Building a 21st Century Infrastructure

CHICAGO—As he prepares to leave public service, Gabe Klein, Chicago’s commissioner of transportation, came to the Urban Land Institute’s Fall Meeting on Friday morning to give some final thoughts on how building a 21st Century infrastructure can impact the world of real estate.

As a former director of transportation in Washington, DC, and former Zipcar executive, Klein has spent years trying to created alternatives to the traditional American reliance on private automobiles. However, he has become skeptical of the grand plans for region-spanning high-speed rail. For one thing, “when we talk about high-speed rail, we talk about 125 [miles per hour],” unlike the European, Japanese and Chinese, who frequently build trains that travel well over 200 miles per hour.