Why oppose the project? – No O'Hare Flyer

On August 25, 2026, O’Hare Flyer LLC announced a $2.25 billion, privately financed express train promising a fifteen-minute trip between the Old Post Office and O’Hare Terminal 2, every fifteen minutes, 4 a.m. to 10 p.m.¹ It has a nonbinding letter of intent with one of three railroads, no disclosed capital, and a plan to ask the Chicago City Council for approval in the first half of 2027. One day later, River Forest declared “vehement opposition.”² Here are the ten reasons we oppose it.

The private airport-express model has failed wherever it has been tried.
Toronto’s UP Express ran 90 percent empty within months and was rescued only by cutting fares from C$27.50 to C$12.³ Heathrow Express carried 6.7 million riders in 2018–19 and under 4.3 million in 2024–25 once a cheaper public line opened.⁴ Brightline Florida’s auditors have raised substantial doubt about its survival under $5.85 billion of obligations.⁵ The Flyer proposes the same model with $2.25 billion of mainly commercial debt.
The only local ridership evidence is discouraging.
Metra’s hourly O’Hare–downtown pilot during the 2024 Democratic National Convention carried about 2,400 riders in three weeks — roughly 120 a day.⁶ The Blue Line already provides a $5 one-seat ride.
Single track cannot reliably deliver 15-minute headways.
Roughly 14 of 20 miles are single track.¹ Transit-network designer Jarrett Walker warned that delays “will snowball and be hard to recover from.”⁷ The sponsor’s answer is to borrow the freight railroads’ tracks in emergencies — tracks it has no agreement to use.
Two of the three railroads have not agreed.
CSX has signed only a letter of intent. Union Pacific says no agreement has been reached and notes that about 500 freight trains a day move through Chicago. Canadian National says only that talks are ongoing.¹ Under federal law, no regulator can compel them.⁸
“Mostly existing track” omits major construction.
A 90-foot flyover over active taxiways; a re-laid second track in the Eisenhower trench; a rebuilt bridge and a new elevated structure in River Forest; flyovers at rail crossings in Franklin Park and near Western Avenue; a rebuilt three-track CSX main; and six miles of new double track where not every bridge is wide enough.⁹¹⁰
Community burden without benefit.
Trains at 80 mph average — 110 mph through the Eisenhower trench — every fifteen minutes, eighteen hours a day, with no stop in any community they pass.¹⁰ About two miles of the route lie inside River Forest.¹¹ The sponsor now counts nine grade crossings and concedes four may still be at grade when service starts.¹⁰
Thatcher Woods is a lawful-path problem, not a negotiating problem.
The Forest Preserve District has had no authority to sell its land since 1923, its land cannot be condemned, and it grants easements only to transportation agencies.¹²¹³ A second track or a new river bridge that steps outside the historic railroad parcel has no lawful path for a private company.
It competes with the public train for the same track.
North of Franklin Park the Flyer uses the Canadian National line Metra needs for frequent, public service to O’Hare. CN has refused for years to add Metra trains without capacity investment.¹⁴ Whatever capacity the Flyer takes, Metra cannot use.
Regional planning already rejected this idea.
CMAP declined to include an O’Hare express in ON TO 2050 in 2018–19 on ridership and inclusive-growth grounds.¹⁵ The new Northern Illinois Transit Authority, which controls regional capital as of September 1, 2026, has an equity mandate the Flyer does not serve.¹⁶
The sequencing is backwards.
City Council first; then railroads, the FAA, the ICC, and the money. The sponsor’s own website already says construction “could begin as soon as 2028,” contradicting the CEO’s August 25 statement that it could begin in 2027.¹⁷¹ Investors are not public, the fare is not set, and the ridership study is not released.¹⁰

What we are not saying

We are not against a faster way to O’Hare, and we are not against private money in transit. We are saying this plan, on this route, with these unanswered questions, should not receive the City’s approval — and that the public options deserve the attention instead.

See the alternatives

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