Ginger Evans

The test of the noise reduction plan will continue through December. 

Construction started Thursday on the final east-west runway at O'Hare, angering an anti-noise group.

The six-month test of the noise reduction plan started July 6. 

The 23-year-old International Terminal at O'Hare will be expanded, the mayor said.

The latest noise reduction plan needed a ⅔ vote to pass, but federal officials will consider it anyway.

With only Ald. Napolitano voting in its favor, the bill will not be considered by the full City Council.

The plan is a "big breakthrough" in the effort to reduce jet noise, Aviation chief Ginger Evans said.

The anti-noise group called its 60-minute meeting with Mayor Rahm Emanuel "a waste of time."

No more studies of noise and air pollution created by the airport expansion is required, officials said.

Two large lighted Xs now block both ends of the runway, but anti-noise activists vowed to keep fighting.

Members of the anti-noise coalition vowed to keep fighting plans to dismantle two diagonal runways.

However, city will rotate which runways are used at night to reduce the noise over some neighborhoods.

Ald. Edward Burke's Finance Committee took its meeting on the road to the new Prentice Women's Hospital.

A new east-west runway opened at O'Hare in 2013, sending hundreds of flights over the Northwest Side.

Plans to dismantle a runway are on hold while city officials meet with residents angry about jet noise.