Daley taking notes--ideas for Chicago

Daley wants fast O'Hare train October 27, 2004 BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter Advertisement Mayor Daley said Tuesday he returned from a weeklong trade mission to China and Japan determined to provide high-speed train service to O'Hare and Midway airports and brimming with ideas about doing the little things that make life easier on mass transit riders. In Chicago's sister city of Osaka, Japan, Daley and his entourage were in an underground train station when a message board flashed news that their train would be one minute late. When the mayor's party boarded the train, a voice apologized for the inconvenience. It's that kind of bend-over-backwards customer service that Daley wants to bring home to Chicago. That won't be easy at a time when the CTA is threatening to cut service. But, "We have to be able to move people from downtown all the way out to the airport in a half-hour or less,'' Daley said. "It can't be 45 minutes or sometimes longer. We have to be able to bypass certain stations," Daley said, suggesting the possibility of laying "another rail." New type of gas station? Every time Daley takes a trip, he comes back with a pad full of notes and a head full of ideas. Last week's trip was no different. He's talking about planting trees to beautify parking lots, about a "new type of gas station" that averts oil leaks. He's thinking about covering construction sites with tarps -- similar to those used on baseball infields -- to prevent construction debris from polluting the air. And he's wondering why Osaka can build an entire airport in less time than it takes to build one runway in the United States>