# Why is O'Hare so uniquely screwed up? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 13, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946 "2010-12-13T02:27:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/41 "2010-12-14T06:03:18Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > It does take up some of the slack. And Chicago is surrounded by airports that could handle regional flights… Not just regional. Flew to SF out of Midway a while back – was cheaper, and the airport’s been updated. But it’s still smaller and quieter than ORD. Haven’t tried Rockford yet. MKE was referred to by a travel agent as “a secret of budget travelers”. And it has a USED BOOKSTORE in the airport!!! ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/42 "2010-12-14T06:15:57Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Not just regional. Flew to SF out of Midway a while back – was cheaper, and the airport’s been updated. But it’s still smaller and quieter than ORD. Haven’t tried Rockford yet. > > MKE was referred to by a travel agent as “a secret of budget travelers”. And it has a USED BOOKSTORE in the airport!!! The bookstore gets it’s inventory from passengers stuck in ORD. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/43 "2010-12-14T06:35:33Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > One universal problem is that it’s very hard to open a new airport due to NIMBY, despite their enormous public benefits. This applies everywhere in the world. Not where I live! ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/44 "2010-12-14T15:08:47Z")
Ooo! Airport questions! Let me just say that a lot of good points were raised and it’s important to remember that there are _multiple_ causes for O’Hare Mess. > [@RickJay](#): > > I’m staying in Buffalo tonight, aiming to fly to Chicago tomorrow morning. I checked the FAA site, and according to them, O’Hare is suffering from SIX HOUR arrival delays. Six hour delays, given the shrotness of my trip, effectively means I’m not going. > > But according to the same site, not one other airport in the upper midwest - not one, not a big one, not a small one - is experiencing substantial delays. Not even Midway, which is in the same damned city. > > I understand O’Hare is a massive airport, but how can it be this messed up and Minneapolis/St. Paul or Milwaukee or Detroit aren’t? Both Milwaukee and Chicago are subject to “lake effect” weather due to their proximity to Lake Michigan. Minneapolis/St Paul and Detroit much less so. Though, really the Twin Cities were just as messed up from this storm, due to how the weather tracked. > [@MikeS](#): > > I’m sure that (and hope that) **Broomstick** will be in to expound upon this subject shortly, but the basic problem is that the number of flights scheduled in and out of the airport is pretty much equal to the number that the flight controllers can handle under perfect conditions. Any adverse conditions then cause backups. This is definitely a major factor. When conditions are perfect the controllers basically have airplanes landing or taking off every 90 second from _each_ active runway. When I use to fly over the city I always knew where O’Hare was in relation to my location because of the conga-lines of jets funneling into the big airport. That’s fine, when conditions are perfect. As we all know, the world is seldom perfect. This is a problem because the airlines _schedule_ as if the conditions will always be perfect. When conditions aren’t you wind up with hundreds, even thousands of backed or canceled flights because when the weather is bad or equipment malfunctions airplanes need to be spaced further apart for safety reasons. I realize it’s annoying to have your flight delayed or canceled, but having flaming aluminum raining out of the sky would _really_ ruin your day. Especially if you were on the now dis-assembled, burning aircraft, but even if you were on the ground you’d need more than the typical umbrella to keep the debris at bay. > [@](#): > > It’s been a serious problem since the mid-2000s, and would have become a problem even sooner than that if the 9/11 attacks hadn’t happened. I’d say it was already a problem in the 1990’s, but has only gotten worse with a brief reprieve post 9/11. > [@](#): > > The airlines have actually mitigated it somewhat by making peak-hour flights more expensive and rescheduling flights more evenly throughout the day (if I remember correctly), but that can only go so far. The airlines had to be _forced_ into that by the FAA, they didn’t do it willingly. They even tried to challenge it in court if I recall correctly but the FAA used the magic word “safety” to ram it through. Please, don’t give the airlines that much credit, they don’t deserve it. > [@](#): > > There’s a runway expansion proceeding now, but construction projects like this in Chicago move at the pace of molasses in January. I will note that said project will only result in a net addition of 2 runways, with the overwhelming majority of runways running directly east-west. This is fine _for normal conditions_ but as we all know conditions aren’t always normal. In a storm like we recently had, with the wind out of almost due north, this would actually be