This is great for RFD and for the logistics industry of greater Chicagoland. Not sure its a loss for ORD considering the capacity constraints. I would say its a loss for GRY-CHi. No matter the investment at Gary which has been considerable with railroad reroutes, runway extension, new access road, terminal makeover- simply no business at that place.

Yeah, that's my take too. Isn't cargo movement booming at ORD too?

Yes, up to 1.8 million tons for 2017 from 1.4 million just a few years ago. So much demand that reportedly Aeroterm is going to start on their phase 3 expansion years ahead of schedule.

Thanks for the numbers!

UPS could add a lot to their operation at ORD if they did not have RFD. There is room at ORD for them to do that but RFD is cheaper. Yes it is a loss to ORD as UPS hardly every went to MDW or GRY anyway other than a few flights or diversions. Yes ORD is still killing it in cargo tonnage, but it will be hard to ever be higher than number 3 in the country. I thinks they will be number 3 by 2021 passing MIA and LAX forever in cargo.

I haven't seen this Curbed article about the Calatrava proposal posted here yet. There are a lot of new details I hadn't head before like the relocation of the ATS.

https://chicago.curbed.com/2019/2/8/...airport-design

Oh for the love of God, why does anyone even ask this doofus to make proposals? Don't let him anywhere near this project unless you want it to end up at 3x the projected cost.

I don't know if the Calatrava proposal will come in at or near budget but I do know the team addressed budgetary issues in more detail and with more specifics than any other team.

I also think the Calatrava proposal is the best from a design perspective including overall aesthetics, design continuity, functionality, connectivity, and future vision for O'Hare even beyond the scope of this project. The way finding and circulation as well as space efficiency in terms of bringing gates closer and making them more visible from various points in the terminal and also access to the ATS, CTA, and possible high speed transportation are all superior in the Calatrava proposal. I also believe the roof will be easier to construct and maintain with snow melt etc. than the Foster proposal. I like the Foster proposal and think it is pretty elegant but I don't like how the concourse juts off of the main terminal building like an odd appendage. Not only is it aesthetically jarring but functionally it is more confusing to navigate and increases the distance needed to travel. The Calatrava design to create a single arrow shaped footprint is a stroke of genius that greatly simplifies the layout, way finding and space usage. Studio ORD tried to do this as well but nowhere near as effectively as Calatrava.

Yeah, dream small.

Calatrava's proposal looks like it will necessitate the removal of the G pier of Terminal 3. You can dream big and not also hyperinflate your debt. Going with a non triangle shape will better integrate with the rest of the airport, pretty as his design may be. Also, if the other entrants for this contest decided to also work on the parking garage hotel area I'm sure theirs would look good too, but that is not what was asked of them.

Infrastructure should be designed to be the most functional, not the most beautiful. Ridiculously overpriced designs just mean less money for other drastically needed improvements.

It used to be believed that building entirely for function was beautiful in itself.

But Chicago and recent generations of Architecture grads who whine about buildings not being "cool and edgy like what they are doing in ***insert European City name***" seem to have parted with that way of thinking.

A place with buildings built entirely for function sounds miserable. What amazing buildings built entirely for function are you referring to? The expression is form follows function, not function only, fuck form. Seems like the architectural philosophy of barbarism.

I love how absolutely no one was dogging on Santiago when he was the genius behind The Spire. Since that never happened, the go-to worst possible example is of course his PATH Transportation Center and Mall. Aside from being absolutely gorgeous, it was yes a huge disaster financially. But responsibility didn't fall squarely on Calatrava. In some instances the engineering needed modification, in some instances the logistics of the MTA an/or the PA caused the budget to explode. One thing I do know for sure is though is that if the station was also the terminal for the city's premier airport express link to JFK, I doubt many would be hammering the issue of the budget quite as much. It's that the consensus seems to be that the utility of the structure is limited because in essence its a PATH stop, shopping center and pass through for the subway. That of course isn't SC fault, it's the city and PA's fault for not building a high speed JFK link to lower Manhattan.

