For several decades, there has been a controversy about whether or not the Chicago area needs a third airport. The best solution solves a practical need, but the elected officials won't go along with it because of politics.
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O'Hare Airport is the dominant airport in the Chicago area. It is located in the northwest corner of the City of Chicago. Three major interstate highways intersect on its front door, making for very convenient access from most of Chicagoland's affluent areas. They are the Tri-State Tollway, I-294, for access from the north, west and south suburbs, the Kennedy Expressway, I-90, for access from downtown Chicago and the rest of the City, and the Northwest Tollway, also I-90, for access from the northwest suburbs. Many people want to add another runway to increase capacity.
A third runway at O'Hare is strongly opposed by many who live in the suburbs surrounding the airport because they don't want the noise that additional flights would generate. This is the NIMBY syndrome: Not In My Back Yard. They like the high-paying jobs and the economic development that comes from having the airport nearby. They like the convenience of having available, right down the block, non-stop flights to every major airport in the nation. They like the convenience of having available, right down the block, non-stop flights to most major airports anywhere in the world. They like the convenience of being as close as possible to all that Chicago has to offer while not actually living within the city limits of Chicago, with its high taxes and marginal public school system. However, they want all that without being inconvenienced by the noise that jet aircraft generates on takeoff and landing. They don't mind the noise from flights that they actually fly on. They just don't want the noise from the flights that they aren't flying on.
Midway Airport is a the nation's premier discount airport. Flights from Midway go to many major airports, nationwide, and many smaller airports within 500 miles of Chicago. The price of airfare is almost always significantly less than the price at O'Hare. That's because Midway is very inconveniently located in the middle of a southwest side residential neighborhood and does not have international flights. No expressways come anywhere near Midway, so you have to take city streets, such as Cicero Avenue (Illinois Route 50) or 55th Street to get there.
The reason that Midway is located in the middle of a neighborhood is that Chicago Municipal Airport was established in 1927, not too long after the Wright Brothers got their flying bicycles off the ground. Midway was in the middle of farms back then, ten miles from downtown Chicago. That's a long way on horseback. In 1949, the airport was renamed to commemorate the World War II Battle of Midway. Farmers near the airport stopped planting corn and started planting a more profitable crop: bungalows.
O'Hare Airport, on the other hand, was a small airport located on the then-fringe of the suburban area, 22 miles from downtown Chicago, where Douglas Aircraft manufactured its airplanes. Its name was Orchard Field because it was located in the middle of a number of apple orchards. Its current airport code, ORD, comes from its former name, Orchard Field. In 1949, the airport was renamed in honor of Lt. Commander Butch O'Hare, a Navy pilot who died in combat during World War II. Just as what happened around Midway, homes and businesses were built around O'Hare after the airport got going. People moved into the area for the convenience of being near the airport, but then started complaining about noise because they suddenly discovered that there was an airport nearby.
With the growth of aviation during the past half century, both O'Hare and Midway are operating at capacity. City officials want to add an additional runway at O'Hare. Suburban officials don't want anymore runways at O'Hare because of the noise from airplanes taking off and landing and, instead, want a third airport built some seventy miles to the south near Kankakee, Illinois, next to a town called Peotone.
Peotone is so far away from Chicago that it doesn't even appear on most Chicago-area maps. The airlines won't sign on to pay for the cost of building the airport and fly there because they know that hardly anybody would be willing to drive two to three hours during rush-hour to get to that airport. Rush hour in Chicago starts at around 5:30 AM and ends around 7 PM, with a slight break between 11:30 AM and 1:30 PM. Really. Peotone is so far away from Chicago that it would take less time to fly to most destinations than it would take just to drive to the airport.
That doesn't bother most northwest suburban officials. They don't seem to care whether or not a new Kankakee International Airport at Peotone would actually be used by anybody. All they care about is having an excuse to prevent another runway from being built at O'Hare.
