Construction Starts On New Runway At O'Hare Airport
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Work began Thursday on a new runway at O'Hare International Airport, in an ongoing effort to improve airlines' on-time performance and reduce jet noise in some Chicago neighborhoods.
The 11,245-foot runway 9C/27C will be the second longest at O'Hare when it opens in 2020. It will be the sixth east-west runway, which planners said will reduce flight delays, and better spread out jet noise in communities east and west of the airport.
"Construction of Runway 9C/27C will complete O'Hare's parallel runway layout and provide Chicago with a 21st Century airfield," said CDA Commissioner Ginger S. Evans. "This project significantly increases safety and efficiency, and addresses the impact of airport noise by balancing O'Hare's airfield operations. I want to thank the FAA and our airline partners for making this project – which is of national significance – a reality."
The top safety expert for the Air Line Pilots Association said it's a project worth doing.
"To the airline pilots, we assume that any expansion in general is good expansion. It allows us to have more airplanes coming into the airspace at the same time and in a safe way. When you have crossing runways, you have a problem safety-wise and also capacity-wise. With the expansion, what they're doing is making the runways parallel, which truly helps us out," said Bob Sisk, chairman of the ALPA Central Air Safety Committee.
However, the FAiR (Fair Allocation in Runways) Coalition, which has repeatedly asked the city to keep O'Hare's existing diagonal runways open after the new parallel runways are complete, said the city is acting irresponsibly by moving forward with its plans without testing the effect on jet noise around the airport.
"This groundbreaking sets into motion the end of the current fly quiet rotation, taking away the only relief in the last three years that provides the hardest hit residents with a night's sleep," the group said Thursday morning.
The "Fly Quiet" plan at O'Hare rotates which runways are used overnight to spread jet noise across the suburbs and city neighborhoods around the airport. FAiR has said diagonal runways are needed to better balance jet noise around O'Hare, but the city has ignored their pleas.
FAiR member John Kane said the new east-west runway would lead to the end of the existing diagonal runways, and will take away the only relief people living in the narrow flight path east and west of the airport have had in years.
"We understand the economic impact that O'Hare is, but what it's doing is it's causing a great deal of diminished quality of life, and frankly a lot of angry residents to the point now we've got close to 500,000 complaints per month," he said.
Kane said some people living in the O'Hare flight path are giving up on Chicago, fed up with rising property taxes and no relief from jet noise.
The new runway is part of a $1.3 billion infrastructure project at O'Hare. The plan also includes new de-icing pads, a new taxiway system, new hangars and ground-support equipment buildings.
The infrastructure project is expected to create about 4,900 jobs.
The project will be funded with $345 from the Federal Aviation Administration, 200 million from existing passenger facility charges, and hundreds of millions of dollars of aviation bonds backed by existing airport revenue.
The new runway will be the final new runway under the O'Hare Modernization Program, launched under former Mayor Richard M. Daley. Another existing runway will be expanded by 2021.
