Elon Musk's Boring Company To Build High-Speed Transit Tunnels in Chicago (chicagotribune.com)

Chicago has picked Elon Musk's Boring Company to build a futuristic transportation link to the city's airport, The Boring Company said late Wednesday. "We're really excited to work with the Mayor and the City to bring this new high-speed public transportation system to Chicago!' it said in a statement posted on Twitter. Chicago Tribune: Autonomous 16-passenger vehicles would zip back and forth at speeds exceeding 100 mph in tunnels between the Loop and O'Hare International Airport under a high-speed transit proposal being negotiated between Mayor Rahm Emanuel's City Hall and billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk's The Boring Co., city and company officials have confirmed. Emanuel's administration has selected Musk's company from four competing bids to provide high-speed transportation between downtown and the airport. Negotiations between the two parties will ensue in hopes of reaching a final deal to provide a long-sought-after alternative to Chicago's traffic gridlock and slower "L" trains. In choosing Boring, Emanuel and senior City Hall officials are counting on Musk's highly touted but still unproven tunneling technology over the more traditional high-speed rail option that until recently had been envisioned as the answer to speeding up the commute between the city's central business district and one of the world's busiest airports.

Comments

Just to head off the inevitable...

[Rei]

This is for Loop, not Hyperloop.

Think SkyTran, but faster and underground. And with both passenger capsules and car capsules.

Also, to anyone who doesn't know how Boring Company is working to reduce tunneling costs... Link.

Re:Just to head off the inevitable...

[vtcodger]

Nobody seems to be mentioning the fact that boring a tunnel in Chicago may not be entirely straightforward. Anyone who has driven through Chicago on Interstate 80/90 may have noticed that it runs through a huge quarry (the Thornton Quarry) in Silurian Limestones/dolomites. That rock is a lot harder than the Tertiary dirt formations Musk has been experimenting with in Los Angeles. I'm sure that they allowed for the geology in putting together their bid, but it's not like the Boring Company has a vast body of experience to build on. There's also the problem of having to not damage existing infrastructure (water lines, electric cables, etc).

It'll be interesting to see if they get things right on their first real try.

Bit low capacity

[AC-x]

The Chicago system is expected to be able to handle nearly 2,000 passengers per direction per hour

Capacity's a bit low, isn't it? That's the equivalent of something like a conventional metro train running once every 30 mins...

Re:Bit low capacity

[Albanach]

They are bringing in $400 per trip. It will only take 2.5 million trips to break even. (Not counting running costs. electricity, taxes, employees, etc).

Or, looking at it another way, if the system can handle 2,000 passengers in each direction, we have 4,000 passengers each paying $25 or $100,000 of income per hour at capacity. So, 10,000 capacity hours would pay for the system (excluding maintenance and wear and tear). Assuming six capacity hours per day it would take 4.5 years to get the initial $1 billion in revenue, with the other 18 hours per day providing income for operating, maintenance and ROI.

I'd think that, if it's doable at even twice the cost, it could work. But whether it can be done for even a couple of billion is anyone's guess.

I have a better idea...

[Viol8]

How about you join a load of larger versions of these vehicles together (perhaps 100 people per vehicle, 10 vehicles in total) and call it , I dunno, a "train" maybe? Then put it on steel rails to reduce rolling resistance and hence energy consumption and make it powerful enough to get to 100mph (I've heard strange rumours that in france trains can do over 200mph, but no, that much be witchcraft!), then run each "train" at a 10 minute headway and guess what - you transport far more people! Its obviously a crazy idea, but you never know...

Re:I have a better idea...

[Applehu Akbar]

The fundamental problem with subway trains is that because they hold a large number of passengers they have to stop at every station. This limits the number of stations each line can have.

I can see a market for small, autonomous vehicles that behave like elevators operating horizontally, so they only need to stop at stations where someone needs to get on or off. In this usage there would also have to be 'step aside' capability, allowing multiple cars to operate on one line by being able to pass stopped cars. It would then be feasible to have a hundred tiny stations on your subway line, each one being nothing more than an elevator lobby with a short hop to the surface. An automated system could optimize travel so that each passenger would experience no more than a few sops on the average trip.

Re:Really ?!?

[Waffle Iron]

The "concept" is 100% privately funded so no risk to Chicago.
If it works, it works. If it doesn't, Musk takes the hit.

Ironically, Chicago has already famously demonstrated that private tunnels can pose an enormous risk.