After Years of Construction, O’Hare People Mover Resumes 24-Hour Service
After years of construction, a complete shutdown and then a limited schedule, the “people mover” train at O’Hare International Airport is resuming 24-hour service.
As travels ramps up for spring and summer, the automated train, officially called the Airport Transit System, was scheduled to begin round-the-clock service Monday, the Chicago Department of Aviation said. The train connects passengers to each of the airport’s terminals and a transit facility that includes parking, rental cars, Pace bus stops and connects to a Metra station.
During construction and limited operations, shuttle buses ferried passengers between the terminals and the transit facility. The buses will continue to operate 24 hours a day through May 1, the aviation department said.
The project to update and expand the people mover began in 2015, and the train shut down completely in January 2019. It reopened on a limited schedule in November, operating at first from 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., with schedule adjustments since then.
The revamped and extended train includes a larger fleet of cars that can run more frequently and an upgraded automatic train control system that increased the number of passengers the system could transport.
The fleet has been expanded from 15 cars to 36 cars. Service operates every three minutes, and each three-car train can carry 147 passengers. The train makes five stops, and the trip from Terminal 1 at one end of the tracks to the rental car and transit facility at the other takes 10 minutes, according to the aviation department.
Construction on the people mover was initially supposed to be substantially complete by December 2018, and service interruptions were supposed to be kept to a minimum during construction. But the project soon devolved into delays, finger-pointing and contract disputes, the Tribune found in a 2019 investigation.
More recently, the main contractor on the project experienced pandemic delays when various manufacturing and travel restrictions made it harder to get parts and for experts to travel to Chicago to help with testing, the Department of Aviation said last year. The contractor also “encountered challenges during the testing phase of the project,” the department said at the time.
The main contractor, Parsons Construction Group, initially signed a $310 million contract for the project, which was later raised to $340 million. The shuttles buses cost about $81 million to operate between November 2018 and February 2021, the aviation department has said.
The project was funded through a variety of fees, including passenger and car rental fees and general airport revenue bond proceeds.
Other work at the airport continues. A $1 billion overhaul of Terminal 5 is underway that will add 10 new gates to the terminal and more passenger amenity space, reconfigure customs facilities and replace the baggage handling system.
The terminal is reopening in phases, and is expected to be fully in use by 2023, airport officials have said. Recently, gates at the terminal began being renumbered.
An $8.5 billion expansion, slated to be the largest and most expensive terminal revamp in the airport’s history, will also include a new global terminal and three new concourses.
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