From the Editorial Board: The Chicago region and the rest of Illinois have been haunted long enough by the imagined need for a third airport.
The terminal building at Bult Field airport in Monee, a possible site for the South Suburban Airport, on March 8, 2023. The proposed South Suburban Airport would turn Bult Field into a cargo airport, to take advantage of the enormous growth in warehouses, intermodal facilities, rail and highways in Will County.
There’s not a talisman or incantation in the world that can ward off the persistence of the Peotone pipe dream. It keeps coming back, even after the airlines have said thanks but no thanks again and again, even after hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have disappeared into the fantasy airport’s rabbit hole.Peotone’s latest iteration comes in the form of a cargo airport.
There’s no doubt that Chicago’s Southland region needs an economic shot in the arm. The steel mills and factories that were the economic bulwark of the south and southwest suburbs are long gone. And when the jobs go, people go and tax rates soar. Southland suburbs usually have some of the Chicago region’s highest tax rates —, Park Forest’s average composite property tax rate was a startling 41.56%; Riverdale’s was 31.09% and Phoenix’s, 29.95%.
Proponents of the South Suburban Airport have been pitching the idea as far back as the 1980s. Former Gov. Jim Edgar backed it, as did former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who pleaded guilty in 2013 to wire and mail fraud charges and served prison time. Early on, we even liked the idea, with the caveat that private investors should shoulder the cost, and that the airlines show their commitment to the project.
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