a _worse_ configuration than the current set-up, which gives more options for different wind directions even if you can’t use as many runways at once under any condition. (If anyone needs more explanation just say so – either one of the other pilots or I can answer your questions. It has to do with crosswinds.) > [@Magiver](#): > > It does take up some of the slack. And Chicago is surrounded by airports that could handle regional flights. Not sure how well they’re utilized. The problem is, if Chicago is snowed in it’s likely all the surrounding airports are too. If I recall correctly (it has been a few years since I was actively flying and most of my references are now in storage) there are multiple airports in the area with 10,000 foot runways (Rockford and South Bend), and many more with shorter runways that can handle the smaller commercial airplanes (Gary airport, for example, has a runway longer than any of those available at Midway and can handle, at least the take-off and landing part, any aircraft that flies through Midway). True, when the weather is crap the others are often snowed in… but not always. However, there are additional obstacles to their use ranging from political (Chicago really, really wants to hang onto any money generated by aviation in the area) to security concerns (the alternatives have few or no TSA agents and are not set up to screen massive numbers of passengers, and secured areas to keep airplanes are limited) to logistical problems (may not have the capacity to fuel and de-ice a lot of airplanes and so forth). As a practical matter, although the runways exist and are usable other factors make it easier to cancel or delay flights than to re-route them to surrounding airports. Now, in a _national emergency_ you can plunk airplanes down all over. We saw that happen on 9/11. Airplanes were landing in Podunk, Everywhere and smaller airports were seeing some airplanes that, frankly, surprised the locals that something that big could get into their little fields. Those that could be parked on grassy areas were, and the rest on top of every available scrap of pavement. Those same airplanes, though, later demonstrated a lot of the logistical issues I mentioned. A LOT of extra fuel shipments had to be made to Podunk, Everywhere, there weren’t the facilities at all those small fields to handle massive numbers of passengers, security was jury-rigged, catering had to be trucked in along with maintenance crews… it took quite awhile to sort everything out, and it cost some money to do it. It also involved delays considerably longer than a day or two to sort out. > [@John\_DiFool](#): > > [They are adding four](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=O%27Hare_International_Airport&action=edit§ion=11) (albeit while taking two older ones out), with the main advantage being that most of them will be parallel (in accordance with the prevailing onshore and offshore winds), hence useable all at once more or less. Unless, of course, the winds decide _not_ to go in the prevailing direction, which does happen fairly regularly which is why quite a few airports have intersecting runways. During our recent storm, for example, the winds were howling directly out of the north. _That rendered east-west runways useless_ because a direct crosswind of, say, 45 mph, is getting into not-safe territory even for large airplanes, and we had gusts clocking 60 mph (Gary airport reported a gust of 66 mph during the storm). You don’t want that hitting perpendicular to the airplane during take off or landing, it’s much too exciting, really. On the other hand, you _can_ land one of the big airplanes _directly_ into a 45 mph wind. The more directly the runway lines up with the wind at the time of landing the better, with the flip side being a runway perpendicular to the wind might be OK with a _gentle_ breeze but it will be rendered useless much sooner than one that lines up with the wind. (Back when I was based at Palwaukee we had a business jet attempt a take-off with a direct 45 mph crosswind. That is, the wind was perpendicular to the airplane’s route of travel. The wind flipped them before the wheels ever left the ground and they cartwheeled down the pavement, through the airport fence, through an earthen berm, up a hill, over a road (the only time they actually were, briefly, airborne), through some more field, and parts (some of them - a lot were left stuck in the runway pavement) coming to a halt in the parking lot of an apartment complex, some nicely ablaze. OK, you _really_ want to be careful about cross wind take offs in high winds. It’s that whole “flaming pieces of aircraft really ruin your day” thing all over again.) When there are high winds you might see O’Hare open and Midway closed or vice versa depending on wind direction. Midway has intersecting runways on “diagnonals” - NW to SW, and NE to SE. So if the wind is directly out of the north Midway’s runways will only have a partial crosswind component, allowing them to remain in use with a higher wind, than will O’Hare’s east-west runways. On the other hand, if the wind is from the NW then Midway’s NE-SE runway may be off limits but O’Hare’s east-west ones still open for business. Midway