There are several points to be made here, and at the same
time it must be pointed out to the nation's air travelers the importance of
the expansion of air services at Chicago, in order to relieve the delays and
cancellations that were experienced over the past year. And it is a very
confusing situation, politically. We have a Democratic Mayor and a
Republican Governor who both want to keep any expansion in the state of
Illinois.
However, the Governor wants a completely new airport built
at Peotone, roughly 40 miles away from the Loop. The revenue from this
airport would remain in the state of Illinois, but would not be controlled
by the City of Chicago. This is not what the mayor wants. He wants to
reconfigure O’Hare field to allow two more runways, thus keeping the
revenue of the additional traffic in the coffers of City Hall. It must be
noted that there are considerable objection to this plan from the residents
around O'Hare who are already disturbed by the noise and kerosene haze of
the jet engines. It should also be noted that the Governor, George Ryan, has
very poor voter support, and, like Bill Clinton, would like to leave a
legacy to help erase his poor standing. The new airport he favors could be
named the George Ryan airport, you know.
Next factor in the equation concerns the two United States Senators. Deck
Durbin (D) favors Mayor Dayley's (D) choice for expansion at O'Hare. Peter
Fitzgerald (R) favors the Republicans Governor's choice of Peotone. Now
comes a third senator who does not belong to Illinois, Senator Tom Harkin
(D-Iowa) stating that we must go along with the O'Hare plan or he will
organize Congress to force the plan on the people of Illinois. Sure he will!
He will find that there will be considerable opposition to such a measure.
Why should we even give him the time of day?
None of these big spenders will talk about a third airport that is up and
running, that is 35 miles from the Loop (the same time frame as Midway), has
a longer primary runway than Midway, has a plan before the FAA to increase
the primary from 7000 feet to 8900 feet, cashable of handling all the plane
types that use Midway, and, with the proposed extension, capable of handling
all the jets except the true wide-bodies (747s' and AirBus 300s'). Of
course, as a reliever airport, the wide-bodies would not be using this type
of facility anyway. There is room for expansion at this airport to have a
second parallel primary runway plus room for a second crosswind runway. Let
me introduce you to the Gary-Chicago airport. It is here and now. All types
of aircraft that currently use Midway could start tomorrow at Gary, with FAA
permission. It would not require years to rebuild runways. It would not
require a whole new airport as Peotone would. There is a large labor and
personnel services pool of workers who would welcome the new source of jobs
with no relocation of the citizens. The good citizens of Indiana would
finance any improvements and would deserve the revenue.
Gary-Chicago has only one drawback. That is the fact that no Illinois
politician, Governor or Mayor would be calling the shots, letting the
construction contracts, collecting bribes, "stroking" friends and
insiders, gathering in the revenue, and acting Big Dog. No Illinois
taxpayers would be financing bonds and no taxes would be collected from
Illinoisians. No revenue would be received by the state of Illinois, but
maybe that is all right. After all, we have not invested anything.
Politicians like to spend money. Our money. Gary-Chicago air port leaves
them out in the cold.
Ain't that nice?