You are 100% correct. It would be a disaster of unimaginable scale.

The only people who would stand to benefit are the various contractors who would get to perform the design and construction work related to it...the taxpayers would be out billions of dollars (without receiving billions of dollars in benefits, to be sure), the state wouldnt even be receiving much tax revenue (worse yet, paying to subsidize the airports operations). And the politicians who got it built? Well they'd certainly get some big donations from the aforementioned construction contractors, but the general public wouldn't have a particular target for their angst because the decision would have been taken collectively, so no politician would stand to get punished for the blunder.

That lack of interstate, intercounty, intercommuity micro-government mentality is why Chicagoland has so many problems functioning and creating progress on a regional level. Too many units of government and no cooperation between them.

Building an airport in a retarded, foolish location just to keep it on state tax rolls and appease certain south side elected officials is the ultimate in selfishness and lack of foresight.

:previous:Exactly! Indiana should cede the NW to Illinois which should in turn annex it to Chicago. :tup:

Thank you. I think the whole "keep it in Illinois" thing is rather shallow. As a south-sider, I can assure anyone on this forum that the prosperity of NW Indiana has a direct impact on the City and Illinois itself, probably a lot more than Peotone. It's not as though there is some kind of border patrol...

I was just looking at a map of the Gary area. It looks to me like the area where Gary-Chicago Airport is built is hemmed in by I-90 to the south, US-12 to the east and north, and Cline Ave. to the west, as well as a number of rail lines.

Is there enough land for the airport to expand, if the need arose?

I would also wonder whether Illinois would be the beneficiary of any of the revenue that would be generated if Gary became the third major airport in the metro area.

Access would be a problem, I would imagine. From the south suburbs and most points west, one would need to take 80/94, which, while just gaining a new lane in each direction, is still a nightmare. Adding any substantial amount of airport traffic would make things that much worse.

I agree that Peotone is probably too far from downtown, but I also wonder whether Gary is really a viable option. Does anyone have any other alternatives?

I don't give a hoot what state it is in. The only thing that should really matter when it comes down to it is the practiacility for the passangers and airlines and the best service it can provide to the region. Given location, accesibility, and market size that is Gary.

I would rather have Indiana and Gary benefit a bit more that have a close connection to more of the metro then bumbleweed Peotone that is less successful and neglected. As has been said Peotone is really just a pet pork project for some Illinois officials under the banner of jobs while neglecting major practicalities. These people would propose a Hoover Dam size project for the Des Plains river under the banner of jobs and tax revenue if they thought they could get away with it.

If Ryan Air really goes through with their continental cheap flights to secondary airports in the U.S. hopefully Gary will make a convincing case that it would be a good choice.

I think access to Gary is (relatively)great, since it's accessible by 80, 94, and 90 coming from the east AND west, plus 65 from the south. 80 is a mess because 1) its so old, so the geometry of the entire roadway wasn't desired to modern standards and 2) bits and pieces have been under construction for literally decades; and when a roadway is continually gaining and losing lanes, it will be jammed at all time. When 1 & 2 are both fixed in the coming years, this problem goes away, and then you look at widening I-90 to 6 lanes east of the state line (the Illinois side i.e. the Skyway is already 6 lanes). Cline Avenue gets beefed up into the airport feeder road that is accessible from both 90 and 80/94.


In terms of expandability, there's enough room (if a few freight tracks are relocated) for 2 parallel 9'000foot runways along with beefing up the current crosswind runway; even 1 9'000ft runway is ample capacity for several years to come, and the second parallel runway allowing for simultaneous operations would add capacity for Chicago's air travel demand probably for as long as all of our lifetimes if not more (assuming OMP is built out as well). After all isn't London Gatwick 2 runways, and Stansted only 1 runway? Also, remember that Midway's runway design is such that they can't do any simultaneous operations, i.e. at best operationally its got 1 takeoff and 1 landing runway that can't be used simultaneously.

FYI, I was driving past GYY the other day and they are well into the first stage of the expansion (rerouting of rail tracks to the west of the main runway).

I also like the idea of calling it the Calumet International Airport. Locals would identify strongly with that, and non-locals wouldn't be turned off by the word "Gary".

Lastly, one need only drive surface streets down in that area to see that the Indiana/Illinois border is just a line on a map. Nothing more, nothing less. What's good for southeast Chicago is good for northwest Indiana, and what's good for northwest Indiana is good for southeast Chicago.

BTW, Viva - I'm not sure Cline can be beefed up any more than it already is - it's grade-seperated the whole way between 80/94 and the airport. Admittedly, the cloverleaf at 80/94 is a bit of a bottleneck, but it's enough to handle the traffic for well into the future.

One thing that Cline does need is resurfacing.

Not only that but Heathrow only has two runwayas as well (both +12,000ft) and that caters to well over 50m a year.

Far into the future when we are gone the far north burbs will likely be so built out that Milwaukee will be seen as a truely 4th regional airport for a good catering to a segement of Lake County.

Agreed. All points.

Was this article posted? From Crain's, May 7:

From the past many pages from the past month or so I have read from newspaper articles that we have the city, suburbs, businesses big and small, metrolpolitan organizations, unions and everyone imbetween screaming that mass transit needs more funding. Well then it will happen because it is everyone stating that we need more funding or the consequences will be dire. I am confident it will happen. Everyone is on the same page and that is what is important.

And a side note. I think the Redline, haven't rode the Brown line in a long time, is running better with one less track because of the recontruction, than before when all 4 tracks were in place. I am amazed. It is decent now, wtf. Some things I don't get and this is one of them.

You're forgeting one thing. Our governor is an idiot.

I don't know much the guy but if you are saying that he is not for more transit funding then he can't win. Everyone is for more and I mean everyone. Is there a group, business, or governemt body - suburban or city, against more funding? No there is not and they are sounding an alarm. He can't fight everyone.

Blago is a politician, though. He sees the writing on the wall, and he won't publicly say he is against funding for transit. He will instead stick to the party line, which is "Pass my gross receipts tax and we'll see about transit funding". That tax is a huge pill for the pro-transit businesses to swallow, maybe even enough to get them to back off the transit issue.

The fact that he's pushing this totally ludicrous and financially backwards tax alone shows me he's an idiot.

Make sense tho. I'm sorry to say it but only a high, sustained gas price will finally ween this country off of oil, and make the use of transit that much more appealing. What is the public opinion of this? Is there much support, or as I would expoect, ambivalence? "I gotta drive. I'll just pay whatever they ask. I have no choice."