Chicago Neighborhood Wrecked for O'Hare's Hoped-For New Runway

Money talks, but neighborhood is destroyed, to make way for airport expansion -- maybe

I have no affection for O'Hare International Airport (ORD) and try very hard to avoid connecting there -- especially in winter. So I see the upside to a new runway, part of a proposed $15 billion makeover of this busy, congested and inefficient airport. The plan is to replace the congestion-prone model of intersecting runways with a modern parallel runway design. However, I probably won't live long enough to see it completed. The operative word is "proposed," because there is not yet a timetable or a guarantee of funding. As the Chicago Tribune reported (along with a sad picture):

"The remnants of a laundromat and a fast-food restaurant known in the Bensenville neighborhood for its tasty hot dogs fell like matchsticks to O'Hare International Airport's expansion plans on Wednesday.  It took only minutes for the walls and roof to tumble on a commercial building that also housed two other businesses.

"A pair of backhoes armed with claws called munchers'" ripped down the brick exterior of the first of about 500 buildings in the northwest suburb that will leveled. The demolitions are set to make way for the final new runway planned in Chicago's $15 billion overhaul of O'Hare. Dust from the teardown, at 439 E. Irving Park Road, seemed to swirl together with clouds of doubt over the prospects of Chicago completing the massive project, especially with the airline industry in financial turmoil.

"Bensenville Village President Frank Soto acknowledged there are no guarantees the runway will be built. Soto late last year accepted a $16 million payment to the village from Chicago along with other enticements in exchange for Bensenville dropping its decades-long opposition to O'Hare expansion.

"Asked by a reporter Wednesday whether he would object to other uses of the more than 400 acres in Bensenville that Chicago acquired under eminent domain rules if O'Hare expansion were retooled, Soto said: 'We wouldn't mind not having a runway there.'"

So help me understand this. Bensenville's Frank Soto accepted a $16 million payoff to stop opposing an airport expansion that might not happen -- at least not soon. For Chicago, which hopes to modernize it's airport, 16 mill is a small investment in what might be a $15 billion mega-project (or higher, since big construction projects rarely comes on time and under budget). I don't know how much, if anything, people got as compensation for losing their homes or bsuinesses. Unless my arithmetic is way off (which it could be), the payment to Bensenville came to less than $27,000 per vacated and wrecked building.

So the neighborhood was wrecked for an uncertain airport future. Meanwhile, vacated Bensonville buildings south of the airport. According to the press release, "Since last fall, the CDA [Chicago Department of Aviation] has worked with the Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) to provide a unique, hands-on multi-agency training in the now vacant, acquired properties in the Village of Bensenville. The area has been used as a multi-agency training ground for safety and security agencies including the U. S. Department of Justice, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Chicago Police Department, the Chicago Fire Department, the Village of Bensenville, and many city, county, state, federal and assist agencies." Click here for the official press release.

Inn at Lost Creek is a Bright Green Hotel

Back-of-the-house tour reveals Telluride hotel's commendable green initiatives

When I checked in after dark to the Inn at Lost Creek in Telluride's Mountain Village a week ago yesterday, I was appalled at the excess illumination in my room. As I wrote then, every single light in my little suite was blazing. I called housekeeping the next morning and asked for some electricity restraint, and as requested, only the foyer lights were turned on during subsequent evenings' turndown service.

But even better was the impact that even a enviro-rant like mine produced. The inn's sales and marketing manager, Karl Chase, told me that because of my alert, the inn would in the future add a question about additional energy conservation efforts in the pre-arrival questions that are asked of incoming guests. Perhaps both Lost Creek management and I got a big hit of good eco-karma from that one.

He also invited me on a back-of-the-house tour to show how green the hotel is -- and it seems to me to be "very green." When the hotel was built 11 years ago, it was tightly constructed with Pella low-E double-paned windows (obvious to any guest who looks), an energy-efficient, thermitic water heating system and other mechanicals that were state of the art for its time and have held up well.

