a brief blurb on meigs

SCOTT MCCARTNEY writes a column in wall street journall called "the middle
seat", and this was included in some responses regarding an article about
airspace overcrowding in chicago:
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Several readers, many of them pilots, took me to task for not being more
critical of Chicago's closure of Meigs Field, a lakefront airport astride
downtown Chicago that took private and corporate flights out of more-crowded
airports. In the middle of the night last March, Mayor Richard Daley ordered
the Meigs runway bulldozed. The mayor wants to turn the site into a park, and
expressed security concerns over an airport so close to the city center, even
though federal officials didn't share his concern. Meigs handled nearly 40,000
takeoffs and landings a year.

Clancy Foley writes: Responsibility for that closing rests solely on the
shoulders of Mayor Daley, who ordered the runway bulldozed under the dark cloak
of night. This act of mayoral vandalism not only increased air-traffic
congestion and safety concerns, but left several planes stranded (temporarily)
at the airport.

David Senzig writes: I think you let off Mayor Daley lightly. His closure of
Meigs was just stupid.

Personally, as a pilot who had the thrill of flying into Meigs in 2002, I share
the outrage over the mayor's unjustifiable act. General aviation traffic at
Midway Airport was up 21% in the first 11 months of last year, compared with
the same period of 2002. And air-traffic controllers say as traffic moves to
not just Midway but other regional airports, the entire airspace has grown more
complex and more congested because of the Meigs closure. Still, the airline
changes at O'Hare have far greater impact.