Posted on 09/30/2005 8:58:02 PM PDT by SmithL
A $15 billion expansion of O'Hare Airport designed to ease some of the nation's worst flight delays was halted by an appeals court just hours after it received the go-ahead from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The city was expecting final approval and started to break ground Friday on the airport's first runway since 1971 after Mayor Richard M. Daley said "Let's go" into a walkie talkie at a celebratory news conference.
But hours later, the US Court of Appeals in Washington granted an emergency request filed by opponents who argued the project would desecrate a cemetery with 1,300 tombs dating back to the 1800s.
The project - championed for years by the mayor - calls for new and reconfigured runways, another terminal and parking for oversized planes.
Critics have fought the project for years because it will require the razing of nearly 500 homes and the relocating of nearly 200 businesses and the St. Johannes Cemetery in the suburbs of Bensenville, Des Plaines and Elk Grove Village.
The FAA said the expansion would let O'Hare handle 1.2 million landings and takeoffs a year, 300,000 more than now. Average delays would go from 17.1 minutes to 5.8 minutes, according to agency projections. And it said safety would increase because the new layout would cut in half the number of planes crossing open runways.
More obstructionist tactics. You don't have to win; just tie them up in court forever.
Just like the greens got the courts to halt work on the levees in New Orleans, Louisiana, huh?
Sorry, but this stuff just makes me mad.
The least they can do is be honest with their concerns....
Garden of Eden syndrome shows it's ugly head again and strikes at the heartstrings of compassion toted by the feeble and clueless.
A way of life for some which needs to be stifled post haste with a big political hammer!
Revenue lost because of the courts attitude is downright un-American.
It is to Marxism what the Hail Mary was to Notre Dame.
Des Plaines. Sounds familiar to me for some reason.
Marxism and "hail Mary" in the same sentence = Hillary Clinton.
Off topic but I had to say it. ; )
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I expect this whole mess to be settled by the US Supreme Court within a year. If not, expect O'Hare International Airport to start imposing landing slot restrictions like what they're doing now at London-Heathrow and Tokyo Narita, which could mean you won't be seeing planes smaller than MD-80's and 737-800's at that airport.
I would say this will straightened out within several months.
Contracts have been awarded, and are obligated to be paid.
Does the Mayor really want to piss off his most reliable and committed voters?
Okay, I can see they have a legitimate reason for stopping this.
It would actually be cheaper and politically easier to built a new airport somewhere else, instead of expanding on the old airport.
The obstructionists could care less.
Des Plaines is most well-known as the home of the first McDonald's and of John Wayne Gacy.
After what Daily did to Meigs Field, I am having a moment of General Aviation Shadenfraude.
Part of the expansion agreement was a guarentee that Meigs would remain open for 10 years . . .
Yeah, right!
Let it go forward as soon as they rebuild Meigs.
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