O'HARE — Complaints about jet noise from Chicago rose 16 percent from April to May as residents of the Northwest Side continued to blanket city officials with complaints about the racket made by planes using the newest east-west runway at O'Hare Airport.
In May, 146,691 complaints were filed by Chicago residents with city officials, according to data released by the O'Hare Noise Compatibility Commission.
The tally of complaints includes those logged through chicagonoisecomplaint.com, which was designed by Darrin Thomas, a member of the Fair Allocation in Runways Coalition, to allow angry residents to log their anger with one click, rather than fill out the city's long form.
Of the total number of complaints filed by Chicagoans in April, 16 percent were made from five addresses, according to the commission.
Source: O'Hare Noise Compatibility Commission [DNAinfo/Tanveer Ali]
The total number of complaints from city and suburban addresses dropped slightly from April to May by less than half a percentage point to 407,523, according to the commission.
Of those complaints, 42 percent came from just 12 addresses, according to the commission.
Complaints can be made by calling a 24-hour hotline — 800-435-9569 — or submitting an online form.
In Chicago, residents of the 41st Ward, which includes Norwood Park, Edgebrook and Edison Park, filed 44,655 complaints — more complaints than the noise commission received from all areas around O'Hare between 2007 and 2013, before the airport significantly altered its flight paths.
In October 2013, a new east-west runway opened as part of the $8.7 billion O'Hare Modernization Program, sending hundreds of flights over areas of the Northwest Side like North Park, Jefferson Park Edgebrook, Edison Park and Norwood Park that previously heard little or no jet noise in previous years.
Flight patterns at O'Hare are designed to ensure the airport operated as efficiently and safely as possible, federal aviation officials said.
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