Pork 'n Fly

O’Hare International Airport has long been a source of politicking, patronage and lucrative contracts for the City of Chicago and its dynastic mayor, Richard M. Daley. For the mayor, the airport represents appointments he can distribute, contracts he can hustle, and votes to win.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Mayor Daley is seeking to expand the overcrowded airport, and thus his ability to line the coffers of his closest friends and allies. Mayor Daley is currently jostling at the stimulus trough, requesting federal funds for the $20 billion O’Hare Modernization Project (OMP). Although the OMP website stresses that “no state or local tax dollars will be used to fund the OMP,” Richard Drew, a spokesman for the project, admitted that “the city is more than $400 million in debt” as a direct result of it.

The OMP is driven by politics, not transportation needs. An independent study conducted by Washington, D.C. based Shaw Pittman LLP (now Pillsbury Winthrop) concluded that although the expansion of O’Hare will increase the number of flight operations per year, the increase is paltry – a measly 200,000 flights added per year due to already saturated airspace. Other estimates suggest that the OMP will only add 125,000 flights per year. Shaw Pittman also concludes that increased demand on the facilities at O’Hare will mean a negligible alleviation of delays by the time OMP construction is complete.

Moreover, the high cost of the O’Hare Modernization Project means higher fees for airlines using the airport. As such, United Airlines and American Airlines have suggested that the expansion project is both “ill-conceived” and “premature”.

Instead of heeding the advice of airlines and independent consultants, the city is planning to go ahead with a project that could involve the expropriation of up to 433 acres of land from the villages surrounding O’Hare – even the exhumation of 1500 bodies from two cemeteries that are more than 150 years old.

Meanwhile, a viable, affordable and privately-funded alternative has been held up by corrupt ‘pay-to-play’ schemes. The Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission (ALNAC), an intergovernmental body consisting of twenty-one communities in Chicago’s south-west suburbs, has proposed building an airport in the south-west suburbs of Chicago, near Peotone, Illinois.

In an interview with NewMajority, ALNAC Executive Director Rick Bryant explained that the Lincoln Airport project was delayed by Gov. Blagojevich’s ‘pay-to-play’ governing style.

While Gov. Blagojevich was initially supportive of the third airport in Peotone, he wanted something in return: the governor demanded that he be able to personally appoint a majority of the ALNAC executive. When the ALNAC board refused, the state turned uncooperative.

Blagojevich’s replacement turns a much kinder eye towards the development of an airport in the south-west suburbs of Chicago. In a speech on Wednesday, Governor Pat Quinn asserted the need for a third airport, and touted the importance of building it “as fast as humanly possible.”

According to Rick Bryant, at least 125,000 flights could be added annually by the $500 million construction of the Abraham Lincoln National Airport. Unlike O’Hare’s tax-fueled expansion, this would be funded by private firms, without public money. For 1/30th the cost of the O’Hare expansion, the same results could be achieved (minus, of course, the corrupt contracts and political patronage).

Constructing Lincoln Airport would generate as many as 9,700 jobs. But since none of these jobs would be in the gift of the city of Chicago, Mayor Daley prefers the costlier OMP instead. Will the Obama administration succumb to pressure from the Chicago Machine? Or will it heed the real needs of the state of Illinois and the American taxpayer and achieve better results with less graft at lower cost?