THE AUDUBON BU Li ree 
A Lakefront Airport May Not 
Be Inevitable — If Conservationists 
Oppose It Realistically... 
if 
LE 
by MIKE RYAN 
For several years now there has been widespread agreement on 
need for an additional major airport to serve the Chicago area. Ag 
ment on where to build the new airport is something else again. 
In all probability, a third airport would finally be located on 
of four sites—three of them some 40 to 45 miles southwest of the Li 
and the other in Lake Michigan about five miles off 31st Street. 
The most controversial site is the one in Lake Michigan. C 
servationists are almost alone in opposing this site. Indeed, their ¢ 
identifiable allies seem to be people who have a direct econo 
interest in one of the other three sites. 
One might ask, “Who then is in favor of a lake airport?” Wel 
paraphrase a report by the Open Lands Project: Assuming that. 
City cannot or does not wish to annex another outlying area as it 
in the case of O’Hare, Lake Michigan is the only area of suffic. 
size over which the City itself can retain control. 
Some might wonder why the City would want to have con 
over the new airport. Again, to paraphrase the Open Lands Pro. 
report: 
1. The City would receive direct revenue from airport use. 
2. The local economy would be expanded by airport rele: 
employment and consumer spending, and; 
3. The commercial dominance of the central city would be } 
tected and expanded. 
So far, the lyrics are all too familiar, and the melody sounds much | 
muck like “Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.” But before we di 
the obvious parallel to McCormick Place, let’s take a dispassior’ 
look at the facts. Let’s review the arguments for and against locat 
the airport in Lake Michigan. 
A fairly clear advantage of the lake airport would seem to be: 
“central” location. Indeed, the City itself has estimated “local tre: 
portation” costs savings of over $50 million a year. However, as 
Open Lands Project report points out, the City estimate assumes t! 
MOST, if not all, airline passengers are either coming directly fi 
or going directly to the central business district. Some of the ci 
own passenger surveys, however, have consistently shown that 0: 
about 30 percent of O’Hare passengers were going directly to or ¢(! 
ing directly from the central business district. Furthermore, rap!’ 
