Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel‘s administration recently announced an ambitious three-year goal to move forward with high-speed rail service to O’Hare International Airport, but aides offered few details for a project that has long proved elusive for Chicago.
Emanuel brought up the new rail line to the busy airport during an infrastructure speech at a West Side union hall in which he reviewed projects the city has tackled in recent years and laid out new ones, many of which already have been announced.
“To connect people to O’Hare even faster, we’re going to embark on a project that has been imagined and discussed for decades, but is essential for our city’s future,” Emanuel said.
He said the city had retained Bob Rivkin, a former general counsel at the U.S. Department of Transportation who would “provide legal expertise in identifying a clear path forward and working with potential partners,” according to a news release.
Emanuel did not give a timeline or costs for the project in his speech, but an administration news release suggested the city would start the project within the next three years. Emanuel aides had no cost estimates, nor did they say how much of the project might be funded by taxpayer dollars.
Dubbed “express rail” by the mayor’s office, the project is designed to connect the Loop with the airport in a model of high-speed lines in Asia and Europe.