will never have more than one of it’s runways active, but it will have one or the other almost all of the time. If O’Hare moves to exclusively east-west runways then most of the times it will have more runways in use but there will be days that, due to wind conditions, they will _all_ be taken out of operation… and the general public will wonder why the hell we spent billions to “improve” O’Hare and it’s shut down while ancient Midway still has flights going in and out. > [@](#): > > ETA: Oh, and the airports aren’t in the same city at all, actually. Yeah, I know that’s what it says on your tickets, but Midway’s in the southern end of Chicago, and O’Hare is off in the western suburb of Des Plaines…ish. The signs aren’t so good out that way. But not in Chicago proper, by any stretch. They’re 45 minutes’ drive apart on a good day, well over an hour in heavy traffic. Um… I’m sorry, but Midway is _very much_ in “Chicago proper” unless you somehow thing the south side is in another location than “Chicago”. O’Hare was put way the hell in the middle of nowhere so (in theory) it could expand, which worked until people built up stuff all around it right to the airport fence. (Midway also has that problem, and did at the time they planned O’Hare, which is why they _tried_ to located O’Hare way the hell out in open fields.) And yes, O’Hare is part of Chicago via blatant gerrymandering, but hey, we are talking about Chicago here. > [@mhendo](#): > > Yeah, i also don’t really understand why some people think it’s so significant that some city airports are technically outside city limits. Do you expect these airports to be located downtown, next to the tall buildings? It doesn’t change the fact that the airports serve the cities that they’re next to. Actually, Chicago _used to_ have an airport right in the Loop, yes, next to the tall buildings, but then Mayor Daley bulldozed it in the middle of the night without telling anyone. Let’s not go there again. But in fact there are several airports around the world, some of the quite major, that are in fact located in major cities in amongst skycrapers. They frequently are located in bodies of water adjacent to the big buildings (Meigs Field and LaGuardia in New York City are the first that occur to me, but there are others). Of course, there are additional _potential_ risks with such locations, which is why municipalities try to locate new airports outside of city limits. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/45 "2010-12-14T15:14:28Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Both Milwaukee and Chicago are subject to “lake effect” weather due to their proximity to Lake Michigan. Minneapolis/St Paul and Detroit much less so. I had always been under the impression that Chicago and Milwaukee, being on the western shore of the lake (unlike, say, Buffalo), were not very susceptible at all to lake effect snow. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/46 "2010-12-14T16:39:15Z")
An airport project in Peotone, well south of Chicago, has long been touted as a relief valve for O’Hare and Midway. It’s been in planning hell for decades. Looking at the Wikipedia article [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peotone_airport) it looks like a runway expansion project at the Gary-Chicago airport might just eliminate the need for a brand new airport in Peotone, and would be much closer to the main part of the city anyhow. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/47 "2010-12-14T16:52:38Z")
> [@digs](#): > > MKE was referred to by a travel agent as “a secret of budget travelers”. And it has a USED BOOKSTORE in the airport!!! It’s a fantastic book store, with a most eclectic selection. It holds about 60,000 volumes. [Renaissance Books](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Books). Its parent store in downtown Milwaukee is an amazingly ramshackle 5 story building literally crammed nearly to bursting with books. Enough to warp spacetime, so if you go in, you never know when or where you’ll end up coming out. Ook. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/48 "2010-12-14T18:35:23Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > One universal problem is that it’s very hard to open a new airport due to NIMBY, despite their enormous public benefits. This applies everywhere in the world. I’m not sure this is really the problem wrt Chicago airports. Instead, I beieve it is more like NIYBY. Despite the fact that the Chicago metro area is essentially an unbroken from somewhere in NW IN through Milwaukee, I have seen very little effort to address air travel as a regional problem. OHare is horrible, but it is a cash cow and the city of Chicago and state of IL have historically opposed any efforts to divert any traffic to regional airports such as Rockford or Milw. And you still hear folk advocating a new airport somewhere in the fields way south of Chicago - instead of the far more sensible approach of expanding Gary, which is far closer, in an area which would benefit from development, and which would not involve paving farmland. (Of course, NW IN got SOCKED in the recent storm, which would have rendered Gary of little use…) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/49 "2010-12-14T19:08:07Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > … But in fact there are several airports around the world, some of the quite major, that are in fact located in major cities in amongst skycrapers. They frequently are located in bodies of water adjacent to the big buildings (Meigs Field and LaGuardia in New York City are the first that occur to me, but there are others). Of course, there are additional _potential_ risks with such locations, which is why municipalities try to locate new airports outside of city limits. Consider the former Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, notorious for scary landings until the new airport opened on a landfill “island”: [Kai Tak Airport - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Tak_Airport) Some videos: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/bKqO6gdJIz8/maxresdefault.jpg "Jumbo Jet's Extreme Turn Stuns Hong Kong Onlookers") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKqO6gdJIz8) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/UyU9OLqQ8XA/maxresdefault.jpg "Very Low Planes Over Kowloon • Hong Kong") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyU9OLqQ8XA) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/OtnL4KYVtDE/maxresdefault.jpg "747 Hard Crosswind Landing In Hong Kong") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtnL4KYVtDE) ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/50 "2010-12-14T19:16:06Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > I had always been under the impression that Chicago and Milwaukee, being on the western shore of the lake (unlike, say, Buffalo), were not very susceptible at all to lake effect snow. It doesn’t happen here nearly as often as it does in Buffalo (or, for Lake Michigan, northwestern Indiana), since winds don’t come out of the east as often as they come out of the north or west, but it does happen. Usually, however, in Chicago, it’s more of a situation in which easterly winds, associated with an already-existing snowstorm, enhance the snowfall in areas near the lake. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/51 "2010-12-14T19:41:56Z")
One of the reaons that O’Hare has not been able to expand into what a lot of people seem to think is simply some open space, or, at best, some sleepy little suburbs, is that there is a cemetery at one edge of the airport. This is not, then, simply a spat between civic jurisdictions or an us vs. them matter, but for a number of people who have loved ones buried there, it’s a significant matter. How many dopers would be just fine having their parents, grandparents, ancestors, etc. “sensitively” dug up and moved someplace else? At some point in the past, O’Hare was ORD, mainly a military field, and the area was the far boonies. Midway was the main (only) Chicago airport. Now that everything has expanded, there’s a significant snag - all of which is on top of, or aside from, the various political complications that ensue when Chicaga has its finger in the pie. But it’s not an insignificant matter, it’s been in the courts for a long time, and for those folks who say Just expand the field, it’s not that easy because of those pesky “human” factors, like respect for the dead and their families. ---
**Author:** ![Stormcrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Stormcrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stormcrow)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/52 "2010-12-14T19:55:16Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Actually, Chicago _used to_ have an airport right in the Loop, yes, next to the tall buildings, but then Mayor Daley bulldozed it in the middle of the night without telling anyone. Not true at all! He told the guys on the bulldozers… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/53 "2010-12-14T20:57:53Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > You have to understand airlines use the “Spoke” model for flights. You have to think of it like spokes on a wheel. They route everything through a “hub.” For instance, Delta has a main hub in Atlanta, NW had two major hubs in Detroit and Minneapolis and United has hubs in San Francisco and Denver. American in Dallas / Ft Worth. Is this why Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas are the busiest airports despite them not being the biggest cities? LA is 4th so I’m guessing it’s location on the coast makes it a bad place to be a hub. Plus we have like 4 or 5 airports in this area ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/54 "2010-12-14T21:56:46Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Is this why Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas are the busiest airports despite them not being the biggest cities? LA is 4th so I’m guessing it’s location on the coast makes it a bad place to be a hub. Plus we have like 4 or 5 airports in this area SFO (San Francisco) is a hub for United, along with DEN, ORD and IAD, so being on the Pacific coast is not the only factor here. For United, SFO can serve north-south connections on the West coast, as well as links to Asia and Australia. