If Mayor Richard M. Daley can’t get his phantasmagoric O’Hare Airport expansion plan completed in time for the 2016 Olympics, maybe he can get the Games postponed.
That’s because he has a better chance of getting the Olympics delayed than he has of realizing his airport expansion hallucination by then.
Doubt that? Then consider the Daley airport record so far: False starts, delays, broken promises, excuses. After huge cost overruns and missed timetables for just the first, northern runway (still not open) of the expansion plan’s Phase 1, the news out of City Hall is that Daley has ordered that $200 million more be spent on what only can be called the premature planning and engineering of the even more difficult Phase 2. That’s even though the financially troubled airlines that are supposed to pay for much of the entire expansion have said they are not in for phase 2.
Crains’ Chicago Business reported that the Daley administration plans to select the architectural and engineering teams by Nov. 1 to start design work by next March. This is in the face of the airlines’ objections. That’s no small matter. Chicago wants to tap the “passenger facility charges”—the tax you pay on O’Hare tickets—to fund the engineering and design work (as opposed to actual construction), even though it is a questionable use of the money under federal law. The airlines and airport opponents previously had objected to using PFC money for airport land acquisition; the Federal Aviation Administration, only after pressure from the city, relented and allowed the use of the money.
Phase 1 has never gone all that well, plagued by delays and $400 million in cost overruns. (The $400 million is what the city admits to; considering the city’s past record of secrecy, the figure is probably higher.) Now, the city imprudently is pushing the FAA to authorize the north runway’s opening “on schedule” on Nov. 20, even though it won’t be ready to reduce flight delays in bad weather, reported Tribune transportation writer Jon Hilkevitch. The city originally asserted that the north runway would increase airport capacity, but it now says the runway was only meant to reduce bad weather flight delays. It won’t even do that come Nov. 20, because, according to the FAA, the runway so far lacks the on-ground crash-avoidance equipment to guide landing planes in reduced visibility. Why the insistence the Nov. 20 opening? Because Daley wants it ready for President George W. Bush inaugurate it then. Showboating before safety. Incredible.
One of the north runway’s issues has been the north controller tower, which is needed to augment the perfectly fine existing tower. Why build the costly new tower (which still isn’t ready)? Because well into the expansion planning, after the six-parallel runway-configuration of the expanded airport was figuratively set in concrete, it was discovered that the entire northern runway couldn’t be observed from the existing tower. Oops.
The entire project has been characterized by a continuous series of such oops, some of them near disastrous. A little bit of history: Illinois (including Chicago), Indiana and Wisconsin in the 1980s had agreed that expansion of O’Hare—a 7,000-acre, 1950s-style airport—would be unreasonable and extravagant, it not impossible. They agreed the best option was a new south suburban airport, but when Daley was first elected, he saw the new facility as a threat to his contracts and jobs. He proposed building the new airport on the century-old toxic dump at Lake Calumet, an option so ludicrous that even Daley had to drop it, but not after spending millions on planning and propaganda and exerting his political power to stop the south suburban project. His official position then became: O’Hare could handle the region’s future airport needs—without expansion. It was a cover to mute any opposition to O’Hare expansion while its planning was underway. After years of repeated denials in the face of disclosures that the city was planning an expansion of four-parallel runways, Daley dropped a bombshell, announcing that he decided expansion was necessary and that it would include six, not four, parallel runways.
The original cost was about $6 billion; now its at least $14 billion. Originally, it was supposed to expand airport capacity to 1.6 million passengers a year, now its back to about 1 million, not much more than pre-expansion capacity.
In the face of the difficulties of Phase 1, the uncertainties of Phase 2 and the dire straights that the airline industry now finds itself in, Daley still stubbornly pushes the “complete” project. Just how stubborn? Here’s a taste:
Chicago has condemned hundreds of affordable homes in Bensenville (the largest concentration of such homes in DuPage County) for a runway to be constructed in the later stages of airport expansion. It wants to demolish those homes now, even though the property won’t be needed for years, if at all. Because Bensenville, exercising its lawful municipal powers, has refused to issue permits to Chicago to demolish the homes, Chicago has sued to force the massive destruction of the village’s east side, arguing that the need to do so is immediate. Prove it, Bensenville responded. Show us the documents that demonstrate that the condemned properties are essential for Phase 1. Except for four pages of dubious value, Chicago has refused to provide the evidence and a DuPage County circuit judge has sided with Chicago on narrow legal grounds. A cynic (or a realist) might interpret Daley’s iron-willed determination to raze those homes now as payback for the community’s strident opposition to expansion.