Other green practices that this behind-the-scenes tour revealed:

• Restaurant 9545 uses eco-friendly compostable/recyclable containers, including sugarcane-based clamshell to-go boxes and utensils instead of plastic (top photo)


• No disposables used in the employee break room
  
• Linens that are no longer usable by a first-rate hotel donated for resale at the Second Chance Humane Society shop in nearby Ridgway


• Cleaning rags are stained or frayed restaurant napkins, dyed so they don't reappear in the restaurant


• As lightbulbs burn out, they are being replaced by CF bulbs; the "always-on" hallway lights are have been the first to be replaced; hotel is stockpiling CF replacement bulbs (center photo) but not discarding those incandescents that still have some life left in them


• Cleaning chemicals are green and also bought concentrated in bulk, mixed at the hotel and refilled into reusable spray bottles to keep excess packaging out of the waste stream (bottom photo)


• The executive boardroom, a small conference space, has outside windows so groups can opt for daylight rather than turning on all the lights all the time


• Low-flow toilets in all bathrooms


• Flex-fuel shuttle vans


• Trash separated and recycled

I appreciate Karl's taking the time to show me these green practices, and I urge environmentally concerned travelers anywhere to go beyond simply reusing linens to help the hotel business be as evironmentally-oriented as possible. Don't be shy about asking what a property's green practices and let hotel management know that these practices are important to you. You probably won't get the kind of tour that I did, but hotel managers will answer your questions and listen to your concerns. IMO, there is no more responsive a business than the hospitality industry -- especially at higher-end hotels. Repeat business and word of mouth are important to them.

With CNN in the background as I write this, reporting on the current crisis in the auto industry, I have to say that if only the Big Three had been as proactive and also paid as much attention to what the public wants as the hotel industry, execs wouldn't be begging Congress for a bailout right now.

Next U.S. Quarters to Feature National Parks

States have been featured on quarter-dollar coins. National Parks are next

Beginning in 1999, the US Mint struck the wildly popular 50 States Quarters series that eventually was extended to include the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories represented in Congress by non-voting representatives (Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the United States Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). George Washington remained on the face of the coin, while the parade of states and other jurisdictions were on the reverse. Beginning this year, the Mint will begin a 12-year program of releasing quarters depicting 56 of our National Parks and other splendid public lands.

The first five are Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas; Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming; Yosemite National Park, California; Grand Canyon National Park, California; and Mt. Hood National Forest, Oregon. Having these coins in your pocket or purse won't replace the experience of actually traveling to these lands that we collectively own, but they do provide a nice incentive, memory or learning opportunity.

Billions Spent to Annoy Travelers

Transportation Security Agency's multi-billion-dollar budget mostly spent on passenger screening

Just a few days ago, I wrote a post on an inexplicable lapse in the TSA screening process that I personally experienced at Denver International Airport, the world's 10th busiest airport and the fifth busiest in the US, and the overzealous screening at tiny Telluride Regional Airport just three days later. This morning, I began to wonder how much this inconsistency is costing taxpayers.

The TSA's 2007 budget was $5.3 billion, 80 percent of which went to passenger screening (and annoying) at the nation's airports. In no other country that I have visited recently are passengers required to remove their shoes, toss bottled water, take laptops out of briefcases, limit carry-on toiletries to 100 ML or less and display said toiletries in a clear plastic, zip bag of a particular size (one quart).

Admittedly, $5.3 billion (or maybe more by now) is a fraction of what we have spent to invade and occupy Iraq ($500 billion or so since 2003), bail out insurer AIG ($85 billion) or on the proposed bail-out (thus far) for the Big 3 auto companies ($15 billion, but that's supposed to be repaid). It's also an awful lot less that the National Park Service allotment of $2.4 billion to preserve, protect and revitalize our great national treasures or the pathetic $145 million with federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.

When Congress reconvenes in 2009, write to your Senators and Representatives -- whether continuing in office or newly elected -- if you think these priorities are as lopsided as I do.

Big Snow & Big New Lift at Whistler

Peak2Peak gondola a technological wonder and a skier's dream

The new Peak2Peak gondola that will be inaugurated on Friday, December 12, links two on-mountain stations on Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains, for the first time enabling people to ski/snowboard both mountains in a day without having to return all the way to Whistler Village. As if to bless the new lift (right, photo by Ian Anderson), the snow gods have been depositing fat white flakes on North America's biggest resort.

