Chicago Mayor says foreign investors are interested in HSR

O’Hare to downtown

Jon Boyd, Oct 01, 10.

City of Chicago Mayor, Richard Daley says foreign investors are interested in designing, building, and operating high-speed speed rail serving O-Hare International Airport and Downtown Chicago, according to the Chicago Tribune:

“I think they are very interested — China, Korea, Japan, the Middle East — yes,” Daley said today when asked if business people he met in China and South Korea might fund the effort. “There are many, many interests. You have to have a high-speed train from the international airport downtown. What that would do is that would rebuild our commercial market and our hospitality industry.”

Before leaving on the trip, Daley said looking for rail financing for the effort was one reason he was headed overseas. Last month, the mayor set up a committee led by businessman Lester Crown to look at the long-envisioned, never-achieved possibility.

The mayor said he thinks the project will eventually get done, but he also said it’s not an easy task.

“You have to work out the financial terms. It’s very complicated,” Daley said. “Of course, they want to design it, they want to build it, operate and maintain it, of course with people working here.”

Daley repeatedly noted that it took him seven minutes to get from the airport to near downtown in Shanghai. “Just think, it’s seven minutes, they can get almost to downtown,” he said. “Seven minutes. That is unbelievable.”