O’Hare expansion opponents long have recognized Daley’s streak of deep-seated stubbornness and vindictiveness, which has become increasingly apparent to the rest of the public with his Meigs Field bulldozing, Soldier Field reconstruction, the Olympics bid and, most lately, the Children’s Museum in Grant Park. Reason cannot penetrate it. For opposing him, his foes are slandered, or worse. And the taxpayers are left holding the bag.
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Dennis Byrne is a member of the Chicago Daily Observer’s editorial board and a former consultant to O’Hare-area communities that fought the airport expansion in the belief that more cost-effective and safer options are available.
Dennis Byrne says:
It's far more than a ribbon of concrete. It's digging up and replacing old runways, building new ones, extending others, building lots of new taxiways, new navigation and guidance systems (e.g. runway lighting), new parking lots, maintenance facilities and terminals (including one on the airport's western edge, as well as the cost of getting passengers from there to the main terminals). The city initially insisted that the cost was "only" $6 billion, but on further analysis and study of documents the city is required to submit to the FAA, it became clear that the figure failed to include much of the non-runway stuff (e.g. the new terminals). It then conceded that the cost was closer to $14 billion. That, however, does not include many other things, such as a "ring road" on the airport's west edge, the completion of the Elgin-O'Hare expressway, which are part of the expansion plan.
This also does not include actual cost-overruns, like the $400 million incurred in construction of just one of the planned runways. Imagine what future overruns will be, when you consider the city's record on cost containment. The figures also are in early 2000 values, so add whatever dollars inflation already has contributed to the total cost, and which it will contribute in the ?? years until the project is done.
? says:
The original cost of the runway that ran over by $400 million was?
(that will tell the real overshot of the 14b)
Other than the "ring road" is there any more "surprises" (left out by mistake or on purpose) that are going to push the 14 billion?
How much is lost by pulling the plug?
John Ryskamp says:
I studied this disaster in connection with my book, The Eminent Domain Revolt (New York: Algora, 2006).
First, the lawyers for Bensenville were simply dreadful. They tied the ENTIRE opposition to a RLUIPA case involving the cemetery, and then argued that with miserable incompetence (the Supreme Court just turned down the writ request to hear the RLUIPA case).
Next, they failed to argue that the proposal did not meet minimum scrutiny, because there as no "rational relation to a legitimate government purpose"--that's minimum scrutiny, and every law must meet that standard.
However, as in many other cases, this was a case of the political system substituting private interest for public interest. The economist Stiglitz identified this as "capture" a long time ago. If this had been argued, the lawyers could have shown that the expansion did not pass minimum scrutiny because there was no government purpose, only a private purpose. Idiots again.
Finally, these clowns did not argue the one thing this really involves: housing. They continue to be addicted to Lindsey v. Normet, the 1972 case which said that housing only enjoys minimum scrutiny. So they didn't argue the housing angle AT ALL. Idiots again.
Were these lawyers bought out by Daley? Looks like it to me.
The point is that our understanding of the case which established minimum scrutiny, West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937) is changing. That case allowed minimum wage laws on the basis that they were a part of "maintenance" of income. Income was important to the Court, and far from being a grant of unlimited discretion (which is how Daley is proceeding with this expansion), the case really stands for the proposition that policy is only Constitutional if it maintains important facts.
And housing? The Court has already indicated--and counsel could certainly have proved it up--that housing is an important fact. Under West Virginia v. Barnette, which identified exercises of religion as important facts, important facts are facts of human experience which, history has shown, do not change no matter what attempt is made to change them.
These idiot lawyers could have shown from the Court's own opinions that housing is such a fact, and therefore deserves HIGHER than minimum scrutiny--something like strict scrutiny, which means that government policy (like the Airport expansion) must be narrowly tailored to meet an overriding government purpose.
Would the expansion, in that case, have passed Constitutional muster. No.
But these Bensenville lawyers were so unsophisticated, so ignorant and so stupid, that they blew the case for their clients. Complete, utter idiots.
? says:
Great artucle but i have more questions than answers.
why does it cost 6 or 14 billion for a ribbon of concreate?
what is the cost breakdown /land, concreate, engineering, ect/?
where did the 8 billion go /was is oops or political candidates (BHO/RE/ect)/?
what segments of construction went the most over by percent and dollar?
how much of the money is sunk? /if the project was dropped tommorow how much is already spent and how much more for cleanup/