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New KSAN in the works
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Hash: SHA1 http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/s...13565943c.html 9 sites mulled to replace Linbergh Field By M.S. Enkoji -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 12, 2005 SAN DIEGO - Passenger-laden jets seem to disappear into the concrete canyons of downtown before gliding into the nation's largest single-runway commercial airport. Interstate 5, homes, high-rise offices, a military base, every kind of modern development imaginable hems in San Diego International Airport. Something's gotta give. "I don't know when they're going to move it," said Bernard Crews, a reluctant neighbor to the 75-year-old airport. The airport, fondly called Lindbergh Field because Charles Lindbergh began his historic 1927 trans-Atlantic flight here, is expected to reach the bursting point within 10 to 17 years. There is nowhere to grow on the banks of San Diego Harbor. San Diego's search for a new airport will be long, possibly contentious say some, a cautionary tale perhaps for other big towns who don't want the headache, the price tag and the turmoil. "People don't do this lightly," said Richard Marchi, senior vice president of technical and environmental affairs for the Airports Council International, an industry association. But for some people like Crews, who lives on a hillside studded with homes rising above the airport's runway, it can't be soon enough. Beginning his walk to work recently, Crews, 57, shouted above a Southwest jet sweeping in for a landing. The rumbling is nonstop, he said. In this neighborhood, people enjoy San Diego's seaside luster from behind closed windows year-round, Crews said. Talk about moving the airport, both earnest and wistful, has gone on for at least 50 years, said Angela Shaffer-Payne, vice president of strategic planning for the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. "We hope this is the final study," she said. Voters will weigh in on a new location in 2006, but the authority is charged with preparing a shortlist of options for the ballot. Not an easy task. At one point, one idea was to build a floating island offshore, connected to San Diego by a highway. Another location wasn't even in this country. A Tijuana option and the floating island are no longer on the table. By using computer modeling to select logical alternatives, the authority has honed down 32 possible sites to nine, some of which are 90 miles away from downtown San Diego - and some of which are military bases. Of the five military locations, three are within 15 miles of downtown, which means the Pentagon owns what appear to be the most attractive spots. The two locations at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and a third at North Island Naval Air Station are about the same distance from San Diego's center as Sacramento's airport is from its downtown. The two other military sites, Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base and March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, are farther out. Even though the nearest private property on the list is an hour from downtown San Diego, the airport authority is refraining from even evaluating military sites until May 17. On May 16, the Pentagon is expected to issue a recommended list of at least a quarter of the bases nationwide to close. Even though the authority already has a meeting scheduled for May 17, Shaffer-Payne demurred on the importance of the base sites and insisted that authority members are not crossing their fingers for a local closure. "We recognize, as an economic engine ourselves, that the military plays a significant role in San Diego," she said. Marchi, of the Airports Council International, summed up the political dilemma: "You've got a congressman trying to protect the economy, and you don't want the discussion on the table." It's a political hot potato, said Leon Panetta, the co-chair of a state panel appointed to assess California's military property and advise communities on how to keep their bases open. "What you're basically telling people who live on that base is, would you like a job building an airport?" said Panetta. The military maintains that decisions about closing a location is based on its value to the military. But as President Clinton's chief of staff, Panetta said he knows the inevitability of politics. "Those things find their way in," he said. "How much impact it can have varies. It's a real toss of the dice." A proposal for a second life as an airport shouldn't influence military discussions, he said. But he added, "We'd be naive not to think any time there's a conflict that it doesn't get back there. It's not a state secret." Shaffer-Payne insists that far-flung sites will one day be close in and there is no secret longing to push out the Navy or Marines. But Marchi said the industry standard for airports is about 15 to 20 miles from a city core. "Obviously they need to be concerned about a site 90 miles from downtown," he said. Research has shown the public will bypass close, popular airports for more remote ones if the ticket price is right, Marchi said. The last major commercial airport to open was Denver International Airport in 1995 at a cost of $5 billion, Marchi said. As with most airports, carriers, user fees and concession contracts have footed the bill instead of local taxpayers. But with an inadequate airport, "it will really be hard to plan for a vibrant future," he said. With the price of land and the relentless march of development, preserving an airport is paramount for any metropolitan region, Marchi said. "One of the things that has worked well is buy enough land," he said. The Denver airport sits on 53 square miles. The San Diego airport is squeezed onto 614 acres - barely more than a square mile. In Sacramento, airport managers are looking beyond the future as the city's fringe creeps closer. Instead of relying on traditional 20-year forecasts of how the airport will grow, managers are limiting development based on a full-blown build-out of Sacramento International Airport, said Monica Newhouse, noise program manager for Sacramento County Airport System. By expanding the perimeters as widely as possible, the process for notifying home buyers heightens so there is no misunderstanding every time the home changes hands about what they are buying and the potential for jets flying overhead someday. Moving the airport, now on 5,500 acres, would be as tough as if it were also on the beach, Newhouse said. "Where do you go?" she said. Not to the west, where airspace would tangle with Travis Air Force Base. Not into the foothills, which aren't level enough. Going north, toward flat farmland, would be the only option, but it would probably have to be beyond Woodland, she said. "We'd be looking at a similar situation as San Diego," she said, "you know, 60 or 90 miles out." About the writer: * The Bee's M.S. Enkoji can be reached at (916) 321-1106 or menkoji at sacbee.com. BL. - -- Brad Littlejohn | Email: Unix Systems Administrator, | Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! | http://www.sbcglobal.net/~tyketto PGP: 1024D/E319F0BF 6980 AAD6 7329 E9E6 D569 F620 C819 199A E319 F0BF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCXBKJyBkZmuMZ8L8RAmolAJ9CzE7DpSPMfx32U32Tmo lIyRg5UgCfW6cq EjNEzRjxbgckMUyu0Pt6eLo= =TFhv -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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