Emanuel calls Elon Musk's proposed 12-minute express tunnel to O'Hare 'the fast lane to Chicago's

Emanuel calls Elon Musk's proposed 12-minute express tunnel to O'Hare 'the fast lane to Chicago's future'


Mayor Rahm Emanuel and entrepreneur Elon Musk strolled into a room that for a decade has been a subterranean symbol of Chicago’s high-speed rail boondoggle, and declared the infamous station a key part of a futuristic downtown-to-O’Hare transit system.

After pausing for a crowd of cameramen and gawkers recording footage of them touring the unfinished Loop CTA “superstation,” the two officially announced plans Thursday for an express connection between O’Hare International Airport and downtown using the billionaire Musk’s untested technology.

If the system, which the mayor repeatedly referred to only as the letter “X,” succeeds, Chicago would rocket itself to the forefront of mass transportation’s next wave, Emanuel said.

“Chicago is always on the cutting edge, Chicago is always looking over the horizon to see what’s next,” Emanuel said. He placed Musk’s plan to whisk riders from downtown to O’Hare in 12 minutes among other great civic projects in Chicago history.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-ohare-high-speed-transit-elon-musk-rahm-emanuel-20180614-story.html