"Chicago offers partial compromise on O'Hare expansion, report says"

Monday, September 23, 2002

City offers partial compromise on O'Hare expansion, report says
The Associated Press


The city of Chicago is offering suburban critics a partial compromise in
the fight over plans to expand O'Hare International Airport, according
to a published report.

The Chicago Tribune reported in Monday's editions that the city is now
willing to use land within the airport's proposed boundaries to build a
roadway that neighboring suburbs feared would require hundreds of more
acres of land acquisition. 

John Harris, Chicago's first deputy aviation commissioner, said the
surprising compromise offer resulted from recent refinements of the $6.6
billion O'Hare expansion plan unveiled last year by Mayor Richard M.
Daley. 

Harris said planners determined that enough space exists within the
proposed airport boundaries for both an eight-runway layout and a
western bypass expressway, which would link the Northwest Tollway on the
north and the Tri-State Tollway on the south. 

"We are preserving a corridor that would bring the western-bypass ring
road through the airport in such a way that benefits our suburban
neighbors and does not adversely affect the safe and efficient operation
of our modernized airfield," Harris said. 

He said the bypass would run three lanes in each direction and cover 108
acres inside the expanded airport. 

Suburban officials who spoke to the Tribune on Sunday night said they
were skeptical about Harris' contention that the revised plan would not
encroach on industrial centers in Elk Grove Village and Bensenville. 

"It can't be done unless you do away with Chicago's runway
configuration," said Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson. 

Elk Grove Village officials, who are fighting the runway project,
complained recently that they could expect to lose some 290 acres,
35,000 industrial jobs and $5 million in yearly tax revenue if the
bypass road were to be built outside the airport's western border.


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