The other day I saw a post that Elon Musk’s company has been selected to build and operate an “express service to transport people to O’Hare Airport from downtown in 12 minutes on electric vehicles in underground tunnels,”
Today we’re announcing the selection of The @BoringCompany to build & operate express service to transport people to O’Hare Airport from downtown in 12 minutes on electric vehicles in underground tunnels. The project will be funded by the company with no taxpayer subsidy. pic.twitter.com/zwfsQDk9Zf
— Mayor Rahm Emanuel (@ChicagosMayor) June 14, 2018
Details on the high speed train from Downtown Chicago to O’Hare
The project would be privately funded and from from Block 37 in Downtown Chicago to Terminals 1-3 at O’Hare. It would go about 125-150 miles per hour, which means that the journey would take about 10 minutes.
How much would the high speed train from Downtown Chicago to O’Hare airport cost? The announcement says that it will cost less than half of current taxi or ride-share (Uber) costs but more than taking the existing Blue Line service. So figure somewhere around $25?
This train would be similar to one that is either proposed or “in the works”, depending on who you talk to, in Los Angeles. The Boring Company has released the following concept video for that service
Call me skeptical on this but I have a hard time seeing a) this ever actually getting off the ground (groan) not to mention that enough people would rather do this than just take the Blue Line, which costs $5 and takes about 45 minutes. But hey, what do I know… Currently about 20,000 passengers a day travel between O’Hare and the Loop, a figure that is expected to rise to 35,000 by 2045.
Best boring puns?
When I mentioned this to some other travel related people, I speculated that this could be a fairly interesting way to get to the airport. The response?
- Definitely not interesting. It’s a boring way to get to the airport
- if you dig a little deeper it should be obvious.
- Totally tubular
- There are a hole lot of bad puns in here…
I definitely want to hear your “boring” puns (or any other thoughts on the matter) – leave them in the comments!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I think that this would be better attempted in a city that doesn’t already have a direct rail connection to the airport, like JFK. If it can’t thrive in a situation without any direct competition, then it’s certainly doomed in O’Hare, where there’s already a cheap and reasonably efficient service in existence.
Yeah. I mean I know I’m a cheapskate, but I’m having trouble finding the rationale for when I’d use a 10 (best-case) minute service for $25 over a 45 minute one for $5.
Thousands of people do it every day on the Heathrow Express as opposed to taking the local underground. I’d gladly pay $25 for this as opposed to the Blue Line which while cheap, is also gross. You get what you pay for.
yep and people take cabs for 50-75 to shave off a few minutes as well!
This is truly exciting news for people traveling to and from Chicago. The technology is amazing and if it can reduce transit times down to 12 minutes, it would be a game changer.
It’s never gonna happen. And the poster of this knows that , it’s a JUNK article. Waste of time, energy and thoughts
Given how poed Elon is about sabotage at Telsa, what will his reaction be when Bobby Rush shakes down The Boring Company. I’m making a reference to the deadbeat Congressman (D) forcing Amtrak to give his friends a contract to rebuild a trestle for the high speed route from Chicago to St. Louis.
One don’t want to be on a CTA train going to or from either airport when it’s crowd.
There’s a lot of travelers from ORD to downtown Chicago on expense reports. If I’m traveling for work – it’s uber all the way. I’d love a guaranteed 12 minute transit. I don’t care if it is boring – just get me there and not have to deal with traffic!