Who Died and Made You a Fiscal Liability?

By Shannon in News on Oct 14, 2006 2:00PM

Another severe budget overrun, another slew of delays, another bloated expansion project. But wait! This time we’re not talking about the CTA!

The renowned O’Hare expansion project, according to the Sun-Times, is now clocking in at around $400 million over budget. And that’s just for the first phase. This isn’t exactly news to anyone who knows city politics and what it takes to get a project like this into action. What we consider newsworthy about it is that most of the extra dough comes from legal problems surrounding St. Johannes cemetery. The 169-year-old graveyard blocks the city from finishing one of the runways. Church members affiliated with St. John’s (aka St. Johannes) tried to fight the expansion, as well as homeowners who will be uprooted when the time comes. No dice. St. Johannes’ deceased will eventually be relocated to other places, but not before sucking the city dry. … Of money, not blood, although we enjoy that mental image.

What’s more, the city hadn’t planned on the FAA taking so long to approve the changes. All told, the first phase most likely won’t be finished until 2011, two years after its inital schedule. Rising housing costs and weather delays (no one in construction plans for weather problems in Chicago? seriously?) also contribute to the deficit. All this for a parallel-runway schematic that will “potentially” reduce delays. That doesn’t sound too confident to us. No biggie: Apparently $400 million is just a drop in the bucket to the head of the project, Rosemarie Andolino, who deems the increase in cost a “hiccup.” We’ve got an idea for the city for circumventing these pesky legal battles entirely, but it involves some backhoes, a hardy workcrew not prone to superstition, and the blackest cover of night.