Elon Musk wins bid to construct high speed passenger train from downtown to O'Hara (Chicago: movers, shop)

[chicagobear]

Mr. Musk is all hat and no cattle. Tesla stock is headed to zero and this project will never happen (at least by him).

[My Kind Of Town]

Originally Posted by chicagobear

mr. Musk is all hat and no cattle. Tesla stock is headed to zero and this project will never happen (at least by him).

lol

[treemoni]

Terrifying news. I bet Rahm was all over this.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by treemoni

Terrifying news. I bet Rahm was all over this.

Why is it terrifying?

The City put out an RFP a while ago and I believe two different bids came in.

[coldwine]

O'Hara seems correct, as this will occur only in a fantasy universe.

[treemoni]

Originally Posted by coldwine

O'Hara seems correct, as this will occur only in a fantasy universe.

Hahahahahahahaha!


To the person that asked: I only know Elon Musk because of the self-driving Tesla, which I consider a failure. I don't want the person responsible for that technology building my high speed train!

[MassVt]

Originally Posted by chet everett

The number of stops that Blue line trains to or from O'Hare is completely unacceptable not just for business travelers, but any sort of tourist who has ever traveled to other international airports. Even cities that would qualify as "ancient" have far better links from their airports to the "city center". The links are specifically designed to make things seem 'welcoming' or at least efficient. The same cannot be said for the Blue line.

I've lived in the are pretty much my whole life and I have to admit that because the actual linkage of the Blue line to O'Hare is so crappy I mostly rely on taxi or "airport limo". Recently I've had to get to the airport to fly out to other midwestern cities after morning meetings in my downtown office so memories of how weird the stops along the Kennedy feel when heading to the airport are fresh in my head. There is really a feeling of "I must be on the wrong transit route" after about the fourth surface stop where nobody get off midday and maybe some airport worker with a "I know I'm late but I don't think they'll fire me" semi-panic gets on. Yes, the line map / graphic is there to reassure you that you will EVENTUALLY get to the airport but it just seems to take FOREVER. By the time you finally get from the bizarre O'Hare CTA station that is so clearly an afterthought as it is barely accessible to the dingy "people mover" and not directly attached to any of the actual airline concourses in the terminals you are literally shaking your head saying "worst experience ever".

It has to be even worse for those arriving in Chicago as the various escalators and such that one must take from any of the baggage claim areas to get back up over the arrival roadway and then back under the hotel and to the CTA station seems designed to make travelers regret bypassing many other forms of transportation that very likely are much quicker as they don't stop at a dozen intermediate stops. Even if only a handful of people get on at some stops the feeling that even a light-packing business traveler ends up feeling is one of one of longing to finally getting to the office or hotel that will signify the end of this encounter with oddly ancient transit in city that otherwise has done much to be on the forefront of modernization...

I'm a little skeptical that Musk can find the cash to build this whole thing given his current squeeze with Tesla and I sort of doubt he really would want to operate it profitably. That's where an interesting angle beyond the "R&D" comes into play. I suspect that one of the things that went unspoken while both Rahm and Musk stressed that "none of the financial risk is carried by Chicago" is that access to essentially an "exclusive franchise" on high speed trips to/from O'Hare is potentially VERY lucrative. The same sorts of firms that paid big money for things like the Skyway absolutely would LOVE to buy / bankroll this sort of project -- the 'revenue stream' they'd be buying is not locked-in at $25/trip but can potentially be far higher and so long as Chicago's very concentrated office market stays reasonably desirable AND the huge O'Hare expansion / modernization ends up looking at all like the plans approved this will mean decades of cashflow. Rahm is THE GUY to "hook up" Musk with the often ugly world of "public works finance" where things like parking garages, parking meters, and tollways make big profits for firms.

When it comes to "R&D" Musk is 100% correct that this is certainly not a walk in the park, but it is orders of magnitude EASIER than anything he has done with Space-X and it is even FAR easier than what he has achieved at Tesla. In terms of "software" the idea of autonomous "transit pods" be they attached to tracks or just on wheels in a closed tunnel is about a million times less challenging than dealing with actual motor vehicles dealing with regular traffic, pedestrian, bicycles etc. When it comes to the whole "tunnel" thing that the Boring Co is gonna do you literally could not ask for a better city -- the experience of workers and engineering firms in having dealt with DECADES of Deep Tunnels / TARP to get storm water off the streets and into the quarries will make it pretty much a snap to hire locally. Of course given the way that workers with expertise in such things often like to be both grounded in "what works" as well exposed to the newest high tech ways to make these projects faster and cheaper I suspect there is already a core of Boring Co. staff with roots in Deep Tunnel. From what I understand some of the people who built the machines for that also have done things like huge underground detectors for physics projects around the globe, so they likely have ties to Fermi, CERN, and similar labs... To those sorts of folks this whole thing will be kind of a "Disney ride" compared to problems they've faced. And that is not to denigrate any of the work that goes into making theme parks operate safely at all, just that this is the kind of project that when you get it successfully operating (which could happen remarkably quickly...) you are thrilled to take your family on it and post picture to all your friends who finally won't ask for the thousand time "what exactly is it you do"...

Of course if somebody feels like throwing a monkey wrench in this, from Federal regulators, to Unions who will of course threaten to line the route with inflated Scabby the Rat balloons if they get cut out of the deal, to insiders from the CTA who see the writing on the wall for their little fiefdom all bet are off. I'm guessing Rahm knows how to keep that from happening...

In effect, you're blaming the Blue Line for the size of Chicago. The city is enormous, both in population and in geographical size. In smaller cities, like Boston, it's generally only a half-dozen stops from downtown....but the city is much smaller. Having ridden the Blue Line every time I've visited Chicago ( at least 30 times), it's still a bargain, if for no other reason than the amount of territory you can cover for a small fee. You can only remove so many stops, and still adequately cover such a vast expanse.

[SkylarkPhotoBooth]

Originally Posted by treemoni

Hahahahahahahaha!


To the person that asked: I only know Elon Musk because of the self-driving Tesla, which I consider a failure.

So.....PayPal? Tesla (as in the far better-known regular non-self-driving electric car)? SpaceX? None of those ring a bell?

I have no idea whether he will be of benefit to Chicago, but it's difficult to argue with his many successes as an outside-the-box thinking businessman. To claim that you know him from none of his success but only from one obscure "failure" sounds just a wee a bit disingenuous.

[treemoni]

I don't care how it sounds. I've seen too many hiccups with one area of transportation. You don't get too many chances to prove yourself after that. The ability to earn a lot of money says you know how to get an idea off the ground. It doesn't mean it's a good idea, and it doesn't mean you're the best person to execute the idea. Other people can allow you to fail multiple times. I won't. Not when it comes to something that can kill people. Sorry not sorry.

[TheSunshineKid]

Can he help construct a better, more efficient, intuitive and thorough CTA so the trans system can be the envy of America?