TSLA. More than likely the boring company and spacex will be under the tesla umbrella in a couple of years. exciting stuff.
Elon Musk’s Boring Co. gets Chicago’s nod for 12-minute pod ride from Loop to O’Hare
Published: June 14, 2018 8:08 a.m. ET
9
It’s the first officially contracted plan for Boring, with a larger East Coast underground loop still under consideration
Boring Company
A rendering of the O’Hare end of the loop.
By
RACHEL
KONING BEALS
NEWS EDITOR
Elon Musk’s the Boring Co. has been tapped by Chicago to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a 12-minute downtown–to–O’Hare Airport express train service expected to open in 2022.
It’s the first fully contracted urban transportation plan for a Musk hobby company that grew out of his own frustration at sitting in California traffic. Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc. TSLA, +3.07% and the founder of rocket company SpaceX, is set to make a formal announcement in Chicago Thursday.
A pair of tunnels from Chicago’s central Loop to the busy airport will use autonomous pod-like cars, or, as Boring calls them, skates, that would depart as frequently as every 30 seconds and carry up to 16 passengers and their luggage, traveling at over 100 miles per hour.
Fares for what’s to be called the Chicago Express Loop are expected at no more than half of what a taxi or rideshare transportation to and from the airport costs today — that works out to less than $25. The fare to O’Hare on Chicago’s CTA rail system costs $2.50 ($5 for trains departing O’Hare). Musk’s company is financing what insiders told Crain’s Chicago Business will be the $500 million to $1 billion cost of the project. City officials have said no taxpayer subsidy is required. Boring beat out one other finalist for the job.
Boring’s plan “aims to alleviate soul-destroying traffic by constructing safe, affordable, and environmentally-friendly public transportation systems,” the company said.
“Dallas and Atlanta and New York will look at this and be sorry they didn’t have it,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told Crain’s. “It’s going to give the city a huge competitive leg up.”
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Read: Rahm Emanuel offers Jeff Sessions an all-expenses-paid trip to Ellis Island
Boring has developed what it says is faster drilling technology that allows it to create tunnels at least 90% below the cost of conventional methods. That advantage, it asserts, allows it to use one of the few available transit routes left in crowded big cities: underground. Automated train cars also reduce labor costs.
Officials in Los Angeles and Baltimore recently have signed off on initial projects that could lead to much bigger efforts, such as a vacuum tube “hyperloop” from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., and eventually New York. The project in L.A. has drawn some criticism from environmental groups there.
Robert Rivkin, a deputy mayor in Chicago, reportedly told Crain’s that some details, as well as questions such as whether the tunnels would convert to city ownership at some time, are to be resolved in upcoming negotiations. He hopes to have a final contract by the end of the year, he said.
Plans for the Chicago system, which is not intended to replace the mass-transit service that now connects downtown to the airport with more than a dozen stops along the way, materialize as the city works on an $8.5 billion expansion of O’Hare. The airport is among the country’s three busiest by passenger traffic.
The modernization of O’Hare, which will include dozens of new gates and rebuilding the international terminal, is expected to take eight years. It would be the largest renovation of O’Hare in its 73-year history.
Elon Musk’s Boring Co. gets Chicago’s nod for 12-minute pod ride from Loop to O’Hare
Published: June 14, 2018 8:08 a.m. ET
9
It’s the first officially contracted plan for Boring, with a larger East Coast underground loop still under consideration
Boring Company
A rendering of the O’Hare end of the loop.
By
RACHEL
KONING BEALS
NEWS EDITOR
Elon Musk’s the Boring Co. has been tapped by Chicago to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a 12-minute downtown–to–O’Hare Airport express train service expected to open in 2022.
It’s the first fully contracted urban transportation plan for a Musk hobby company that grew out of his own frustration at sitting in California traffic. Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc. TSLA, +3.07% and the founder of rocket company SpaceX, is set to make a formal announcement in Chicago Thursday.
A pair of tunnels from Chicago’s central Loop to the busy airport will use autonomous pod-like cars, or, as Boring calls them, skates, that would depart as frequently as every 30 seconds and carry up to 16 passengers and their luggage, traveling at over 100 miles per hour.
Fares for what’s to be called the Chicago Express Loop are expected at no more than half of what a taxi or rideshare transportation to and from the airport costs today — that works out to less than $25. The fare to O’Hare on Chicago’s CTA rail system costs $2.50 ($5 for trains departing O’Hare). Musk’s company is financing what insiders told Crain’s Chicago Business will be the $500 million to $1 billion cost of the project. City officials have said no taxpayer subsidy is required. Boring beat out one other finalist for the job.
Boring’s plan “aims to alleviate soul-destroying traffic by constructing safe, affordable, and environmentally-friendly public transportation systems,” the company said.
“Dallas and Atlanta and New York will look at this and be sorry they didn’t have it,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told Crain’s. “It’s going to give the city a huge competitive leg up.”
–– ADVERTISEMENT ––
Read: Rahm Emanuel offers Jeff Sessions an all-expenses-paid trip to Ellis Island
Boring has developed what it says is faster drilling technology that allows it to create tunnels at least 90% below the cost of conventional methods. That advantage, it asserts, allows it to use one of the few available transit routes left in crowded big cities: underground. Automated train cars also reduce labor costs.
Officials in Los Angeles and Baltimore recently have signed off on initial projects that could lead to much bigger efforts, such as a vacuum tube “hyperloop” from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., and eventually New York. The project in L.A. has drawn some criticism from environmental groups there.
Robert Rivkin, a deputy mayor in Chicago, reportedly told Crain’s that some details, as well as questions such as whether the tunnels would convert to city ownership at some time, are to be resolved in upcoming negotiations. He hopes to have a final contract by the end of the year, he said.
Plans for the Chicago system, which is not intended to replace the mass-transit service that now connects downtown to the airport with more than a dozen stops along the way, materialize as the city works on an $8.5 billion expansion of O’Hare. The airport is among the country’s three busiest by passenger traffic.
The modernization of O’Hare, which will include dozens of new gates and rebuilding the international terminal, is expected to take eight years. It would be the largest renovation of O’Hare in its 73-year history.