This state-of-the-art Doppelmayr 3S tri-cable gondola is a transport lift like no other. Its 16 Sky Cabins cross 2.73 miles (4.4 kilometers) from mountain to mountain. Between its farthest-apart beefy towers, built to withstand wind and weather, is the world’s longest unsupported span: a stunning 1.88 miles (3.024 kilometres) above Fitzsimmons Creek. It is also the world’s highest lift of its kind crossing the valley floor at a maximum of 1,427 feet (at 436 meters). The cabins were unveiled in September, and load testing began on October 1. Since then, skiers and riders have been salivating.

A Super Launch for a Super Lift

I wish I were going to the Peak2Peak launch but can only be there vicariously via a live webcast of launch ceremony -- and so can you. It will be transmitted beginning at 10:30 a.m. PST on http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/webcast. The official ribbon cutting is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. at the gondola terminals on both mountains.

The first cabin to take off from Blackcomb to Whistler will ferry 22 locals who were nominated as "the most deserving" in the resort's Ride of Their Life contest. In the first cabin from Whistler to Blackcomb will be auction winners who bid for the places, with auction proceeds going to the Whistler Blackcomb Foundation that supports community organizations throughout the Sea to Sky Corridor. The day will be full of festivities from breakfast to "grand" après-ski celebrations.

Ski Season: It Ain't Over Till It's Over

But it's almost over in the snow-rich San Juans, despite a March dump

Telluride snared an amazing 22 inches in 24 hours. Too bad they close next week. Snow fell at a rate of two to four inches per hour throughout the area Friday evening and night. Below are three images, courtesy of the resort, that are heartbreakers for any skier or snowboarder who can't make it down there before the lifts stop running after Easter. I'm one of them!

Other San Juan ski areas also have been slammed this season -- and in the ski/snowboard world, being slammed is a good thing. Silverton Mountain, which netted 20 inches out of that storm and boasts a 125-inch base (that's more than 10 feet), remains open until April 28. Durango Mountain Resort is also about to end weekday operations but, with a 66-inch base, they extended their season to operate every Friday, Saturday and Sunday through April, conditions permitting. Wolf Creek operates seven days a week through April 4, then the next two Saturdays and Sundays.

Ski areas closer to the populous Front Range stay open longer, but somehow, it's especially sad to see a premature end to the season in the San Juans.

America's Healthiest Airports

What makes an airport healthy? Health magazine has some answers and has published a list

According to Health magazine, it seems to be a combination of factors that contribute to physical health and mental health by offering "nutritious food, special relaxation zones, walking paths, the latest safety technology, and a whole lot more." Other pluses: noise reduction, children's play areas and environmental stewardship. The opportunity to move around, to eat food that's not bad for you and to be in a stress-reducing place contribute greatly to an airport's health factor.

In a piece called "America's Healthiest Airports," the magazine selected the America's top ten -- and the links I have used are to the magazine's evaluations and descriptions, not to the airports' own websites:

1. Phoenix Sky Harbor
2. Baltimore Washington International Airport
3. O'Hare International (Chicago)
4. Detroit Metropolitan
5. Denver International (right)
6. Washington National
7. Dallas/Fort Worth International
8. Logan International (Boston)
9. Portland International (Oregon)
10. Philadelphia International

Of course, living in Colorado, I am more familiar with DIA than any other airport. Recently opened in the main terminal is the Vertical Mile Market (right), bright and inviting and offering some not-so-great-for-you snack foods but also far more healthy options than the newsstands. You'd never know from the food-court lines at various fast-fooderies that DIA does have healthy options, but they do exist.

The B Gates (aka, Concourse B), offer the most healthy options (be sure to choose wisely) including Cantina Grill Express, Itza Wrap! Itza Bowl!, Jamba Juice, Que Bueno! Mexican Grille, TCBY Yogurt, and Wolfgang Puck Express. TCBY also is in the main terminal and at the C Gates. For those who like to walk, the B Gates are also along DIA's longest concourse, so once through security, passengers can take a nice long hike there. Another walking opportunity is to use the skybridge rather than the train to reach the A Gates and to walk from the main terminal to A instead of using the moving walkways to approach security.