There is a better solution. An operating, functioning airport exists, right now, in Gary, Indiana. Before you think, "Indiana? Why would anyone want to travel all the way to the next state for an airport?" you should be aware that the eastern border of Chicago is on the Indiana state line. Much of Chicago's eastern border is Lake Michigan, but a large portion of the south side of Chicago borders on the Indiana state line. Gary Airport is located exactly five miles east of Chicago and just twenty miles from downtown Chicago. That's only four miles farther from downtown Chicago than O'Hare is in the other direction. In that regard, it is very similar to Newark Airport. Newark is in New Jersey, but it serves the New York City area well because Newark and NYC are located adjacent to each other on the New York - New Jersey border. The Gary Airport also is very convenient to get to, being located at the junction of the Indiana Toll Road, I-90, and Interstate 65, and just three miles north of Interstate 80/94, with an expressway connection via Indiana 912.
The City of Gary desperately wants the economic development that would accrue from their airport being the Chicago area's third airport. Illinois politicians won't go along because the economic development, jobs and tax revenue would go to Indiana, not Illinois. Even worse, from the perspective of Illinois politicians, is that Gary is inhabited mostly by Negroes. The White politicians who control Illinois politics aren't going to go out of their way to help a bunch of out-of-state Colored folk.
A Kankakee International Airport at Peotone would be twice as far from downtown Chicago, some forty-five miles due south and some seventy miles from O'Hare. An airport, there, would be extremely unpopular, underutilized and a financial boondoggle because virtually nobody would be willing to travel that far to catch a flight. If you were to take a cab from the north or northwest suburbs or even from downtown Chicago to Peotone, your cab fare could quite possibly exceed the cost of your airfare. However, Illinois politicians would rather throw away our own tax dollars than allow Black people in Gary to benefit from our business.
Politics and racism should be set aside, this time, because a Peotone Airport wouldn't work, financially, anyway. Some flights should be transferred to Gary and a new runway should be built at O'Hare.
For those who live near O'Hare but don't like the noise from airplanes, what are you doing living near an airport if you don't like noise? Go live somewhere else in the area. The noise really only affects those living within a few miles of the airport. The Chicago area has many places to live that don't have airplane noise.
Before I married Celeste, I lived in an apartment facing Sheridan Road in Chicago. Lake Shore Drive was just one block away. The view of Lake Michigan was great. The 151 Sheridan Road Local, the 147 Outer Drive Express and the 136 LaSalle-Sheridan Express busses all stopped a half a block away. A Red Line subway station was two blocks away. It was all very convenient for getting downtown, to the lake or elsewhere, but the noise from the Sheridan Road traffic was oppressive and never-ending.
When Celeste and I got married and became parents, we decided that we wanted a quieter place to live. We didn't ask motorists to stop driving down the major highway known as Sheridan Road so that we wouldn't be inconvenienced by the noise of their cars. We didn't ask the Chicago Transit Authority to stop running busses up and down the street except at those times that we wanted to travel. Instead, we moved to a quiet neighborhood in Buffalo Grove because we wanted to live somewhere that was quiet.
If you want the convenience and economic benefits, live as close as you want to O'Hare. If you want quiet, don't live on the edge of one of the world's major international airports.
If the Chicago area needs a third airport, it already exists at Gary, Indiana. Don't inconvenience millions of Chicago-area residents by building an unneeded airport downstate and calling it a third Chicago airport, just to be able to control patronage jobs and tax revenue and to be able to keep Black people in Gary from benefiting from economic development and increased tax revenues, while at the same time wasting billions of dollars building an airport that airport users won't be willing to drive to and use. Besides, from a revenue standpoint, a Peotone airport would actually be an economic loser. More tax dollars would be spent to build and maintain the place than would be brought in through tax revenue because so few people would ever use a Kankakee International Airport at Peotone.
I wonder how much airfare would cost to fly one of Chicago's airports to Peotone?
Rob Sherman P. O. Box
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