Third Major Airport for the Chicago Metropolitan Region

Planning has been underway for a third major airport for the Chicago Metropolitan region for over 40 years. It seems like we worked on this forever. The State has purchased some of the land. 

The maps are the land and transportationplans that we prepared for the airport and surrounding region. The first one is in Eastern Will County and southeastern Cook County, and the second one is all of Will County. The airport site is enormous. Midway Airport is on one square mile which is 640 acres. This airport is planned for 19,000 acres. They plan to open the airport initially on about 5,000 acres. The large site is required to meet environmental requirements and safety, and so that it can be expanded over time. Land adjacent to the airport is planned for industrial purposes.

There is of course a great deal of public opposition to this airport - there always is for a huge development. Both my wife Beth Ruyle and I worked on this - Beth as the Executive Director of the South Suburban Airport, and I as the Will County Planning Director, and later as a consultant with Chuck Eckenstahler and Delbert Skimerhorn.

Some of the opponents of the airport made quite a splash, charging that I was "secretly" married to a know airport supporter, Beth Ruyle. These modern women with different last names can get you in trouble.

More about the airport on the link below:

http://www.southsuburbanairport.com/