Quote:
Originally Posted by sentinel
https://idot.illinois.gov/transportation...outh-suburban-airport-project-study.html
"The vision for the South Suburban Airport involves designing and constructing a supplemental, commercial service airfield that will serve the greater Chicagoland area. Located conveniently outside of Chicago, a major transportation hub in America’s heartland, the South Suburban Airport will offer travelers and businesses an expanded array of options in air and freight travel to meet their growing transportation needs."
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https://patch.com/illinois/newlenox/sout...es-everything-together-sen-hastings-says
“For people who feel that the South Suburban Airport is a threat to Midway, is a threat to O’Hare, would complete with Rockford, would compete with the Quad Cities, I just think we’re just in a very, very unique geographic situation with an immense amount of growth compared to other regions of the state,” Hastings told Patch on Friday.
Hastings, who represents constituents in both Will and Cook County, said that considering other transportation options throughout the region between the interstate systems, trains, and the Intermodal Transportation Center in Joliet, adding a regional airport only makes sense. He said the airport would be a “natural complement” to other transportation hubs.
He said a new airport “ties everything together” and believes that the job creation and investment into the Southland region would be substantial, Hastings told Patch..."
"...“What you don’t want is, if you build it, they will come,” Pritzker said previously, according to the report. “Just building the thing and hoping that people will show up to essentially pay for the airport having been built.”
Yet, Hastings said he would have never helped introduce legislation — or even supported it — if he felt like the project would lead to a dead end. Whether that means cargo companies coming forward or regional carriers committing to fly in and out of the South Suburban Airport, Hastings believes it provides a unique opportunity for the region.
He compares the project to Gerald R. Ford Airport in Grand Rapids, Mich., which has been providing international travel for years. The airport allows local residents to fly in and out of the city without having to travel to bigger airports such as Detroit and Chicago.
Like the south suburbs, the Grand Rapids region has continued to develop and grow and has supported having the airport there. Similarly, Hastings believes the addition of an airport in the South Suburban region could only be a positive for local residents and the region’s economy as well.
Hastings points to the fact that Target and Solo Cup will add warehouses along the I-57 corridor in addition to the four Amazon regional distribution centers that already exist. He says that adding an airport to the mix only will help to drive the local economy, while also providing residents with an alternative to driving farther away to fly to certain destinations.
He says as a lawmaker who represents the region, he and others like Harris have to do what they can to help prepare the South Suburbs for natural growth, which he said the additional airport would do while helping generate “a lot of success” for the region."
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I'm in agreement that it is short-sighted to outright say no to a south suburban airport, at least until we see a revised feasibility report and after soliciting cargo haulers if they would commit to it. Will County is becoming THE mid-America logistics hub because of the truly unique location as the terminus of two transcon rail companies with 100% international freight ports in Joliet and Elwood that are direct extensions to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, as well as the north-south leg of Canadian National on the old IC trackage paralleling I-57. The three interstate highways of 55,57 and 80 coming together here also places this territory within a 1-day drive of 1/3 of the nation's GDP. Millions of square feet of warehouse space is being added every year in the far south-southwest suburban submarkets and millions more squared footage is approved. The Northpoint project alone will add over 30 million square feet immediately west of Manhattan. All of that land is now annexed to Joliet and is entailed for development, complete with it's own internal circulation system of truck roads. Elion 55 in Wilmington is another multi-modal industrial park with over 30 million square feet in development and direct access to both UP and BNSF.
Rail cargo is expected to double in the near future through these facilities and more warehouses are coming. I have actually flipped my position on the Illinia Expy because of it. We need road improvements for these additional trucks to circulate through this area and it would be best to put them on a toll road which the trucking companies would largely pay for rather than shouldering road upgrades and continued maintenance entirely on the public's dime, just as what happened to IL-47 upgrading to a divided highway anyway after the Prairie Parkway was officially cancelled.
When you look at all of these factors in the context of this immediate area's most likely continued growth scenarios, then yes a cargo airport connected to a new east-west toll road begins to make a lot of sense (on paper). Whether or not private industry also decides to jump on board is of course a different story.
Additionally, if hypothetically a cargo facility was built here, that could take some capacity pressure off of O'Hare and allow it to accommodate more passenger flights in the future. A true cargo airport is also huge, and a high capacity new facility really could not be accommodated at existing airports with the exception of Rockford, which is also expanding right now. The FedEx operations at Memphis for example are significantly larger than the passenger facilities, so while yes O'Hare could continue gradual phased expansion, there is only so much space on that airfield for additional aircraft, terminals and facilities. As passenger travel will continue to grow there will be an eventual cap to be reached for both operations.
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