Yep, another reason I love living here. So easy to get virtually anywhere, both my wife and I travel a lot for business and never having to have a connecting flight is unbelievable.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/11...e-125mph-loop/


The Boring Company proposes 125-150mph “Loop” for Chicago express train request

The initial stage asks for qualifications; winning companies will submit proposals.

Megan Geuss - 11/30/2017, 2:15 PM


https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-conte...14-800x450.jpg


Enlarge / An artist’s rendering of an electric skate.

The Boring Company




On Wednesday, the city of Chicago opened a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for an express train that would take passengers from the city’s O’Hare airport to downtown. The system would have to be completely privately funded—Chicago says no taxpayer money would be used for it.

Elon Musk’s Boring Company is digging a 10-mile tunnel in MarylandElon Musk’s Boring Company—a tunneling company that the SpaceX and Tesla CEO started last year—will respond to the request. Musk hopes to get to the second round when bidding will take place. On Wednesday evening, he tweeted that his company “will compete to fund, build & operate a high-speed Loop connecting Chicago O’Hare Airport to downtown.”

Musk’s reference to a “Loop” is explained more clearly on The Boring Company’s FAQ page: “Loop is a high-speed underground public transportation system in which passengers are transported on autonomous electric skates traveling at 125-150 miles per hour. Electric skates will carry between 8 and 16 passengers (mass transit), or a single passenger vehicle.” Unlike Musk’s idea for a Hyperloop, a Loop won’t draw a vacuum. “For shorter routes, there is no technical need to eliminate air friction,” The Boring Company states.

The company also clarifies the concept of an “electric skate:” that is “a platform on wheels propelled by multiple electric motors.” The platform would operate autonomously without a rail or rails to which the skate would connect. The skate would operate in the tunnel’s main artery, and it would enter and exit from side tunnels. With this system, The Boring Company says, the skate’s average speed would theoretically be able to operate close to maximum speed.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has called for an express transit link between the city’s main airport and downtown to be in planning within the next three years. According to the Chicago Tribune, the city is accepting project proposals that are above ground, too—a tunnel is not strictly necessary. A source told the paper that such a project would likely cost between $1 billion and $3 billion.

Wednesday’s RFQ specified that any service that the city would consider should offer travel times of 20 minutes or less between the two hubs, with departures every 15 minutes. Any “premium” fares would have to cost less than any ride-hailing service.

The mayor’s office offered three potential routes but didn’t limit interested companies to those routes. The Tribune says those routes include one that follows ...


The new plan echoes a failed idea from a decade ago, under Mayor Richard Daley, when the city and its transportation authority “put more than $250 million into a hole in the ground before work stopped in 2008.”

...

New York's three airport combine to have more non-stops than Chicago. Why is it so far down the list? I mean, I hate using New York's airports, but statistically they do have a lot of non-stops to places Chicago doesn't.

Always pregnant with the future

The Boring Company claims cost reductions of 90%. Even if that's only to the tunnel itself, that's a big reduction. Hopefully they can also reduce station construction costs, etc. That would potentially bring their bid in at under a billion dollars. If that happened, then three-legged deep tunnel system from the Medical District, past the two west Loop Commuter stations and on to the Watertower Area and also connecting those both to McCormick and the Reese site suddenly starts looking like a two billion dollar project instead of a six billion dollar one, which starts to make sense and would do amazing things for Central Chicago connectivity and be a huge selling point. So that's what I'm most excited about - seeing if they really can cut 90% of costs out of a significant chunk of their proposal.

I'm sure, but my cost of living is half what it would be in NYC.

The criteria show why Chicago tops New York in their rankings. It's a little flawed in that they are apparently ignoring international destinations and frequencies which is where New York easily tops Chicago.

Direct destinations: Number of domestic destinations at each metropolitan area
Key word here being domestic. Chicago has non-stop service to more domestic cities than New York does. New York obviously destroys us on number of international destinations.

Frequency: Number of domestic flights operated out of each metropolitan area
Again, domestic. Also, ORD + MDW combined have more flights than EWR + JFK + LGA. New York does have more passengers because the average plane size is much larger.

Competition: Combined percentage of domestic traffic share of the largest carrier within each metropolitan area
This one is probably a wash.

Price: Average one-way fare in and out of each metropolitan area
This one also likely favors Chicago given it's central location and equal competition.

