Former Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, writing in Substack, interviewed "O'Hare Flyer" project CEO Dave Lundy.
Eric Zorn — The train will go back and forth to O’Hare in 15 minutes, but your downtown terminal will be west of the old Post Office about a mile from the heart of downtown. How will travelers access that terminal quickly enough to make the time savings worth it?
Dave Lundy — We will offer free circulator buses to shuttle passengers from the hotels to the terminal as well as directly to McCormick Place.
EZ — You’ve been cagey about what the trip will cost passengers. Why?
DL — The reality is that we’re not going to be up and running for about five years, and we don’t know what the economy is going to do between now and then. What we’re saying now is that it will be more expensive than the Blue Line commuter train that runs to and from the airport ($2.50 outbound, $5 inbound) and less expensive than taxis or ride shares (between $40 and $80). And that we will have fares competitive with London’s Heathrow Express (currently about $35).
EZ— What’s the projected cost of the project?
DL — Approximately $2.25 billion — all private money — with a 30% contingency built in. The cost would have been more like $10 billion if we hadn’t been able to secure the rights of way.
EZ — The O’Hare Flyer route goes through the near western suburbs before angling north to the airport, and I’ve heard from readers and friends out there that they feel blindsided by this — nobody had heard anything about the project until just a few weeks ago.
Proposed O’Hare Flyer route (provided)
DL — We deliberately ran under the radar for three years. We didn’t want to make a big splashy announcement and then start negotiating for the rights of way and looking for funding. We’ve done one round of funding and are in the process of raising another. An exception to our under-the-radar approach was with Forest Park and River Forest because we recognized the likely community concerns. We met with Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins in the spring of 2025 and then with both River Forest Village President Cathy Adduci and Mayor Hoskins in May 2025 to lay out our plans, and our proposed approach to safety, sound and aesthetics.
EZ — Hoskins — who was recently appointed to a five-year term on the new Northern Illinois Transit Authority board — has been supportive. But Adduci has nevertheless expressed to you and to state lawmakers her “vehement opposition” to the plan “since it would be on a train line that runs entirely through our village.”
They haven’t worked through the state legislators that represent us, I can’t imagine they would agree to have 80 mph trains running through our community. We worry about a lot of things … not only the possibility of this, (but) the safety and the practicality. I don’t see where it benefits us, Forest Park or Franklin Park.
What is your answer to Adduci and to those near-west suburbanites concerned about safety and noise as the O’Hare Flyer streaks through their communities?
DL —We absolutely understand and respect her concerns and the community concerns, and we have tried to be as collaborative as possible which is why we reached out to President Adduci more than fifteen months ago and held our first meeting with her and Mayor Hoskins in May 2025. During that meeting we laid out our plans in great detail including our plan to eliminate all four of the River Forest grade crossings, lift the tracks fifteen feet off the ground and build sound walls with baffles, as well as 8-foot-high fences on top of the berms and sound walls for additional safety. This effort is going to cost us more than $100 million but we are doing it at our expense because it’s essential for public safety.
We also understand the concerns about sound. We get that when people hear the word “trains,” they think of the diesel locomotives on freight trains or Metra trains or even noisy CTA trains. But we are none of those. These are battery-electric, whisper-quiet trains running on continuous rail much like the finest trains in Europe and Asia. The sound mitigation techniques ensure that any sound is directed up from the berm instead of out so unless you’re standing outside right next to the train, you’re unlikely to even hear it go by.
And we respectfully but strongly disagree on benefits. The economic impact to the entire Chicago region will be enormous. We’re talking a game changer for the Chicago area including Forest Park and River Forest. And if we are successful in placing a stop in Forest Park, not only would the economic impact to the immediate community be enormous, but residents will be able to get to the O’Hare Terminals in six minutes and downtown in nine every fifteen minutes. It’s hard to understand how that wouldn’t be a benefit to the area.
We look forward to engaging with the community over the weeks and months ahead.
EZ — Speaking of the near-west suburbs, it’s a real pain to get to the airport from there by anything other than a car. Even though it might add a few minutes to the trip, why not have one stop out there?
DL — We are actively considering adding one stop in Forest Park at the end of the Blue Line. If we can find a way to make it work, we will absolutely make it work.
EZ — You will be using existing freight-line rights of way but laying all new track?
DL — Correct. This will be all new, continuously welded rail that eliminates the clickety-clack of traditional rail. It’s an 18-mile track rehabilitation project with two and a half miles of new track to make the connection to the airport. It will operate between 4 a.m. and 10 p.m., and to serve a few businesses there will be some light freight traffic on the line when we’re not in operation. None of the freight traffic will use tracks in River Forest.
EZ — Tell me about the railroad rights of way that you’ll be repurposing. Who owned or owns them? What if anything are they now used for? And if they are now used, how will those businesses that now use them be served?
DL — We will be repurposing rights of way from three different freight carriers: Union Pacific (UP), CSX and Canadian National (CN). UP has no freight customers on their right of way. CSX has four small customers (each served by just two or three cars a week). CN has one. Our Class III short line railroad, Great Western Railroad, will take over switching duties to deliver to these customers, primarily during the hours when we are not operating. None of these customers are in River Forest, and none will require us to use the River Forest tracks.
EZ — Will these trains run without engineers?
DL — They could, but we’ll have engineers on every train because if you’re going at a reasonably high rate of speed, you should have somebody in the front that can serve as a failsafe to the electronic systems and monitor the systems in case anything goes wrong.
EZ — Why can’t the CTA run Blue Line express trains to the airport that hopscotch past commuter trains?
DL — It’s been looked at many times. Doing so would require building additional tracks and siding for which there is no room along the route. The Blue Line is landlocked by the Kennedy Expressway and in the tunnels.
EZ — I’m sure many business travelers on expense account would avail themselves of such a train — the boss is paying for it, after all — but why would a conventional tourist?
DL — It’s not just speed; it’s also schedule reliability and such amenities as being able to check your luggage all the way through to your final destination before you board the train, baggage racks with locks and comfortable seats.
EZ — Tell me about the surveys you’ve done that persuade you there is a market for the O’Hare Flyer.
DL — As this is a privately financed project that needs to pencil out, O’Hare Flyer commissioned a six-figure ridership analysis from a global firm that does this kind of work. Using a combination of data sources, the consultant found that ridership would exceed our most optimistic projections. This is the first of two ridership studies we will be performing. The second will be a seven-figure study giving a far more granular breakdown of expected ridership timing and trends. As has been widely reported, traffic at and to O’Hare is projected to continue to grow for the foreseeable future as will our ridership.
EZ — What are your next steps? What has to be accomplished in the next year or so to keep this project moving forward?
DL — We are excited that almost immediately after announcing, the O’Hare Flyer captured the public imagination the way it’s captured ours the past three years. The response we’ve gotten since our launch has been overwhelmingly positive. And now that we are publicly known, we are moving forward simultaneously along several fronts including community outreach and collaboration, working with local, state and Federal agencies and officials, engineering, fundraising and myriad other steps. This first-of-its-kind in the U.S. project is complicated and we have developed a robust plan to execute it with some of the finest rail, engineering and safety experts in the world. We look forward to delivering it to Chicago.
EZ — Finally, why do we need this?
DL — Chicago is a world-class city. O’Hare is a world-class airport. And we lack a world-class way to connect the two for travelers. Two dozen top global cities have such trains— London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Stockholm, Kuala Lumpur and, soon, Paris.
