A new major airport?

A Predictable Failure

News about state-wide aviation planning, & the failure of the official Aviation Planning Council to come to grips with reality, or to heed the mandate from the Legislature for the scope of the Council's work. The Council has wasted two years' work & a small fortune in tax money -- the predictable result of NOT doing what they were instructed to do. Read on.

Now that the third runway is built and in operation, we are faced with opinions from expert planners, saying that by 2023 or thereabouts, the Puget Sound region will need the equivalent of a fourth Sea-Tac runway. The Port of Seattle Commission and the Puget Sound Regional Council are on record as NOT favoring another Sea-Tac runway. RCAA & C.A.S.E. are not in favor of that either.  What are the alternatives? 

In 2005, the Legislature anticipated this problem.  Legislation was passed that directed the Aviation Division of the state Department of Transportation to study the needs of aviation around the State, & especially commercial aviation in the Central Puget Sound Region. The statute also created an Aviation Planning Council to consider the studies & to make recommendations on a range of aviation questions, with a primary focus on commercial aviation, & possible new airport in the region.

The Aviation Planning Council filed its recommendations with the Legislature and Governor on 1 July 2009, as directed, but the Council failed to deal with the main problems defined by the Legislature. RCAA has prepared & distributed to the Legislature and Governor an analysis of the Council’s work.  Our analysis is titled, "A Predictable Failure".

The APC failed to give any guidance about new airport facilities.  The APC has made unhelpful -- useless -- recommendations for dealing with the predicted capacity "crunch" at Sea-Tac.  The Council suggests that the Legislature pay for new avigational gear at Sea-Tac & more than 50 other airports across the state.  Of all those airports, only Sea-Tac is a significant airport for regularly scheduled air travel.  The Council says that if its recommendation were adopted, flights in & out of Sea-Tac can (& should) be increased by 85 percent. or so, by the year 2030.  RCAA says that this would not be acceptable, & calls for a new study, to be conducted more responsibly.  Imagine ! 85 percent MORE noise out of Sea-Tac !

Here are URLs for the two parts of the RCAA's independent analysis, & URLs for the executive summary of the APC's report & the full text.

Main text of RCAA's analysis:

http://www.rcaanews.org/2009_PredicatableFailure.pdf

Attachments to the analysis:

http://www.rcaanews.org/2009_PredicatableFailure_Attach.pdf


Recommendations of the Washington State Aviation Planning Council full text (.pdf 58 pgs)  (downloads very slowly -- you may want to view only the Executive Summary)

URL for the full text of the APC's final report:

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/6CAF7B7B-37B8-44D3-B259-AB020B1AD995/0/Council_Report_PRINT_070109_lowres.pdf

URL for the Executive Summary of the Recommendations:

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/0D983642-6909-4708-A21A-0F8D8CA36506/0/CouncilReportExecutiveSummary.pdf