State and Dearborn streets and Randolph. It's been sitting empty and unused for more than a decade - known as part of the "subway to nowhere"- a testament to dreams of rapid journeys to O'Hare the city couldn't ultimately afford, for which it is still paying.
