O’Hare International Airport jet traffic kept hundreds of Chicago residents awake in March, even though they live outside an area predicted to shoulder the worst noise from new flight paths, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis indicates.
More than 95% of Chicagoans who reported that O’Hare jets disturbed their sleep live outside a “noise contour” that determines eligibility for free sound insulation, an analysis of complaints to Chicagonoisecomplaint.com shows.
In fact, March sleep complaints stretch as far east as Sheridan Road in Chicago’s 48th Ward, along Lake Michigan.
That’s 13 miles from the center of O’Hare and more than 8 miles beyond the limits of the noise contour that Federal Aviation Administration experts predicted would experience onerous jet noise once an $8 billion O’Hare Modernization Program is completed.
Plotted on a map, the complaints fan out like a shotgun blast. Many line up with runways. But others are between two east-west runways, indicating that those residents are being hit with noise from more than one flight path, said Darrin Thomas, who created the citizen website that people can gripe to about jet noise.
Fred Cnota of Norwood Park is one of them. As many as five days a week, he says, shortly after 6 a.m., he can see flights headed toward two runways.
“It’s nonstop noise,” he said.
“It’s insane, the amount of traffic,” said Paula Getman, who lives in the city’s 39th Ward, where the biggest cluster of March sleep complaints — 8,789 — occurred. “It’s slow torture.”
Getman reported her sleep was disturbed 265 times in March. One 24-hour period included five jets from 11:25 p.m. to 1 a.m., 13 more from 2 a.m. to 3:04 a.m., then a final single salute at 5:52 a.m.
Getman said she has lived in her North Park bungalow since 1997 but now it’s “a completely different place.”
Sleep-disturbance complaints indicate the Federal Aviation Administration’s noise contour does not accurately reflect the impact of O’Hare’s new flight paths, said Jac Charlier, a leader of the Fair Allocation in Runways citizen coalition, or FAIR.
“The noise contour, like almost everything else that has happened with the O’Hare Modernization Program, has been wrong. Dead wrong,” Charlier said.
A deadly experience?
Complaints to the city’s jet noise hotline and website skyrocketed after the O’Hare runway switch. Suddenly, 70 percent of air traffic entered O’Hare from the east over Chicago and departed to the west.
Jet noise complaints to the city soared even higher last week, when the city released the first batch of figures reflecting complaints forwarded from the citizen website.
On Friday, noise complaints to chicagonoisecomplaint.com since Feb. 1 surpassed the 1 million mark. A Sun-Times analysis of just March O’Hare complaints to that site found that more than 61,000 were listed as disrupting sleep. They included 377 Chicagoans who registered 28,843 such reports.
About three-quarters of the March sleep complaints span the Fly Quiet hours of 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., when pilots are urged to fly over less-populated areas.
Of Chicago complainants who listed addresses, 97 percent lived outside noise contour areas predicted to be hit with jet noise loud enough to qualify for free sound insulation.
Experts say repeated sleep disruptions can lead to increased chances of cardiovascular problems, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, obesity and even death.
In general, “people who sleep five hours a night have an increased risk of death — substantially,” said Dr. Charles Czeisler, a professor of sleep medicine at Harvard University.
Heading to the basement
Under the overhaul plan, two more runways, and the extension of a third, are due by 2020, although funding for much of that work is uncertain. The noise contour is not due to be revised until 2025, although the FAA is re-evaluating the decibel level used to draw such contours nationwide.
The city has been insulating additional homes inside the contour before each runway opens. But with nearly all complaints occurring outside insulation-eligible areas, most residents must find their own ways to deal with overnight jet noise.
Some use deep breathing exercises; others run the dryer.
Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, recommends heavy curtains or noise-canceling machines or earplugs.
In the 40th Ward, Michael Kraetsch plans to sleep on an air mattress in his basement during the next bad onslaught. That’s usually over the holidays, when Kraetsch said overnight cargo flights seem relentless. He reported 334 sleep disruptions in March on the citizen website.
When he moved from Wisconsin to Chicago in 2014, Kraetsch said, “I never in my wildest dreams imagined that we would be having planes in the middle of the night. I didn’t look at the house at 1 o’clock in the morning [before buying it].”
Zee urged residents to record decibel levels in their homes.
“You need data,” Zee said.
Kraetsch measured the decibel level in his bedroom during at least three flights on a recent night between 11:15 p.m. and midnight. He said it was 65 to 75 decibels – well above the 55-decibel level officially considered onerous at night outside a home.
