I have one word to blame for all the problems and delays at O'Hare, SUBURBANITES. When ORD was built, these people flocked to its economic benefits and built their homes underneath the flight paths of the world's busiest airport. ORD is responsible for creating one of the most lucrative suburban zones in America, the northwest Chicago suburbs. Numerous offices, hotels, convention centers, even malls have been given to these suburbs as gifts from ORD. The new freeways that were built to feed into ORD also helped these new rich suburbs sprawl in every direction and become the fastest growing region in Illinois.

In the late '80's, mayor Daley knew that ORD needed to be expanded, and that new runways will be needed greatly. When a proposal was made, the **** suburbs sucking the blood out of ORD and Chicago raised an outcry saying that they could not bear the noise anymore, and that new runways would make the noise problem worse. Tell me, what difference does it make if there are already 2,500 planes going over your head? Surely, 2,800 won't be noticable. The problem in IL is that there is a stupid law that says the governer must approve of new runways before they are built.. Well, for the past 15 years, all Illinois governers have been republicans, and guess what, the entire suburban stronghold around ORD is republican. So, for the past 15 years, the republican governers along with the greedy suburbs have blocked any construction of runways.

The city of Chicago has always had huge plans for ORD way back since the early 80's. There is plenty of room for atleast one more runway, and more room can be easily created for another. With these 2 new runways, O'Hare will have 4 parallel runways, and will increase its capacity from the current 900,000 operations a year to nearly 2,000,000 operations per year! Plus, there are age old plans for new terminals, increasing the number of gates to 275, with an ultimate capacity for over 150 million pax! ORD would have become a megaport years ago. But no, all such plans have been blocked by the governers and their suburban voters, and thanks alot, Atlanta is now the busiest. http://www.elk-grove-village.il.us/new/oha3.htm (Click that to see the age old planned runway configuration)

Instead, the stupid governer wants to spend billions of my tax dollars to build a new, 5th airport for the Chicago area in a corn field in the little town of Peotone. Peotone is 40 miles south of the chicago METRO area, it is literally in the middle of nowhere! And, they are calling it Chicago's third airport, when there are already airports in Milwaukee and Gary. The airport in Gary is only 12 miles from downtown chicago! As of now, there is a heated debate to either waste billions on the new airport, or build the new runways and terminals at ORD.

Currently, news is happening around ORD. Senators are introducing bills in Washington to strip the governer of his power to veto runways, and hopefully, if all goes right, ORD will once again become the center of aviation, the biggest and busiest airport in the world, and with the new runways, it will have the fewest delays.

I can only hope that common sense prevails, and suburban greed doesn't have its way. One question for noise complainers... Why don't the people who live near train tracks or highways complain? I swear, living near train tracks is far worse than any airport, but those people know that without such transportation, nothing would work, so why must people complain about airport noise? It's ludicrous.

If you would like to keep up with the current news about ORD, go to chicagotribune.com and search for O'Hare Airport and you will find plenty.

Thank you for your time.