CHICAGO — A long-delayed peoplemover rail system at O’Hare Airport is set to begin operation today (Nov. 3, 2021), almost three years late and four years after a predecessor system shut down.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports the new system will be able to carry 4,800 riders per hour, almost twice the number of the previous system, and has been extended to serve the airport’s Multi-Modal Facility, which includes the rental car facility, parking, and the adjacent Metra O’Hare Transfer station on the North Central Service line.
The $323 million system was originally slated to be complete in 2018. Initially, it will operate from 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., with plans to offer around-the-clock early in 2022.
OK, now that I’ve dumped on some cherry-picked dysfunctional people-movers, like the former ORD system, the fact is, most of them work swimmingly well. Denver Airport, Atlanta Airport, there must be dozens of others.
Also mechanically functional is the people-mover at DTW Detroit Metro – the problem is, it literally doesn’t go anywhere. It serves one-half of one terminal, internally, it doesn’t connect to anything or anywhere else – and it can never be extended because it’s at the high level of a terminal the airplanes taxi around on all four sides.
True, doing something half-way ensures failure, like the Las Vegas Monorail that just fails to reach the airport. Close enough is not good enough for transit when your on the wrong side of the runway 🙁
I bet the Las Vegas taxi and airport limo operators had a lot to do with the Monorail not going to the airport
Is that a rubber-tired people mover operating outdoors in Chicago weather?
Remember when Ford Motor Company saw the future in people movers? Don’t feel bad, no one else does. Maybe 90% of Ford employees don’t remember either. In the 1970’s – that forgettable and regrettable decade – vacant Ford land in Dearborn was given over to a ritzy hotel and a giant upscale mall, the two connected by a Ford-built people mover.
Not long after, the people mover was demolished without a trace. FoMoCo’s brief foray into fixed guideway transportation went away as if had never happened. The splendid hotel is now closed and by all reports the once – gorgeous mall is struggling.
PS Did anyone really believe that in a metro area that sprawls over three counties, where people want to go is from one mall to one hotel?
This being Chicago, I wonder who got the payoffs. It’s not rocket science. I rode Westinghouse’s prototype (in a Pittsburgh park fifty years ago.
Good news and bad. The good news is the ORD people mover back in service. The bad news is how expensive and unreliable these systems can be. ORD, downtown Detroit, EWR. There’s always a street to run a bus on, but there isn’t always a fixed-guideway system.
Yes Charles but that traffic getting into and out of O’Hare can be horrendous at times whether a bus or car. Hopefully this version is better than the last which went down within days of opening and constantly was needing repairs.
They’ve been running a bus for years while this was down, and it was substantially slower. In practice, that meant I avoided layovers in Chicago for connecting international flights, and I wasn’t alone.