The Chicago Department of Aviation declined repeated requests for an interview about O’Hare jet noise and would not respond to emailed questions.
City officials previously have said the runway switch was needed to increase capacity and reduce delays caused by diagonal runways that intersect.
Saving the diagonals
The sleep complaints are another reason lawmakers should allow O’Hare to keep two diagonal runways open instead of decommissioning them before new runways are added, FAIR’s Charlier said. Legislation to do so has passed the Illinois Senate and is making its way through the Illinois House.
One diagonal runway in particular, 14R, leads to a long stretch of mostly non-residential land. Yet 14R was used for only 1 percent of arrivals during Fly Quiet hours in the fourth quarter of 2014, city data shows.
Charlier contends overnight O’Hare traffic is lopsided in favor of one arrival and one departure runway and should be spread out on different nights on different runways, including diagonal ones marked for closure.
“Don’t build lots of runways and then only use one for night arrivals,” Charlier said. “It’s a waste of taxpayer money.”
Thomas urged the city to publicly report and plot noise complaints on a map as he does in real time on his website.
“If I can do it with off-the-shelf technology, why can’t they?” Thomas asked. “I think they aren’t doing it because it’s embarrassing.”
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Illinois State Senate passes bills designed to reduce O’Hare jet noise
In late 2013 the flight paths at Chicago O’Hare airport were changed, and since then thousands of residents have been exposed to far more aircraft noise. The authorities are trying to find ways to reduce their noise exposure. The Illinois Senate has now unanimously approved legislation to mitigate jet noise by increasing the cap on the number of runways to 10 from 8, and prohibiting the city of Chicago from closing and demolishing any of the airport’s 4 diagonal runways. The aim is to distribute the noise more evenly. The two bills are aimed at expanding O’Hare flight paths are going next to the Illinois House of Representatives for consideration. If one of the diagonal runways is closed, its flights will be distributed to the other runways, causing more noise for some people. Keeping 10 runways operational at O’Hare would increase maintenance costs. And while all 10 runways would never be used simultaneously, the more complex airfield layout could create safety risks involving more planes taxiing across runways on their way to the gate or other runways. Noise complaints filed online and to a city-operated hot line totalled 39,500 in January, setting a new monthly record. In 2014, for the whole year, noise complaints totalled 268,211, also an all-time high.
Chicago voters get chance to be heard in public ballot on O’Hare airport noise problem
Chicago O’Hare airport has a new 4th runway that opened in October 2013 as well another new 5th runway that is due to open in late 2015. Others are planned. Since the start of 2014 there has been a distinct change in the flight paths, and huge opposition to the change. The number of complaints to the airport have risen sharply, month after month. However (and how often this has been heard from UK airports too) the authorities claim the numbers are false, as some people complain multiple times. This masks the fact that some don’t complain at all, being unsure how to, and being unconvinced that the airport will take any notice whatsoever. There is now a ballot of residents in 7 affected suburbs of Chicago, but all such referendums in Illinois are only “advisory.” The questions being asked are on whether the FAA should create and enforce mandatory “fly-quiet” hours around O’Hare. The restrictions would replace the existing voluntary guidelines that ask airlines and pilots to try to reduce noise impacts after 10 pm. Another asks if aircraft noise should be reduced after 7pm, and people are also asked about more noise insulation being available. Airport had about 66.9 million passengers in 2013. Chicago O’Hare on Wikipedia.
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Residents in Chicago, fed up with O’Hare airport jet noise, take to the streets to fight it
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Chicago O’Hare airport new runway & flightpaths creating huge opposition by those now over-flown
Chicago O’Hare airport currently has many runways but not all can be used simultaneously. The airport has been building more, reducing the lengths of others, to get three parallel runways can be used together. There has been a lot of controversy about the plans over many years, with compulsory purchase of land, from residents who did not want to move. There is now huge protest against the noise. A group representing city and suburban home-owners, the Fair Allocation in Runways Coalition (FAiR), is asking the Chicago Aviation Commissioner to resign or for the Mayor to fire her. FAiR say there is “mounting frustration over the lack of response from the Mayor on possible remedies concerning “the ceaseless airplane noise” since air-traffic patterns were changed last autumn. The Aviation Commissioner has refused to consider altering the use of runways at night to spread out jet noise instead of concentrating it over one or two air corridors. FAiR says she has made up her mind that there will be no change at O’Hare no matter how many citizens demand change, no matter what solutions are proposed and no matter how devastating the impact of her decisions on families, children and seniors, and even entire neighbourhoods.
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