Anything but a train: Lightfoot touts luxury air taxi service instead of fixing Blue Line

Chicagoans have been crying out for better Blue Line service, including more frequent and reliable trips to O’Hare Airport. They’re tired of long and unpredictable waits between trains, resulting crowded platforms and packed railcars during rush hours at many stations. To add insult to injury, last month the CTA quietly cut scheduled Blue service for the second time since the pandemic started in an effort to improve the percent-of-scheduled-service-delivered numbers for the route. As a result, the total number of scheduled Blue Line trips is currently down 39 percent compared to 2019, according to the grassroots advocacy group Commuters Take Action.

But the helicopter scheme is almost as silly as the O’Hare Express proposal. While the e-taxi system is probably less likely to involve a major taxpayer subsidy, it’s still an annoying attempt to let rich people buy their way out of traffic jams and riding public transportation. Moreover, the helicopter trips won’t even be particularly convenient or save much time over a Blue Line ride.

That’s because the e-taxi plan shares a fatal flaw with the O’Hare Express ideas. In both cases there’s only place you can get off in each direction, making it likely you need to take ride-hail or other ground transportation to get to your ultimate destination. In contrast the Blue Line has many different downtown stations, not to mention many neighborhood stops, greatly increasing the chances that there’s a station within walking distance of your final destination, allowing for a one-seat commute.

Moreover, the helicopter “vertiport” is located at 1339 S. Wood St., which is nowhere near the places most Chicago visitors want to go. For example, if you’re staying at the Palmer House Hotel, 17 E. Monroe St., that tacks on four miles and about 15 minutes to the journey, plus whatever time you have to spend between exiting the e-taxi and entering your Uber, Lyft, or taxi. If you took the Blue Line, you could just walk a block east from the Blue Line’s Monroe station.

Granted, an express train to O’Hare is not an inherently bad idea, particularly if it has a few different downtown and/or neighborhood stations to choose from. A relatively easy and affordable way to do that would be to repurpose one or two lanes of the ten-lane Kennedy Expressway to lay tracks for Express Blue Line cars.

The express trains would use the existing Blue Line tunnel downtown, perhaps starting at the Clinton stop near Union Station, before heading to the highway in the West Loop or River West. The service could charge a somewhat higher fare, say $10-15, and have features like luggage racks, cushioned chairs, and maybe an onboard attendant to make it more appealing to air travelers.

However, that idea would might driving a little less convenient, which Chicago politicians typically view as a non-starter. They’re generally more interested in using the latest (or nonexistent) technology as an alternative to the solution that’s been around for decades in other countries: fast trains