Elon Musk Says Boring Company Will Compete To Build New Chicago Loop (#ElonTweets)
In the late 19th century, trolley tracks and an elevated railway ran around the entire circumference of the city of Chicago. The encircling infrastructure came to be known as The Loop. The name stuck and is still used to refer to the central part of downtown Chicago today. It may even have been in Elon Musk’s subconscious mind the day he dreamed up his Hyperloop concept.
Now Chicago wants to build a new high-speed transportation system connecting The Loop with O’Hare airport — one of the busiest in the world. But today, getting from the airport into the city — or vice versa — is an expensive and daunting task fraught with delays and congestion. Chicago would like to change all of that.
Chicago wants to create a way to get to and from the airport in “20 minutes or less.” That’s half the time the trip takes today, according to the Chicago Sun Times (we’re going to presume they know). The city is inviting any and all interested parties to submit proposals for the new link, which could be either above or below ground and cost less than a taxi or ride-hailing service. The going rate for taxis is $60, and for Uber it is $40. The service would need to operate at least once every 15 minutes during most of each day. Elon Musk has tweeted that The Boring Company is interested in getting in on the action.
The Boring Company will compete to fund, build & operate a high-speed Loop connecting Chicago O’Hare Airport to downtown https://t.co/bRqKpzSJjz
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 30, 2017
That tweet got a lot of responses, many from people who thought he was talking about building a hyperloop in the Windy City. “A Loop is like a Hyperloop, but without drawing a vacuum inside the tube. Don’t need to get rid of air friction for short routes,” Elon explained. He also was typically enigmatic about the details.
Electric pods for sure. Rails maybe, maybe not.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 30, 2017
The Boring Company will not be the only company interested in pursuing this idea. Assume 250,000 trips a year from O’Hare into the city and back. Multiply by $40 for each trip and the total is enough to get your attention. But the secret sauce for Musk may be the idea of boring tunnels beneath the congestion on the surface and proving that his Boring Company concept works, even if what runs inside is relatively low tech.
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