The Chicago Express Loop was a proposed privately funded

urban rail transit Urban rail transit is a wide term for various types of local rail systems providing passenger service within and around urban or suburban areas. The set of urban rail systems can be roughly subdivided into the following categories, which som ...

rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT) or heavy rail, commonly referred to as metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport that is generally built in urban areas. A grade separation, grade separated rapid transit line below ground su ...

system that would have used underground

high-speed rail High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail transport network utilising trains that run significantly faster than those of traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated railway track, tracks. While there is ...

to connect the

Chicago Loop The Loop is Chicago's central business district and one of the city's 77 municipally recognized Community areas in Chicago, community areas. Located at the center of downtown Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan, it is the second-largest busi ...

O'Hare International Airport Chicago O'Hare International Airport is the primary international airport serving Chicago, Illinois, United States, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately northwest of the Chicago Loop, Loop business district. The airport is ope ...

from

Block 37 108 North State Street, often referred to as Block 37, is a shopping mall and development situated in the Loop area of downtown Chicago, Illinois. This site is defined by the square block bordered by West Randolph Street, North State Stree ...

. The line was to be constructed by

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

the Boring Company The Boring Company (TBC) is an American infrastructure, tunnel construction service, and equipment company founded by Elon Musk. TBC was founded as a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2017, and was spun off as a separate corporation in 2018. TBC has c ...

. It was claimed the Boring Company would pay the costs for the construction of the system in exchange for the rights to the future transit fees as well as advertisement, branding and in-vehicle sales revenues. Chicago Express Loop was the official name of the plan. The plans "never moved forward after initial excitement." The project died after Chicago mayor

Rahm Emanuel Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician, advisor, diplomat, and former investment banker who most recently served as List of ambassadors of the United States to Japan, United States ambassador to Japan from 2022 ...

, whose term ended in May 2019, decided not to pursue another term as mayor.

History

In May 2017, The Boring Company first became linked to the plan and made an official bid for the project in November 2017. The vision for electric pod transport goes back to 2017 tweets by Musk. The city's original request for proposal sought bids to bring the travel time from the loop to O'Hare below 20 minutes with departure frequencies of less than 15 minutes and fees that were lower than taxi and

ridesharing company A ridesharing company (or ridehailing service) is a company (or service offered by a company) that, via websites and mobile apps, matches passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire that, unlike taxis, cannot legally be hailed from the street. ...

fares. The Boring Company was announced as the winning bid on June 13, 2018. Musk had previously applied to build a tunnel linking

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

Culver City Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. It is mostly surrounded by Los Angeles, but also shares a border with the unincorporated area of Ladera Heights to the ea ...

as a "proof of process" for the technology. At the time of their bid, the Boring Company had received approval to link

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, and

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

using this technology; that project was also never completed.

Proposed system

The proposed system was to use 16-passenger self-driving vehicles built on

Tesla Tesla most commonly refers to: * Nikola Tesla (1856–1943), a Serbian-American electrical engineer and inventor * Tesla, Inc., an American electric vehicle and clean energy company, formerly Tesla Motors, Inc. * Tesla (unit) (symbol: T), the SI-d ...

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of a manufactured object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

, departing often as every 30 seconds. The proposed vehicles would move through tunnels at speeds as high as 150

miles per hour Miles per hour (mph, m.p.h., MPH, or mi/h) is a British imperial and United States customary unit of speed expressing the number of miles travelled in one hour. It is used in the United Kingdom, the United States, and a number of smaller count ...

on a concrete track and complete the journey in 12 minutes, which was 3 to 4 times faster than existing alternatives such as the

Chicago Transit Authority The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is the operator of public transport, mass transit in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and some of its suburbs, including the trains of the Chicago "L" and List of Chicago Transit Authority bus routes, CTA bu ...

Blue Line. The proposed vehicles were referred to as skates and are based on the

Tesla Model X The Tesla Model X is a battery electric mid-size luxury crossover SUV built by Tesla, Inc. since 2015. Developed from the full-sized sedan platform of the Tesla Model S, the vehicle notably uses falcon wing doors for rear passenger access. ...

. The vehicles would cover an track with eight guiding wheels, including four traditional grounded wheels and four additional side wheels. The fares were expected to be approximately $25.

Criticism

The Loop's projected cost of $1 billion was derided by transportation scholars and journalists as being too low by at least a factor of 10 for its scale. The city's aldermen also raised concerns about project oversight and risk, fearing that public funds could be used to cover cost overruns.

Notes

{{Portal bar, Trains Electric railways High-speed railway lines in the United States Passenger rail transport Proposed railway lines in Illinois Rail transportation in Illinois Rapid transit in Illinois Underground rapid transit in the United States