Proposed expansion at O'Hare Airport garners mixed reaction
Environmental impact, cost-effectiveness and adherence to noise ordinances are just three controversial issues over which Chicago-area residents, policymakers and airport officials have scuffled since December 2002, when the city presented the FAA with a draft of its proposed Airport Layout Plan (ALP). The plan is contained within the city’s O’Hare Modernization Program (OMP).
On July 26, following extensive talks with Chicago officials in Washington as well as with Illinois’ congressional delegation, NATCA President John Carr met with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and afterwards pledged full union support of the expansion. “The mayor’s plan should be approved by the FAA, and the mayor’s plan should go forward and receive full federal funding,” Carr noted. “The public and the bond markets need to know that it is high time to do this project.”
Redesign and expansion of O’Hare’s layout, which has not seen the addition of a new runway since 1971, will include the realignment of three existing runways and the construction of a new one. Overall, the project would result in O’Hare International Airport ultimately having eight total runways in a “more modern, parallel layout”: six parallel east-west runways, and two parallel runways oriented in the northeast-southwest direction. The OMP also includes the creation of a new western terminal facility with more airline gates and parking, which will connect to O’Hare’s main terminal core by an automated people mover system.
Advocates of the expansion assert that the $6.6 billion OMP will create 195,000 jobs and bring in $18 million in annual economic activity for the region, as well as provide an estimated $370 million in annual savings to airlines, and $380 million in annual savings for passengers. Further-more, OMP advocates expect the project to reduce bad-weather delays by 95 percent, and reduce overall delays by 79 percent.
However, despite its promised advantages, the OMP has met a significant amount of opposition. Arguments against the city’s plan include those of O’Hare air traffic controllers, who say that the proposed layout—which involves building parallel runways on both sides of the passenger terminal complex—increases the chance of fatal collisions. The current runway layout requires planes to taxi across active runways approximately 100 times per day, while the city’s proposed ALP will reportedly increase the rate of active-runway crossings to approximately 2,400 times per day.
Craig Burzych, NATCA Facility Represent-ative at O’Hare Air Traffic Control Tower, remains concerned about the safety of the OMP. “I respect the fact that our national office in Washington has the right to set the national policy and direction of the union,” he said, though he argued that the national office “has not had the opportunity to as we have over the past two years to review the [OMP].”
Carr has acknowledged the controllers’ concerns and maintains that sometimes, passionate professionals can simply disagree with one another. In this case, he points out that the plan’s main selling point is still the union’s long-standing position that “at the end of the day, we simply need more runways poured at all the major airports – and especially at the most congested airport in the country.”
