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Inside Chicago's plan to get you to O'Hare
Tribune columnist Jon Hilkevitch has an exclusive look at the city's ambitious ideas to improve airport access
Published February 19, 2007
Chicago is pushing a new plan aimed at improving roadway access to O'Hare International Airport, where driving to and from the terminals is like going through the world's busiest cul-de-sac.
The ambitious initiative includes
widening the main airport road,
Interstate Highway 190, and building a new Mannheim Road over I-190, complete with a flyover ramp feeding traffic to the Tri-State Tollway (Interstate Highway 294).
In addition, the airport transit system, or
People Mover trains, would be modernized. Twenty-four new People Mover cars would be added to the current 15-car fleet to meet future shuttle demand between the airline terminals and remote parking areas, city aviation officials said. Of the current 15 cars, 12 are in active use with three held in reserve.
The
People Mover tracks ultimately would be extended to serve a new remote parking garage near economy parking lot F, officials said.
Ideas to relieve roadway choke points and improve safety for vehicles using the airport have been talked about for more than 20 years, but they ultimately reached a dead end.
"This is the first roadway overhaul at O'Hare since--forever," said Chicago Aviation Commissioner Nuria Fernandez, adding that I-190 has one of the highest traffic volumes per lane of any road in the nation. The number of passengers using O'Hare has increased nearly eightfold since the early 1960s.
Fernandez said the project to upgrade ground transportation around O'Hare is equally as important as city plans to build new runways--a program that has a separate ground transportation component.
"In the past we have suffered from a lack of combined vision--the city and the airlines--as it relates to what is necessary to provide the right entrance, the right front door to the airport," Fernandez said.
The city is applying to the Federal Aviation Administration for approval to use $207 million in future airline passenger ticket taxes to help pay for some of the design work on the massive project, which has not yet received federal or state funding.
The
$117 million needed for the roadway project and $90 million for the People Mover enhancements would come from a $3 tax imposed on airline tickets. Total construction costs are yet to be determined, officials said.
Necessary city funding tentatively is estimated at $91 million, according to records, although the city contribution is expected to increase as the numbers are firmed up.
Drivers to O'Hare say the roadway changes cannot happen soon enough.
"The unpredictability factor on I-190 is the worst part," said Jeff Kedrowski of Hinsdale, a security consultant who takes his wife to and from O'Hare at least five times a month.
"It's not uncommon for us to get from our house to near the airport in 20 minutes, only for it to take another 30 minutes on Monday mornings or Friday nights to get to the terminals," he said.
The People Mover has not been upgraded since the system was completed in 1993. Passenger waiting times at stations have increased and the trains are often overcrowded.
"Passenger complaints to the carriers have increased and at times the [international terminal] escalators have been closed due to passenger surges, which result in fire code violations" when the number of people exceeds the maximum allowed on the platform, according to the city's funding application to the FAA.
Preliminary engineering and planning are under way between the city and the Illinois Department of Transportation to move the project forward. Part of the passenger ticket taxes the city wants to use will go toward reimbursing IDOT for initial design work.
The goal is to complete the road improvements by 2020 to head off projected gridlock on the airport roads, Fernandez said. Airport departure traffic on I-190 is expected to increase by as much as 60 percent by 2020, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation.
The airport road improvements are considered an interim step.
They would mesh with longer-range plans to build a western-access road into O'Hare, extend CTA and Metra rail transit and add parking on the western side of the airport in connection with the city's $15 billion runway-expansion program.
In addition to adding lanes and ramps on I-190 to handle and distribute traffic more manageably, another project component includes
extending Balmoral Drive so it connects between Bessie Coleman Drive at O'Hare's international terminal and the village of Rosemont. The strategy is to provide an alternative reliever road to and from the airport, to take some of the pressure off I-190.
The Balmoral extension route would replace the ramp from Coleman onto southbound Mannheim. A bell-shaped bridge would cross over Mannheim and connect to Balmoral. Officials said the
bridge allows for future expansion of the international terminal, construction of an eventual sixth airline terminal, and expansion of People Mover structures.
The proposal also includes building
a new Canadian National Railroad bridge over I-190; replacing city water mains and other infrastructure under I-190; and relocating a water pumping station.
The airlines serving O'Hare are expected to file comments to the FAA on the city's road-improvement plan by the end of the month.
Over the years, the airline industry generally has shown limited interest in airport capital improvements not directly related to increasing flight capacity or streamlining airline efficiency.
City officials believe such an attitude is shortsighted. But the airlines' track record is one reason Chicago is seeking FAA permission to use passenger ticket taxes for the early phase of the roadway project, instead of requesting airline approval to issue new airline-backed general airport revenue bonds.
"It has been an interesting dialogue with the airlines regarding this project," Fernandez said.
"That's the reason we are pursuing [passenger ticket tax] funds, so we can get it going.
"The bottom line is that you cannot parachute people into O'Hare," she said.