Don't know if this is the intention, but looks to me like this could be implemented as something close to an on-demand service rather than pure scheduled train. Full cars at peak times, closer to empty off peak. With speed as a primary goal, that can make sense.

And with advances in technology, I could imagine something like this evolving into a taxi service able to transfer from tunnel to city streets and take riders to their final endpoint (or alternatively pickup from), eliminating the step of transfering at a terminal. Not that I don't love train terminals.

I mean, maybe. But if the pods are multi-occupant and have to stop at multiple hotels (or apartments, etc) then riders are going to be frustrated by the slow, meandering routes downtown. I used to hate that on airport shuttles. On the other hand, if the pods are single-occupant, then why even build a tunnel at all? We have the Kennedy.

Apparently Elon Musk isn't a fan of having frequent stops along the tunnels if they slow the overall usage, as seen in the footnote for the image of his proposed LA "subway". This probably means his O'Hare express proposal will only have a few intermediate stops at most.

https://i2.wp.com/scng-dash.digitalf...2C9999px&ssl=1
Source: Daily Breeze

Is a giant zipline between O’hare and the Sears Tower feasible?

Let's crawl inside Elon's head and imagine a world where we just hyperloop everything and we get rid of the airport altogether. Think it over and get back with me in 2684.

I really don't like the idea of the car tunnel system. Ideally for me an express train would orginate at the Block 37 Super Station the preceed west under Washington Street, then north under Canal Street, then follow the Blue Line alignment from Lake Street onward in a seperate tunnel. Stations would be State, LaSalle, Canal and Ohare. The 17 mile route should use conviential trains. CTA's current stock is deisgned to reach up to 70 mph that's plenty fast for an express train.

The problem with the "Block 37 Super Station" is that Block 37 isn't actually central for tourists. It's ok for business travel, but office development is shifting west too.

Chicago would be better off with express trains departing from Ogilvie/West Loop or North Michigan Ave. If it could make all 3 stops, then run express to the airport, then we'd really be in business.

What I suggested covers Ogilvie

Block 37 is not a bad place for a major train depot, though, because it's a good, central location that balances out various needs. If you're headed to State St, East Loop hotels & office, Millennium Park and the Mag Mile it's not too bad of a walk. If you're going into the central and West Loop office district it's also not a bad walk.

It's a good, balanced location if you ask me.

Sure, if we eventually migrate to a system of networked pods that quickly and efficiently move large number of riders between the CBD and O'Hare, then some of the utility of a point to point train might be lost. So let's say that is far in the future but that driverless taxis have become common.

In that case, assuming tunnel capacity, imagine both single and multi-party options where the single party tunnel "taxi" has access to at least a limited CBD area and can use several tunnel entry/exit points that bypass the terminal(s). Voila, speed and convenience combined.

Anyway, I am not saying this is how it would be implemented, my point is more that I would expect Musk's proposal to have some interesting ideas for how a system could evolve and hopefully take into account the full experience (travel time, connections and so on). After all, the city's goal is to get people from point A to point B, not just to construct a train line

Eh I'm skeptical that Musk's proposal will pencil out anyway. I think more likely is a conventional rail system on the CSX line between downtown and O'Hare. Limited conflicts with other trains, a decently high speed alignment with only a handful of grade crossings, and a freight railroad that seems at least partially willing to play ball.

We'll probably end up with a Musk proposal that charges a very high fare for a very quick trip time, or a conventional proposal that charges less for a longer trip. Hopefully the city is not seduced by Musk's gadgetbahn; in the event of Musk's company failing, we get stuck with a narrow diameter tunnel and a weird maglev system that's vendor-locked. In the event of a conventional rail system failing, we end up with a system that anybody (Metra, Amtrak, etc) can operate and maintain.

I wonder if there's a way to use Carroll Street to bring an O'Hare Express train close to Michigan/Wacker, which is really the epicenter of downtown hotels? Maybe even connect the terminal to Trump Tower in a vanity play to leverage Federal support?

They're not building express service from O'Hare for tourists.

With a central area as large as Chicago's, you're also not looking to dump people within walking distance of everything, which would be impossible. You're looking to dump there in a spot with a good number of walkable destinations, but excellent transit ties to other areas. Block 37 has excellent transit tie-ins.

Now that would be a blast!! A new tourist attraction as well.:yes: