The Hidden Hand

You might recall not too long ago that there was a lot of noisy talk about flight delays at US airports. In fact, an annual ritual developed where luckless holiday travelers would be stranded on runways for hours on end, leading to grusome stories about lavoratories "filling up" (gag) and babies howling as their milk supply ran dry. We then had the even more grusome spectacle of consumer watchdog groups forming to express outrage, and the Barbara Boxers of the world manning the microphones to assist in fanning that outrage. Abuse was heaped on the airlines, as if letting their planes sit on runways for hours on end was part of a well-thought out strategy.

Now, the issue has dissipated thanks to, among other things, the construction of new runways, which magically relieved the congestion. Are we doomed to repeatedly re-learning the obvious? O'Hare's New Runway Makes Travel Easier For All

Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport is no longer the tar pit of the nation’s air-transportation system.

In the eight months since a new runway opened at the U.S.’s second-busiest airport, plagued for decades with lengthy flight delays, O’Hare has operated with above-average on-time arrivals—better than Dallas, Atlanta and Denver in 2009, according to FlightStats.com. O’Hare’s on-time arrival rate improved by 27% so far this year compared with the same period of 2008. That was twice the improvement of any other big U.S. airport.

The new runway, opened last Nov. 21, gets much of the credit. While airline reductions in flight schedules have eased congestion and reduced flight delays, the ability to now land three planes simultaneously in most weather conditions instead of two jets at a time has turned O’Hare from a choke point into a reliable airport.

Note that the troubles in the nation's air transit system originated in the City That Only Knows How To Make $$ Off Inertia. These runways could have been built at any time in the past 20 years, but weren't, because the activists who are the true constituencies for many members of the political elite didn't want them built and to hell with the millions of people who got stuck on backed up runways:

Because of the enormous cost and heated legal battles with neighbors and environmentalists, building runways at big airports is a rarity—and a major reason air travel has been bogged down in the past 10 years. Last fall, three major runways opened with much fanfare on the same day in Chicago, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Seattle’s new runway took two decades of planning, approval, court fights and construction. O’Hare’s new runway was the first at that airport in 37 years.

Here is one of the unspoken truths about American politics: gov't at all levels is often unable to plan for the future because querelous activists at the nation's chokepoints - in this case, people in and around O'Hare, along with the inevitable "environmental" groups - can stop a worthwhile project for decades, while someone else - in this case the airlines and the airport - will take most of the blame. It is a truth so explosive that it can only uttered in the W$J's "Lifestyle" section. You would certainly never hear anyone state this so bluntly where it counts.

This is symbolic of how America's public institutions have seemingly ground to a halt. A "can't do" ethos has been imposed upon us without any debate, discussion, or even our comprehension. Even if we can do it and want to do it, we can't. We have changed from a nation of Robert Moses expanding our boundaries to a nation of Ralph Nader keeping us within tightly constricted lines. While highly motivated and concentrated activists can exercise power that is outsized compared to their numbers, the vast majority doomed to sit on delayed flights are too diffused and disorganized to act as a counter-weight. Often, it can be unclear for many years that this effect exists.

It defies reason to ask why an environmental lawyer in Chicago might have an indirect impact on persons living and traveling hundreds of miles away, after all. And yet he does. How long before people look around at their glorious "can't do" society and wonder who else is standing at the nation's chokepoints?

Passengers have detected a difference. Tim Snyder, a Chicago-based sales and consulting executive for a software company, began noticing that his flights in and out of Chicago were more frequently on time, and arrivals frequently used the new runway. He started keeping track and had a streak of 26 consecutive on-time flights before bad weather in Chicago delayed his flight for two hours. But the streak resumed, and now he’s been on time for 36 of his past 37 flights.

“Those are tax dollars I like to spend,” says Mr. Snyder.

Imagine the waste and lost opportunity represented by these unbuilt runways. Imagine all of the time spent sitting on the nation's tarmac. Imagine all that wasted fuel. Imagine the overtime the airlines had to pay. Imagine the loss of revenue from angry customers. Imagine the damage to the airlines brand and reputations. Imagine an air transit system that couldn't expand because there weren't enough landing areas. Now imagine some public interest lawyer sitting in a paper-strewn office who made all of this possible. And yet the law is often set up to bolster his cause, rather than the cause of all those millions of persons and businesses artificially hemmed into a diminishing number of runway space, all so we can vindicate the imagined rights of the environmental lobby, and airport neighbors who act shocked! shocked! when the airport decides to expand.

This is a problem beyond what President Romney or Palin could deal with. This is a product of the legal and political culture that vindicates the rights of activists, rather than that of the average middle class person who is purported to be the object of political concern. Ha! He is the forgotten man in all of this.