Chicago's congested skies spur 'trench warfare'
Runway crash fuels debate over new airport, expansion
Judy Keen
9 February 2006
USA Today
CHICAGO -- Debate about this city's airports has intensified since a Southwest Airlines jet skidded off a runway at Midway International Airport nine weeks ago, renewing questions about congestion and expansion and highlighting the role of politics in transportation planning.
The accident, which killed a 6-year-old boy riding in a car and injured 10 people Dec. 8, is drawing renewed attention to the mile- square airport's limitations and location in the middle of a busy neighborhood.
There also are questions about the future of O'Hare International Airport. Court challenges could delay a long-planned $6.6 billion expansion at O'Hare, which has been overtaken by Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson as the world's busiest airport.
Last week, the Transportation Department said the two city-owned airports ranked last among 33 big U.S. airports for on-time departures in December. At O'Hare, 60% of flights left on time; 65% were on time at Midway.
For decades, there has been talk about developing a new airport to take pressure off O'Hare and Midway. But two members of Congress are feuding over a proposed airport near Peotone in suburban Will County -- a project Chicago Mayor Richard Daley doesn't support. Adding to the uncertainty, the Gary Chicago International Airport in Indiana got $57.8 million in federal funds last month for an expansion its boosters say will make it the region's third major airport.
The air travel outlook is a mess, says Joseph Schwieterman, an aviation specialist at DePaul University. "We've lacked the leadership to maintain our pre-eminence as America's premier airline hub," he says. "We put off critical decisions, and now we have trench warfare."
A status report:
*Midway: A $927 million project that included a new terminal was completed in 2004. About 18 million passengers used the airport in 2005.
After the Midway accident in December, the Chicago Tribune reported that the city has been buying property near the airport, possibly for a "protection zone" at the end of the runway overshot by the jet. Airport spokeswoman Wendy Abrams says the property is for employee parking, not a safety perimeter. "We have no plans to undertake a massive land-acquisition program around Midway."
Aviation consultant Mary Rose Loney says that during her tenure as Chicago's airport commissioner from 1996 to 2000, "it was always city policy that Midway would remain within its existing footprint."
Recent upgrades at Midway "allowed us to put off critical capacity decisions for 10 years," Schwieterman says. But the landlocked airport can't grow unless the mayor takes the improbable step of bulldozing neighborhoods around it. That prospect, he says, "has never really been talked about."
*O'Hare: Last year, the city got federal approval to begin work on a plan to reconfigure and expand O'Hare's intersecting runways. O'Hare was used by more than 76 million passengers in 2005.
Some work has begun, but the plan includes the acquisition of 433 acres in neighboring communities of Des Plaines, Elk Grove Village and Bensenville, which would force about 200 businesses and more than 2,000 residents to relocate. Local officials have filed lawsuits in a bid to block the project.
In December, a federal appeals court temporarily blocked Chicago from taking over St. Johannes Cemetery in Bensenville; a final ruling is pending. Another federal appeals court will hear arguments in April on opponents' challenge of the plan's cost-benefit analysis.
"We're in the final battle," says Mayor Craig Johnson of Elk Grove Village. "It's David and Goliath."
Some skeptics wonder whether the city can line up financing for the O'Hare project when major airlines are in financial trouble. "It will never happen," says Rick Bryant, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., leader of a private effort to build a Will County airport.
*Peotone: Jackson, Johnson and other opponents of O'Hare's expansion are the chief proponents of building in Will County.
Discussions about an airport south of Chicago began in the 1960s. The state allocated $75 million for land acquisition near Peotone beginning in 2002.
Jackson, whose congressional district is near the site, has secured $300 million in private financing and the support of Gov. Rod Blagojevich for a one-runway, five-gate airfield to be called Abraham Lincoln National Airport. Bryant says an airport near Peotone would be "an economic engine that will provide jobs."
Jackson is at odds with U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller, a Republican whose district includes the site. Weller attached an amendment to a Pentagon spending bill that would give Will County control of the planning and ensure open bidding for construction contracts.
Weller says the amendment would guarantee "transparency in the procurement process." Work on a "desperately needed" new airport, he says, could begin soon.
Schwieterman says Peotone's airport "still has a real sense of momentum." But he says the absence of unanimity among its supporters "may deep-six it."
*Gary: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said Gary's airfield will become "the next great Chicago airport" after using the federal funds for an $85 million plan to extend a runway, build passenger and cargo facilities and relocate railroad tracks. "Obviously, the feds have confidence in Gary's future," says Loney, the aviation consultant.
Gary has had no commercial airline since Hooters Air suspended service in January, though it is home to charter and cargo flights and Boeing's corporate fleet. Airport director Paul Karas says the project will help lure new airlines. "We're sort of quiet out here, doing our thing," he says. "But we are ... going to be in a position to claim the title of third commercial airport for Chicago."
Jay Franke, another former Chicago aviation commissioner, disagrees. He wonders if there will ever be a third significant airport here. "If a third airport were feasible in the Chicago region," he says, "Gary would already be commercially successful."> |
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