Does Chicago need a new airport?

No

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by Carol Henrichs

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The push for a new airport to supplement O'Hare and Midway airports began more than two decades ago. Whether a new airport is needed remains a question unanswered, except by common sense.

Illinois Gov. Patrick Quinn recently announced his support for a new airport near the small town of Peotone, about 40 miles south of downtown Chicago. He proposed spending $100 million to buy land. Quinn's push for a new airport is not new. In fact nearly every Illinois governor since 1968 has given lip service to the proposal, yet the political will has never been enough to push the project to fruition. But that isn't for a lack of trying.

The Peotone airport, as it has been called, is not a transportation solution to aviation capacity. In fact, the state's fixation with building this public works project has gotten in the way of genuine transportation discussions which for too long have been pushed aside.

With a sharp focus on what an airport could bring - jobs, contracts, political contributions, and concessions - translates into control and clout. Since the most recent study process began anew in 1985, and despite federal law that requires studying alternatives, Illinois transportation officials have all but ignored any possibility that would have supported a no build option.

But in recent times, the politics has changed. The aviation industry has changed. Government is in the process of changing as well, even in Illinois where 'pay to play politics' has landed one governor in jail and another under indictment. Many hope that before Quinn actually spends the $100 million to buy land that he sees the error of his ways. Quinn talks about frugality, honesty, cutting frills. He calls himself a "repairman" interested in ethics restoration and says he wants to fight for everyday people. Those attributes fly in the face of what has occurred by past government officials bent on building a new airport near Peotone.

Airport alternatives are many, yet have been largely ignored by Illinois transportation officials. For example, there is now a renewed interest in high speed rail, which could directly compete with air travel. It was all but dismissed as not a viable option by previous Illinois governors. But, for the first time in decades, the country has a President and Illinois has a governor that is open to new rail technology.

Transportation includes more than moving people. The movement of freight is a big business, especially in Chicago which has a huge advantage because of its centralized location. It should have been aggressively pursued for its economic development potential where railroad tracks traverse the south suburbs. Unfortunately, the potential to develop a nationwide freight hub has been all but ignored by Jesse Jackson, Jr., the south suburban congressman. Instead, he has obsessed for ten years over building an airport, which would be located outside his congressional district.

Another alternative to a new airport, completely dismissed by state officials for decades, included simply making improvements to O'Hare International Airport, the second busiest in the world. That has finally begun, but it took a national aviation capacity crisis and threat of federal intervention to cause IDOT to consider O'Hare's expansion.

Even now, IDOT dismisses the regional benefit of fully utilizing existing facilities as an enhancement to the Chicagoland aviation system. Officials still refer to the Peotone proposal as the third airport, but in reality Indiana's Gary/Chicago International; western suburban Chicago/Rockford International; and Wisconsin's General Mitchell International airports have claimed title as Chicagoland's third airport. If built, the Peotone proposal would be the sixth. All three regional airports - Gary, Milwaukee, and Rockford - have excess capacity and assert underutilization.

That coupled with a study process that has been skewed since its inception, toward building an airport at Peotone, was highly criticized by technical experts as having "numerous misrepresentations, misconceptions, and incorrect assumptions."

Instead of an aviation solution, the Peotone airport has been simply a politically motivated scheme, using transportation and economic development as a guise to promote urban sprawl, enhance real estate development, and reward political contributors for the sake of a stronger political power base.

The word 'study' assumes an investigation into factual learning. But in the case of the Peotone airport, it is more accurate to claim that volumes of reports have been written and re-written - massaged - until the final document could meet the minimum requirements for building an airport.

What began as a three-state endeavor concluded in 1992 with a consensus against the Peotone site. But in November of 1994, former Gov. Jim Edgar took on sole support throwing Illinois funds into promoting the Peotone site based on the earlier studies. It has cost Illinois taxpayers tens of millions of dollars for studies, consultants, and public relations work despite a letter written to Edgar from the sixteen major airlines, asserting that they would not use a new airport at Peotone site.

Ex. governor George Ryan, who now resides in a federal penitentiary, convicted of corruption and the same kind of political wrangling that has kept the Peotone proposal alive, was the first to set aside $75 million to buy land.

The state now owns about one-third of what would be needed to build the first phase of the airport. A majority of the local governments near and including Peotone as well as an overwhelming majority of the people most affected by it oppose the project, which has now become a generational irritant.

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