RCAA On Line Library--Dumb Idea At Any Price

RCAA ON-LINE LIBRARY

Dumb Idea At Any Price

Issues in Brief: This project would be unsound, even if it could be completed for a normal cost – say, $85,000,000. There is no need for this project, there is NO significant benefit for anyone from it (except consultants, staff, and contractors).

The supposed justification is reducing arrival delay in bad weather, weather that affects visibility with rain, fog, snow, mist. There is no significant arrival delay problem at Sea-Tac that more runways can fix – perhaps one flight in a hundred. The peak arrival season at Sea-Tac is the month of August. Bad weather in August is quite unusual. The Port's own justification for the project cites crowded conditions that are supposed to come about, some time in the future. The number of operations at Sea-Tac has reached & gone beyond the point where intolerable delays were supposed to set in. And they didn't.

The Port says that the project will pay for itself by reducing those supposed "delays". Assume that there are big arrival delays for some flights during bad weather some time in the far future, & that the runway would lessen those delays, to the advantage of airlines and passengers. How does the Port recover its $1.2 Billion investment, plus another $2 Billion or so, in cost of borrowed money, plus cost of community mitigation, from the airlines and passengers? The Port would need to add another $20 or more to every ticket, JUST to pay for the runway. The Port also needs to add twice or three times that to pay for the terminal remodelling and the $3 B billion new North terminal.

Documents:

Lynn O. Michaelis, Ph.D. General Comments to Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) [for Flightplan].
(Reviews basic economics of Sea-Tac expansion and why it doesn't make economic sense.)

Testimony of Dr. Lynn Michaelis to the Aviation Subcommittee hearing on the third runway at SeaTac Airport, March 18, 1996. Noted economist Dr. Lynn Michealis points out that the Ports pricing scheme encourages inefficient operation, that the return on investment for the $500 million runway is unacceptably low, and the the costs of operation are being shifted onto the neighboring communities.

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