Chuck Sweeney takes on Obama’s silence in regards to Rockford’s airport. To be fair, no one asked, but I think any serious discussion of the O’Hare and Peotone have to consider Rockford’s role as well as a potential regional airport in Central Illinois. Rockford is especially well suited to deal with cargo and increased traffic as the region sprawls. Peotone has the ability to take some of the regional weight and perhaps cargo off the shoulders of O’Hare.
A central Illinois regional airport is another element of the solution as well, though perhaps an intractable one. Bloomington, Peoria, Champaign and Springfield (does Decatur have commercial service?) all closely guard having service directly to their community when a more efficient system would be an airport around Lincoln that served all five communities and would be within 40 minutes of each city (not even as long as the commute to O’Hare). This sort of airport would reduce the stress on O’Hare in serving as the primary airport for that region as well. Adding that to St. Louis high capacity right now, much of that traffic could be rerouted keeping O’Hare more viable over time as the premeire cross country stop while serving other needs.
The problem? Too many Congressman representing the different cities want to protect the individual airports in each downstate city.
Actually, the solution that NOBODY in Illinois, Dem or Repub, wants to talk about, is already up and running.
Gary/Chicago Airport, right across the state line, plenty of *free,* secure parking, easy access to interstates and commuter rail, a brand new terminal, longer runways than Midway, capable of handing 60 flights per day right now, and more with an additional six gates to be added in a couple of years.
Three commercial airlines currently serve the airport with limted service (to Myrtle Beach, Ft. Myers, Orlando, Tampa/St. Pete, Vegas and Reno). Rumor has it that JetBlue will be arriving in the next year there to make their entry into the Chicago market. If that happens, game over, discussion is moot. Gary will become the Newark to O’Hare’s JFK and Midway’s LaGuardia in that case.
As it should be… since Gary makes way more sense than anything Illinois has to offer on the issue. But no politician from Illinois, other than Daley, is willing to admit that. (This is one issue where I’ll grudgingly tip my cap to Da Mayor for being ahead of the curve…)
Bringing the point home that the issue is even more complex than I made it to be.
I think the real shame about Keyes being in the race is that his looniness totally overshadows any sort of real debate that ought to be going on. Elections gives everyone a chance to focus on certain issues. The state of airports in Illinois is certainly a debate that should happen, but it never seems to. But, instead of actually talking about anything, we’re focused on Keyes being completely nuts. Because, after all, watching Keyes being nuts is pretty magnetic. 🙂
I’m having a hard time saying anything about debasing the race since I’m having so much fun covering it. But good point.
Don’t forget about rail. It’s pretty dumb that we don’t offer any connecting service between Midway and the Chicago-St. Louis Amtrak corridor, even though the rail line runs right by Midway. Ditto with the Metra line that runs right by O’Hare (with no real connection). People shouldn’t fly from Chicago to Milwaukee or Indianapolis or Madison or Bloomington or Springfield and take up precious slots at the airport. They should take the train. If we invest more in rail like we do in air (12 billion for O’Hare! You know what that would do to Midwest rail?), we’d solve some of the airport problem.