I like this quote from "The Full Calatrava" https://thefullcalatrava.wordpress.com/ for the bridge in Venice:

"With the design that values the looks of the bridge over its quality, the bridge may turn out to be more of a short term pleaser than a lasting solution for Venetian transport. This is a common issue for Calatrava´s designs that win the admiration of many who regard his works as pure works of art without looking at their practical use."

Also, The Spire was designed before the realization of his notoriety for running way over budget became well known.

Again. His stuff often looks impressive but actually building what he puts down on paper is very difficult.

^^^ I dunno, the Milwaukee Art Museum seems to be holding up well and is now closing in on 20 years of exposure to brutal Milwaukee lakefront weather. The issue is that his designs are indeed expensive to actually build, but if constructed properly it seems his engineering holds up well. He isn't quite like Frank Lloyd Wright with a mantra of "if it doesn't leak, it's not great architecture"...

Actually, in retrospect, the MAM is a true masterpiece of a building. It's incredible how easy it is to take for granted, but there are very few buildings of that caliber anywhere on earth.

I’d like the new terminal to “feel” like you’re in Chicago. I don’t get that from Calatrava’s design. It just feels like you’re inside the skeleton of a giant whale that could be anywhere in the world. For me his design is 4th, maybe even 5th, among the final five. I’m mostly in agreement with Blair Kamin’s preference.

What does this even mean?? A city, any city, is not defined by one singular element or characteristic. With that argument, perhaps O'Hare should be in the shape of a Vienna beef hot dog?

i like where this is headed.

do have any sketches of your proposal?

Maybe a giant wall of Chicago common brick?... Actually I kind of like that idea...

A slice of pizza might make more sense. . .

. . .

How about the windows intentionally cloudy as an homage to continual winter salt brine.

Calatrava's had some reasonably successful projects, usually for private sector or nonprofit clients that embrace his vision but aren't circumscribed by labor and procurement rules, competing public agencies, corruption/graft, and plain old politics. His experience working with government agencies in the US is enough to disqualify him from the ORD project, and PATH is far from the only example.

These projects would likely go overbudget regardless of who was architect, but the complexity of Calatrava's designs and his famous unwillingness to compromise or value-engineer only compounds the problem. His buildings are also known for being wasteful with space. The Milwaukee Art Museum is an icon, but it pretty much failed at it's primary task of expanding the museum. Most of the new space is empty atriums and superwide hallways, with only one new gallery space IIRC. 90% of the art is still in the old building.

A rail link to JFK would have also provided a hefty revenue stream to help cover the cost of the ivory transit palace.

Most critics of the WTC Transportation Center are not reactionary conservatives who think any and all transit facilities should look and feel like a prison. But they are arguing that taxpayer money should be used wisely, and the WTC center fails that test in spectacular fashion, because of shitty management AND problematic design.

In the end it's just a fancy mall that you walk through to get to basically the same transit options that existed before. I actually hate the platform level design and vertical circulation to the PATH hall which has created numerous bottlenecks. That billions of PA money got spent on this under the auspices of transit should have been an even bigger scandal. Calatrava's design, while beautiful, isn't very functional. This is not a risk we can afford to run at ORD.

https://i.imgur.com/ONcnsOt.jpg

terminal 1 is a pickle

you just need a bunch of glass windows to look like onions on the street side!

:haha: :haha: :haha:

fantastic!

No ketchup allowed on the premises...

LOL! Oh yes, there is! They allowed to have a ketchup.

I'll allow it, but they have to put it on the hotdog themselves.

Every time we have hot dogs Mrs. Jim in Chicago slathers her's with ketchup. I've learned that the best thing to do is just talk politics.

Chicago's cargo side is adding service from South America with LATAM Airlines Cargo. The 767-300F flights operate via MIA.

