Chicago Makes Deal With Elon Musk

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NSSD70ACe
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Chicago Makes Deal With Elon Musk

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The City of Chicago announced a deal with Elon Musk’s Boring Company to link downtown Chicago and O’Hare via Musk’s “Loop” project, shrinking the travel time to 12 minutes.

However, not everyone is sold on the idea, including the deputy mayor of Chicago and the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, who both see the deal as “risky” due to the fact that Musk’s technology is still “essentially unproven”.

https://www.midwesthsr.org/chicago-make ... 97f97cf44e


As much as I like the idea of a faster connection to O’Hare (I’ve driven that route twice...it’s not fun), I’m not happy that Chicago chose a company who hasn’t finished or even tested the original prototype yet. It appears Chicago is putting its eggs into a basket that hasn’t been built yet. I haven’t been able to find any evidence of successful tests (or tests at all) for something like this. According to Boring Company’s own site, the loop will utilize an “electric skate” made from a modified Tesla Model X chassis, but doesn’t actually explain how it functions or any sort of fallback plan in case of power outage because, even though the tunnels are weatherproof, the power plants and substations aren’t.

I guess we’ll just have to see.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... story.html
:roll:

the contents of the above post are my opinion and mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

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Saturnalia
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Re: Chicago Makes Deal With Elon Musk

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Chicago isn't putting any eggs in this basket. It's all privately funded.

And of COURSE the Chicago politicians are salty about it - because they're not involved in it so they won't be able to take credit.

You know when they have the project-start pressers wherein all the people turn the first shovels? I loathe those, because it's usually some politicians taking credit for work they haven't done!

Ok rant over. Chicago politics suck.
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NSSD70ACe
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Re: Chicago Makes Deal With Elon Musk

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Saturnalia wrote:Chicago isn't putting any eggs in this basket. It's all privately funded.

And of COURSE the Chicago politicians are salty about it - because they're not involved in it so they won't be able to take credit.

You know when they have the project-start pressers wherein all the people turn the first shovels? I loathe those, because it's usually some politicians taking credit for work they haven't done!

Ok rant over. Chicago politics suck.
By “putting all their eggs into a basket that hasn’t been built yet”, I meant that they’ve seemingly chose to put in a mode of transportation that hasn’t even been tested for something that the city has wanted to do for a long time. I should have clarified that, my apologies.

And I while I agree that Chicago politics can be a headache, I agree with the deputy mayor. There’s no proof this works yet. No prototype chassis, or at least none that I can find. Nothing beyond a tunnel and it’s not even finished. Tesla isn’t making a profit (he just cut 3,000 people) and lord knows how SpaceX is doing financially, although the optics definitely don’t look good.
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Re: Chicago Makes Deal With Elon Musk

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What has Chicago got to loose? The Boring Company was selected to finance, construct and operate the system. If it works Chicago gets an additional transportation system and the local economic churn from construction. If it doesn't work the local economy still sees whatever economic churn that occurs.

If you don't want to drive to O'hare don't fly from O'hare. If you have to fly from O'hare you can take the CTA and get off at O'hare (40 minutes from the loop) or take Metra (30 minutes from Union station) and take a shuttle from one of the parking lots.

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Re: Chicago Makes Deal With Elon Musk

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Anytime anyone undermines the government, it's a good day. Go Musk!
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NSSD70ACe
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Re: Chicago Makes Deal With Elon Musk

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PatAzo wrote:What has Chicago got to loose? The Boring Company was selected to finance, construct and operate the system. If it works Chicago gets an additional transportation system and the local economic churn from construction. If it doesn't work the local economy still sees whatever economic churn that occurs.

If you don't want to drive to O'hare don't fly from O'hare. If you have to fly from O'hare you can take the CTA and get off at O'hare (40 minutes from the loop) or take Metra (30 minutes from Union station) and take a shuttle from one of the parking lots.
I’ve never flown from O’Hare. I’ve done a few things at Coyote Logistics, which is close to the same route. In fact, the highway and Metra tracks are right outside the building.

My point was that Chicago is placing their bets for their much-desired O’Hare connection on a system that hasn’t been tested (not even finished building the prototype TUNNEL. There’s no chassis yet) when there was at least one more practical proposal from (I believe) Midwest High Speed Rail who showed that it could be done with upgrades to existing infrastructure as well as some new construction (a new station I believe). In my mind, it doesn’t make sense to place my bets on a system that hasn’t been tested over an actual plan. Sure, it may be 100% privately funded. But that’s not gonna stop the mayor from looking like an idiot if the project falls through. It probably wouldn’t have hurt to have postponed the deal until actual evidence came out showing that this thing actually works, but is also practical.
:roll:

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Saturnalia
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Re: Chicago Makes Deal With Elon Musk

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NSSD70ACe wrote:But that’s not gonna stop the mayor from looking like an idiot if the project falls through.
Good thing ole Rahm is already proven himself to be a bit of an idiot so I'm sure it can't make it must worse :roll: :lol:
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Re: Chicago Makes Deal With Elon Musk

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Why will the mayor of Chicago look like an idiot if Elon Musk fails? Chicago isn't investing the money. They haven't made any bets. If anything Musk is going to have to grease the skids to get the project going. If construction does start Metropolitan Chicago gets hundreds of millions in construction activity. The city is in the lime light with Musk and all his believers. Musk fails no one gives any money back. Musk succeeds there's a cool new tunnel to the airport and neither CTA or Metra had to go to Springfield begging the money.

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