O'Hare International Airport Expansion

First of all, I believe that the airport should be expanded. Here is an article from Crain's Chicago Business. January 13, 2005 No red flags over O'Hare expansion in FAA report Critic says FAA 'cooking the books' (AP) — Diverting planes to nearby airports won't reduce delays at O'Hare, according to a government report released Thursday that Chicago officials hope will help speed their plans for expanding one of the nation's busiest airports. The Federal Aviation Administration's draft environmental study raises no red flags over the city's proposal to add runways and reconfigure existing ones at O'Hare. It also discounts several alternative proposals for reducing delays. Among those alternatives was a plan that called for greater use of airports in Milwaukee, Rockford and Gary, Ind. "It doesn't meet the criteria of handling all the growth that's going to come at O'Hare in the coming years," FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said Thursday. Molinaro stressed that the city's plan is not a shoo-in yet. The FAA has scheduled public hearings on its environmental study next month and is slated to release a final report in July that could include recommended changes. The FAA's decision on O'Hare expansion is expected in September. "We're very happy with where we're at in this process," said Rosemarie Andolino, executive director of the city's O'Hare Modernization Program. Andolino said she expects the FAA will approve the city's $15 billion plan, and contractors will be ready to break ground immediately. The plan calls for opening the first new runway in 2007, with the project due to end in 2013. The FAA report found that the number of people affected by high noise levels would slightly increase after expansion - from about 22,000 in 2002 to 24,000 in 2018. The new runway configuration would mean less noise to the northwest and south and more for suburbs east and west of O'Hare, Molinaro said. Air pollution would also increase slightly with more planes coming into the airport, although it would still fall within levels accepted by the government, the report said. The report compared the city's runway plan to two others devised by FAA experts and found it would reduce delays the most in the long run. The city says overall delays would plummet by 79 percent once the runways are built. Joe Karaganis, an attorney for communities and churches opposed to expansion, said the FAA report was designed to pave the way for approval of the city's plan. He accused the agency of discarding other alternatives - including the use of regional airports - without truly studying them. "The FAA has been cooking the books on this thing all the way along," Karaganis said. Karaganis argues the city won't be able to get the bonds and passenger fee increases required to fund the project. He also says the city has not backed up its contention that delays would decrease, and lawsuits over moving cemeteries in the path of the new runways could stop the project altogether.>