More info on the LATAM cargo route added to ORD. I hope this leads to passenger service. Some of the flights are served by LATAM and others by LAN Chile Airlines(both owned by the same holding company). A good produce flight direct from S.A. via a fuel stop in MIA and also direct from Chile. Chicago is really weak when it comes to South American routes so this is good news.


https://www.aviationpros.com/airline...campinas-route

i just saw that AA is planning to start a seasonal nonstop route from ohare to Athens in may.

does anyone know if ORD has ever had nonstop service to greece before?

Nice! That's next years vacation, hopefully!

Olympic Airlines used to come to ORD with 747 service, but I think it had a fuel stop westbound.

No, they had nonstop flight from ATH to ORD, but there is no one-stop.

I looked back through and didn't see this, I just realized it yesterday. WOW Airlines has stopped their Chicago to Iceland route.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...115-story.html

I loved that option, my husband and I used it many times in those two short years they were in Chicago. It was hard to pass up their $200 roundtrip prices to the main cities in Europe. They would constantly have sales, and it was fun when they did, we scored a $198 roundtrip to Amsterdam for a 4 night stay. Got a $98 roundtrip price on a trip to Iceland last summer. If you have the time off it's hard to pass up those prices.

Had a lot of friends who jumped on board with them as well, they were always telling us about getting to Ireland, Berlin or London for less than $300 roundtrip.

^ not surprisingly, WOW's super-low fares to europe were apparently unsustainable.

in addition to ORD, they also pulled out of los angeles, san francisco, cleveland, cincinnati, pittsburgh, st. louis, dallas, miami, and orlando in a major retreat from their US expansion.

their lone remainign US routes are now detroit, boston, newark, and baltimore.

Well yeah, when I was buying $99 one-way trips to Amsterdam I figured this is far too good to last - so we took advantage. I kept telling friends and coworkers to take advantage of these flights while they were around!

WOW had several of their aircraft repossessed so they were unable to continue a full schedule. Icelandair might end up saving them with a takeover.

Do you think this is a lack of demand, or because Chicago benefits from good "great circle" routes to anywhere in the northern hemisphere which just doesn't work out for it for the southern hemisphere? Or a combination of both?

Lowish demand and the lack of an appropriately sized aircraft with the range/capability to handle the high and hot airports of South America profitably.

Maybe the A321LRs will make some routes viable.

few US cities have good nonstop service to SA, and those that do are along or near the southern coast/border of the country, with the obvious exception of NYC.

# of nonstop SA destinations*:

miami: 26
ft. lauderdale: 11
new york: 11
orlando: 11
atlanta: 8
houston: 7
dallas: 5
los angeles: 5
boston: 2
chicago: 2
DC: 2
detroit: 1
las vegas: 1


(*) i'm not including any routes to central america (panama and north) or any routes to aruba, trinidad, or other carribean island destinations near SA, just the mainland of the continent itself.

Once again shows how pitiful Chicago's international marketing is.

We could have huge numbers of South Americans, Caribbeans, etc filling up our dying and half vacant south side neighborhoods, but "nah, lets just focus on Iowa and Wisconsin" :rolleyes:

Meanwhile, New York sops them up like they're selling hotcakes, while we have MUCH cheaper rents and plenty of service jobs

That's not how any of this works. . .

. . .

http://i.imgflip.com/ur7ip.jpg
_

Had to...

Are you fucking kidding me? :koko:

Ok cool, let’s just let a huge part of the city rot to oblivion then, because you decided that an obvious solution that works for the rest of the developed world just isn’t in the cards for provincial old Chicago.

are you suggesting that having fewer nonstop flights to SA prevents south americans from immigrating here?

No, just that the very low number of flights indicates low demand, and it’s something we need to fix. South American and island immigrants are coming to the US. They just aren’t coming to Chicago.

And if you can think of a another group of people who will fill in these south side neighborhoods that are emptying out, please share that with me.

Pretty much nobody in Chicago leadership is talking about the need to boost immigration. Anyhow, I realize this discussion belongs in another thread...

WOW were complete d*cks about leaving STL and more or less blamed the city, which was bunk based on the passenger levels. They acted as if STL was a huge exception and every other airport was great.