[All] Airport survey

[S D Lachance]

Hi GREN & Eleanor,
I went to the public input session as well. A few immediate thoughts that popped into my mind...
Bad timing! LRT success relies on engaging many, regular & frequent users so it was hard for me to simultaneous think about promoting fast & more convenient getaways. Also, the $ to be spent kept increasing in my head to the extent that I wondered what would be left for me to pay my own airfare. As an individual, for me, occasional transportation to Toronto is cheaper than payments for expanding an airport.
Size matters! When one changes size/ classification all the rules & expectations change. I didn’t see or hear any cross comparison of how all factors being equal we would be competitive  in our new classification & what new expenses we would have to increase above building the expansion e.g. increased airport security – bigger facility bigger target!I. 
Future trends! I see either more indifference or more turbulence than smooth sailing! First how will online, global communication influence the need to show up in person in the next generations? Will airlines in the future be an expanding or contracting as a business? Will transportation centre around moving cargo or people! Do we want our services brought to us or do we still want to go there? Secondly, more severe & frequent weather events make popular vacation spots less reliable, global terrorism makes threats in unexpected places more frequent so I see the future as managing higher risk. How much & where should we risk as a community seems to be the bigger question for me. Finally, the population is aging. This could increase the go & stay for as long as I can to keep my benefits of snowbird travel & decrease the profits from continuity of regular back & forth trips.
Health & well being! I sense that thinking is slowly moving from unlimited growth to smart growth. Media seems to be exposing more of the negative side effects of unlimited growth on happiness, safety, social justice, the environment, health & well being impacted by air quality, noise, access to healthy food, etc. etc. So, we need to carefully weight all the impacts to the whole community. We are still in job recreating transition & to keep the brightest & best we have to consider their families wanting to live here as part of a success initiative. More children are being impacted by issues around air quality, healthy food, safe places to play, etc.
Aging At least aging infrastructure!!! The lessons from roads is that if you build everything at the same time it will age at the same time & human nature being what it is we wait till the last minute to fix it and then say we have no money. This means we leap & patch until we crash. It would be nice to see a chart of how much is already scheduled. Sometimes there are benefits to moderate growth.
With gratitude for the opportunity to think out loud,
Sandra

From: Eleanor Grant 
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2014 5:54 PM
To: GREN2 ; Eleanor Grant 
Subject: [All] Airport survey

Hi GREN All, 

Yesterday I went to a public input session about expanding the airport.

See waterlooairport.ca/masterplan .
You can e-mail your comments from that page.

They are deciding among 4 options: status quo (room for a little growth), low growth, medium growth, and high growth.

They had info sessions which claimed that once you get up to Option 3 - medium growth capacity - both noise and the cost to taxpayers will decrease.  Which seems counterintuitive.

Noise reduction is to be accomplished by having a longer runway and locating it farther east.  In this way the jets can take off at lower power, and reach a higher altitude before flying over cities.  (There was more detail to this, that I didn't understand.)

Residents of Hespeler weren't offered any relief from those Baffin-Island-bound cargo planes with loud engines that shatter their peace early in the morning.  And it seems, to me anyway, that a more easterly runway might be noisier for Hespeler while being quieter for Kitchener.

Tax savings are expected with Option 3 by reaching the critical capacity of a million passengers per year.  Increased revenues would be enough to pay for both operating costs and the debt servicing on the additional $50 M that would have to be borrowed - according to the project team.

I brought up the question of greenhouse gas emissions, and was told it wouldn't be any worse than having all those people drive their cars to catch a plane in Toronto, "if they're going to fly anyway". 

I've also been asking around about a GO train stop at Breslau.  Apparently this was shelved as Kitchener got a stripped model of GO service.  But at the same time, building unlimited parking on green field doesn't bother anyone.  BTW, Option 3 also involves building a grade separation where Shantz Stn Rd crosses the tracks.

I'm baffled because they're preaching the right gospel on rapid transit and downtown intensification, yet the same mentality doesn't extend to other forms of transportation such as Hwy 7 and the airport.  Saving farmland drops off the radar.

Different forms of transport don't talk to one another!  Last night I went to hear Sue Zielinski at the School of Architecture, and this is just what she talks about:  A whole transportation solution instead of separate silos.

Most telling I thought, was the statement that our airport is getting only a small percentage of flights now being made by residents within our 35-km-radius catchment area, and they want to get that number up.  Even if the principles are opposite to those used to promote the LRT.

My rant.  I'd be interested in hearing what you all think.

Eleanor



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