Chicago's airport situation grows murkier in strange week CHICAGO (AP) =97 Chicago's long-running struggle over airports =97 building= =20 one, closing one, expanding one or any combination of the three =97 has= grown=20 even murkier. It began last week with a late Sunday night raid ordered by=20 Chicago Mayor Richard Daley on Meigs Field, the city's lakefront general=20 aviation airport. Then, a consultant's report said the proposed expansion=20 of O'Hare International Airport would not be enough to solve the problem of= =20 overcapacity and delays. Finally, Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, once opposed to=20 giving the city of Chicago a say in a proposed third airport, suggested the= =20 city instead should run it; and the mayor of Chicago announced that he had= =20 not been elected to be a lover boy. Daley, bristling at suggestions that=20 bulldozing the runway at Meigs without warning showed arrogance, explained= =20 Thursday why nearly 80% of voters picked him in the latest mayoral=20 election. "Sometimes you have to make decisions. ... People want you to=20 make decisions. They didn't elect me to be a lover boy," he said.=20 Explaining why he forced Meigs Field to be closed, Daley blamed the threat= =20 of terrorist attack by a small plane. But he has said previously he wanted= =20 to turn the space into a park. Daley also offered a geography lesson in=20 response to a suggestion by Fitzgerald, R-Ill., that Chicago could control= =20 the proposed Peotone airport, which would be built nearly 40 miles south of= =20 Chicago. "First of all, I don't want any ownership of Peotone," Daley said. "I hope= =20 that Senator Fitzgerald understands, and those who are supporting Peotone,= =20 that that resides in Will County. "It's a county just south of Chicago and= =20 south of Cook County." Fitzgerald said he thought the idea made sense,=20 despite the geography. "I think that there's some internal logic in having= =20 the city's three airports operated by the same operator because you could=20 manage them in a way that they don't undercut each other," he said. The dispute over Peotone and O'Hare expansion has simmered for years and=20 created unlikely political alliances as Democrats lined up with Republicans= =20 on both sides of the plan. Aaron Gellman, a professor at Northwestern=20 University's Transportation Center in the Kellogg Graduate School of=20 Management, said Fitzgerald's offer to Daley indicates how big a role=20 politics plays in the process. "Peotone should not be the fiefdom of the=20 mayor," he said. "The 40 or 50 largest airports should be declared the=20 collective assets of the nation and taken out of the control of local=20 officials." That seems unlikely, and because O'Hare is a key part of the major=20 airlines' hub-and-spoke system, air traffic delays in Chicago ripple=20 throughout the country. Studies project the problem getting worse. Under a= =20 deal worked out between Daley and former Gov. George Ryan in December 2001,= =20 a $6 billion expansion of O'Hare was tied to the construction of a more=20 modest airport near Peotone, as well as to an agreement to keep Meigs Field= =20 open for up to 25 years. But Fitzgerald's opposition kept O'Hare expansion= =20 from making it into federal law. Then Ryan left office and Daley tore up=20 Meigs Field's runway, prompting an after-the-fact lawsuit Friday by the=20 Friends of Meigs Field, a group that wants to see the airport reopened.=20 Meanwhile, a consultant paid by Chicago to study the O'Hare plan, Ricondo &= =20 Associates, reported that O'Hare expansion would not be enough to keep pace= =20 with the projected growth in traffic there. And the crunch might get worse= =20 in the near future. The FAA issued new rules last week that preclude 41 airlines from=20 participating in a complicated runway procedure designed to allow more=20 flights at O'Hare. During busy periods, hourly capacity could be reduced by= =20 up to 30 planes. O'Hare handles about 920,000 flights a year. Daley said in= =20 2001 that his plan would enable the airport to handle 1.6 million flights=20 and would cut delays by 95% in bad weather and 79% overall. But a=20 simulation by the consultant found that delays at O'Hare would increase=20 even at 1.3 million flights a year. "I don't think the study was as=20 negative toward O'Hare as has been suggested," said Joseph Schwieterman, an= =20 economics professor at DePaul University who follows the airline industry.= =20 "I think the study shows there's room for both the O'Hare and Peotone=20 projects," he said. While Gov. Rod Blagojevich urged that O'Hare be a=20 priority, he shared that view: "I do see that both O'Hare expansion and=20 Peotone can coexist." Many aviation experts see the need for both. "Looking= =20 out 25 years, the need for new runway space is staggering," Schwieterman= said. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.carstt.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************