April 19, 2000
BY ROBERT C. HERGUTH TRANSPORTATION REPORTER
Mayor Daley and suburban leaders on Tuesday criticized a new study that urges O'Hare Airport to immediately build a new runway, which the report claims would help bring the region $10 billion in new economic activity by 2015 and create 110,000 jobs.
"He's glad that they support what he has said for quite some time, that O'Hare is the airport . . . we need to focus our energies on," Daley spokesman Rod Sierra said about the Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc. study commissioned by the Commercial Club of Chicago's Civic Committee. "But the one thing he's not in agreement with them on is a new runway."
Authors of the study said a new runway would reduce delays and allow O'Hare to better compete for international travel.
Suburban O'Hare Commission attorney Joe Karaganis said the study bolsters his argument that the city has a secret plan to expand O'Hare at the expense of noise-weary suburban residents.