The popular “people mover” at O’Hare International Airport was supposed to stay open during a construction project but has been shut down for months, with a reopening date in September.
Now, travelers will have to wait even longer.
The Chicago Department of Aviation — which runs O’Hare — announced Wednesday that it expected the light rail line would reopen by Thanksgiving.
The announcement followed a second round of negotiations between the city and the contractor over a project that the Tribune previously reported being plagued by delays, finger-pointing and contract disputes.
In a statement, Aviation Commissioner Jamie Rhee thanked all those working at and traveling through the airport for their “patience.”
“This has been a challenging project, frustrating at times, but the end result will bring a new level of reliability and convenience to O’Hare,” Rhee said.
For years, the people mover shuttled about 30,000 passengers a day between a long-term economy parking lot and the terminals, and it’s been a key way international travelers at Terminal 5 have made connections to domestic flights flying in or out of the other three terminals about a mile away.
But with the closure, passengers traveling between terminals and to parking lots have usually been forced instead into a fleet of buses moving slowly through airport traffic.
The project updates the people mover and extends its line by a third of a mile to reach a massive new “multimodal facility” that hosts long-term parking spaces as well as serving as the gateway for people coming in or out of the airport by hotel shuttle, rental car, regional bus or commuter train.
The city hired Parsons Construction Group to oversee the work and get it substantially completed for $310 million by Dec. 6, 2018, under a deal in which the contractor would keep service interruptions “to an absolute minimum.”
The airport’s original agreement with Parsons specified that the city had to OK people mover “outages” in advance and the system could not be shut down at all during peak hours, at least between the terminals.
Amid the delays and disputes, the people mover increasingly was shut down, starting in August 2017, in an effort to speed up the work.
The city initially announced it would be closed for six hours a night, then later for 10 hours. Then a May 2018 agreement between Parsons and the city expanded the shutdown to 24 hours a day except for weekends and some busy times around the holidays. Beginning in early January it was closed all day, every day.
In that May 2018 agreement, the city agreed to pay Parsons an additional $23 million provided it met benchmarks that included substantially completing the work by Sept. 18 of this year.
But according to airport spokesman Matt McGrath, the city began to fear earlier this year that Parsons wouldn’t make the new deadline because of winter delays and other issues, while Parsons contended that completion could be delayed over problems it inherited from another contractor’s work on the structure holding the extended tracks.
McGrath said the city “demanded a plan from Parsons to recover the schedule.” Parsons responded by seeking $17.3 million more to cover the accelerated work. The city refused, prompting three mediation sessions this summer that led to a “supplemental settlement agreement” this week in which the city agreed to advance Parsons $3 million and move the deadline for substantial completion to Nov. 18.
McGrath said the agreement does not settle how much more money, if any, the firm ultimately should be paid by the city. That will be discussed once the project is done, either through mediation or arbitration. The city could get its $3 million advance back, be ordered to pay an additional $14.3 million to meet Parsons’ figure, or pay something in between, he said.
Parsons would also still receive up to $23 million in compensation from the May 2018 agreement, if the company achieves the relevant milestones.
Parsons declined to comment beyond a statement attributed to the firm in the city’s news release. The release quoted the firm as saying it “has enjoyed its partnership with the Chicago Department of Aviation” and looked forward “to trains running prior to the holiday season.”
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