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/55 "2010-12-14T22:31:44Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Well, there’s NIMBY, and then there’s NIMBY. > > While i don’t have too much sympathy for some people who succumb to NIMBYism on issues that have little impact on their day-to-day existence, i can’t think of anything too much more disruptive to your whole way of life than having an airport built next door and finding yourself suddenly under the flightpath of hundreds of passenger jets every day. I am tired of the NIMBY attitude when it comes to O’Hare. Bunch of whiny, bitchy suburbs hold one of the biggest cities in the US and its main transport hub hostage to their whining. Those cities would not be there if not for the airport and the city of Chicago. Indeed the airport brought all sorts of opportunity for businesses which moved close and people moved nearby to work. Ever see your baggage ticket when going to O’Hare? Ever wonder why it says ORD instead of something more sensible like, say, CHI? (E.g. Los Angeles is LAX…easy.) It is because O’Hare airport was built in an orchard. See the map linked earlier? O’Hare airport is off to the side like an island because they knew being next to an airport sucks so they put it off away from everything. The vast majority of what hems in the airport today was not there when it was built. Now, if you have a house and someone plops a massive airport next to you I can see room for complaint. But if you buy your house next to an airport that is already there I have no sympathy. Willing to bet you got a good deal on it and if you don’t like it find somewhere else to live. No one makes you buy a house under an air route. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/56 "2010-12-14T22:36:52Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Is this why Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas are the busiest airports despite them not being the biggest cities? LA is 4th so I’m guessing it’s location on the coast makes it a bad place to be a hub. Plus we have like 4 or 5 airports in this area There are a lot of large airports in the LA area. Long Beach, Los Alimitos, Ontario, Van Nuys, Burbank… It’s a dense aviation corridor. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/57 "2010-12-15T06:14:55Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > I had always been under the impression that Chicago and Milwaukee, being on the western shore of the lake (unlike, say, Buffalo), were not very susceptible at all to lake effect snow. While the prevailing wind across North America is westerly, the wind is not _always_ from the west. Chicago does not get _as much_ lake effect snow as Buffalo but most definitely the lake does affect the weather. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/58 "2010-12-15T06:17:01Z")
> [@fiddlesticks](#): > > An airport project in Peotone, well south of Chicago, has long been touted as a relief valve for O’Hare and Midway. It’s been in planning hell for decades. Looking at the Wikipedia article [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peotone_airport) it looks like a runway expansion project at the Gary-Chicago airport might just eliminate the need for a brand new airport in Peotone, and would be much closer to the main part of the city anyhow. Not only that, it would be relatively trivial to run a spur to the Gary airport to tie it into the South Shore and South Bend Railroad which has been providing train travel between Northern Indiana and Chicago for over a century now. Which would make it very accessible to the city. Then you just have to convince the airlines to use the airport. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/59 "2010-12-15T06:20:18Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > And you still hear folk advocating a new airport somewhere in the fields way south of Chicago - instead of the far more sensible approach of expanding Gary, which is far closer, in an area which would benefit from development, and which would not involve paving farmland The city of Chicago is already in a joint agreement with the city of Gary to run that airport - in other words, Daley stuck a finger in that pie already. The problem with expanding Gary is the need to move a railway, but that is feasible. > [@](#): > > (Of course, NW IN got SOCKED in the recent storm, which would have rendered Gary of little use…) As O’Hare and Midway also got socked in during the very same storm I don’t see where it would have made a difference. This time. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946/60 "2010-12-16T14:50:46Z")
> [@TheFifthYear](#): > > Wikipedia says it is in the city of Seatac and your own link says it is 13 miles south of Seattle. So wackypedia is a better cite than half a dozen official or semi-official webpages I can pull up in 2 seconds? Let’s see [what the Port of Seattle says](http://www.portseattle.org/about/contact/index.shtml#airport). Scroll down for the physical address. The situation is similar to Denver International. The city is gerrymandered so that despite being 10 miles away fron Denver, the airport is in the city of Denver. SeaTac is the same way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-ohare-so-uniquely-screwed-up/563946.md?page=2)