Elon Musk's Boring Company Bids On Chicago Airport Transit Link (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: 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 -- 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.

Comments

You all need to read the FAQ from the Boring Compa

[SuperKendall]

For all of the people out there who have concerns about the Boring Company and tunnels they are planning to build, you really need to read the Boring Company FAQ.

Worried about earthquakes? They talk about it.

Wondering what the heck an electric skate is exactly? They talk about it.

Wondering how they can do tunnels economically? They talk about it.

The starting point of the discussions about using tunnels should be based on the claims they have there, not worries that have already been addressed...

I personally do not see how any surface based approach can possibly cost less than the tunnel approach or be put in as quickly given the huge amount of problems it takes to put in a new rail line over long existing areas.

ho boy, a redundant system at 10x the cost

[iggymanz]

we already have an electric train from o'hare to downtown in 40 minutes, and by the way the realistic time without the marketing hype for this proposed thing is 25 minutes.....so for $33 more than the current price you save a whopping 15 minutes. whoop de fucking do.

Re:You all need to read the FAQ from the Boring Co

[PopeRatzo]

I personally do not see how any surface based approach can possibly cost less than the tunnel approach or be put in as quickly given the huge amount of problems it takes to put in a new rail line over long existing areas.

Well, you wouldn't have the expense of digging a goddamn tunnel.

Further, there are existing rail right-of-ways that are unused or underused all along the route from O'Hare to downtown Chicago. The city doesn't even know what to do with them. They've turned some into bike paths, but they hardly get used because you can safely bike anywhere in Chicago.

I'm sure it's good PR for Elon to be bidding on these contracts, but he's not going to get one in Chicago. Maybe it would make sense in a place like Houston, but there are so few people riding existing public transportation there, that I'm not sure anyone would use it. People love their cars in Houston, because for 10 months out of the year the weather is so bad you really can't go outside even for a walk from the parking lot to the Metro trains.

Re:You all need to read the FAQ from the Boring Co

[dcooper_db9]

I personally do not see how any surface based approach can possibly cost less than the tunnel approach or be put in as quickly given the huge amount of problems it takes to put in a new rail line over long existing areas.

You might want to look at what happened with the DC Metro. The Red Line started leaking before they even finished it. It ended up costing more to repair the tunnel than it cost to build the entire system. They diverted money from maintenance for so long that the entire system is failing. And the Red Line is still leaking.

Chicago already has a very good alternative to tunnels: elevated tracks. I've only visited a couple of times but their system seems to work quite well.

Ex-Chicagoan here

[Dripdry]

First, after reading up on this it's practically unneeded. 20 minutes O'Hare to Downtown? The blue line El Train takes 45 minutes and costs hardly anything. If it took 5-10 minutes, maybe you'd have an argument.

Second, a car leaves every 15 minutes? you're going to need a rather steep cost of tickets to ride this thing. The private sector isn't going to invest billions if they can't make it back. What about upkeep, too? Is the city going to oversee it? Hire a Union (you bet yer sa-sij inna frunchroom there'll be one involved if it's Chicago)?

Third, above poster is correct: the actual cost of this will be about 3x the initial cost. Greasing palms in Chicago is how things get done, whether it's codified like a Union or not.

Fourth... Can someone please explain how any of this makes sense? Maybe it's the start of something great, but Chicago is in a bad spot right now. I'd half guess this is all just Rahm Emanuel grandstanding for political points rather than anything that will ever actually happen.

My one Chicago cent (the other gets taken by taxes and Union dues).

Re:Meh

[Rei]

The funny thing is, their boring tech is actually rather interesting ;) If their hot-swap liquid-cooled advanced-alloy cutting discs and continuous casing system work as designed, the performance should be amazing. I can't wait to see a video of a TBM operating at something like 1-2 rotations per second (today's TBMs are currently limited to far slower speeds to try to preserve disc life, as wear increases dramatically as cutting head temperature increases (which corresponds with rotation speed), and they can only be replaced when stopped)

Boring Company will never escape the randomness of geology, unmarked utilities, and so forth. But when it's moving - if their design works as intended - it should really move.

Re:You all need to read the FAQ from the Boring Co

[RickRussellTX]

Chicago already has a very good alternative to tunnels: elevated tracks

That is not a good alternative. The elevated trains are *bone-shatteringly* noisy. I was posted on the 4th floor of a building on Wabash and the effect on productivity was MASSIVE. People think it's no big deal because they're "used to it", but having to mute your conference call every 2 minutes due to train noise is a massive inconvenience. And forget walking! After months of nearly losing my mind walking under those tracks, I finally started hunting down hotels that were far enough away from the tracks that I didn't have to walk parallel to them.

Half a year of working in Chicago and I was ready to murder somebody. It was unbelievably unpleasant.

Re:You all need to read the FAQ from the Boring Co

[PopeRatzo]

Holy mackerel have you BEEN to Houston recently?

I lived there, until immediately after Hurricane Harvey. And I lived in the Museum District, one block from the Metro going downtown. Houston has several times the population of Chicago, but they can barely fill a four-car Metro train during rush hour.

There's basically one real Metro line for a metropolitan area of 8.5 million people that's almost as big as the state of Delaware. And the Metro doesn't even go to Minutemaid Park or NRG stadium or the Toyota center. So if you wanna go to a Texans, Astros or Rockets game, it's automobile or no deal.