Rahm's Office Is Talking With Elon Musk About That Fabled O'Hare Express Train: Reports
By Stephen Gossett in News on Jun 26, 2017 10:15PM
Some bonkers ideas just never go away. Mayor Rahm Emanuel's bad-penny dream to construct a high-speed rail line from O'Hare International Airport to the Loop reportedly has sparked at least some interest from an investor-magnate with the technological means.
According to Crain's, Chicago Deputy Mayor Steve Koch met personally with none other than Elon Musk, the billionaire SpaceX founder, last week after Musk caught wind of Rahm's express lark and thought his drilling firm, the Boring Company, could potentially be of excavating service. (A mayoral spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment, but DNAinfo also confirmed the visit.)
For those unaware, Elon Musk is basically the paragon of the ludicrously wealthy Silicon Valley techno-optimist entrepreneur, most famous for his work with Tesla and SpaceX. He who just today spelled out his latest reach-for-the-stars vision, an attempt to colonize Mars and various moons within the solar system.
Perhaps crucially, Musk—an Emanuel donor—claims his Boring design knocks construction costs by 90 percent. (The administration hasn't put forth a cost figure.) The Boring vision for the high-speed rail would employ smaller passenger cars that could move as fast as 125 miles per hour, Koch told Crain's. The business paper also notes that Boring is right now attempting to tunnel a path from Los Angeles International Airport to Santa Monica.
Rahm as recently as February of this year was again publicly banging the drum for an express line from O'Hare, saying that engineers at WSP Parsons had even been looking into potential routes. The administration said at the time it hoped to get a high-speed project going within three years.
The high-speed fixation was something of a hobbyhorse for the previous mayor, Richard M. Daley, whose quixotic quest led to the creation of the $400-million, unused "superstation" under the Loop.