A viral mob hysteria has overtaken Erie county council and executive Mark DiVecchio, egged on by the development-at-any cost crowd and its mouthpiece, the Times Publishing Co., as they prepare to spend some $26 million on runway expansion at the Erie airport to expand services already underutilized by Erie’s anemic air passenger market,which should be directed towards more traditional and critical county needs.
Much of the new-found gaming revenues is earmarked by county politicians for the runway project, despite the fact that nearly half the county’s residents outside city and Millcreek/Summit boundaries will derive little or no benefit from it.
Most of the relatively few who use air passenger services at all, prefer to drive to Buffalo, Cleveland or Pittsburgh where a more convenient and timely array of flights await to serve them. Any benefit to them from this wasteful expenditure is negligible or non-existent.
While the county executive and all council members share in the political depravity inherent in the airport runway scheme, the principal culprit is county councilman Kyle Foust, the leader of the runway pack, who is shamefully sacrificing his east county constituency on the altar of his congressional ambitions by pandering to Times-News editorialists and their sycophants.
Proponents claim the runway project is needed to fuel future economic growth which will enhance the entire county. But no one has produced a single credible survey or study to support their contention, nor anything resembling a cost-benefit analysis. Rather, county officials are flying, so to speak, by the seat of their pants.
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6 comments:
Joe, I think you mean Kyle Foust and not his dad.
Jack - Thanks for the correction. I did mean Kyle Foust.
Joe:
I agree, I cannot recall any hard cost-justification numbers associated with the runway project. Putting such numbers together would probably be a good idea when thinking of spending $26 million. However, to dismiss the runway project because "nearly half the county’s residents outside city and Millcreek/Summit boundaries will derive little or no benefit from it," is a bit suspect, as typically any government project benefits only a fraction of a constituent base. Anything that could affect "half" the people, I think would be a good thing.
Also, as far as going out of town for flights, theoretically, a longer runway would create more direct flights out of and into Erie and emininate the need to use these other airports. What type of flights we could get with a longer runway needs to be part of the justfication study.
Finally, if we could get more flights into Erie, it could be a boost for the convention/tourism industry that we are supposed to be investing in. This needs to be studied carefully, because we've just dumped millions into the Convention Center. If we are developing a strategy to make this a successful convention/tourism town, and the airport extension is viable piece of that strategy, we need to execute on it. We've had enough piecemeal projects without a clear strategic vision.
Ralph
Ralph – Thanks for your insights. “You say “…typically any government project benefits only a fraction of a constituent base.” That’s because, typically, only a proportional fraction of the public resource at stake is invested in that project.
In the runway case, county council and DeVecchio are talking about the whole enchilada, $26 million, not a proportional fraction. And, trust me, it will be a lot more than that if and when the project is completed. There will inevitably be huge cost overruns the county will have to help defray to order to protect its original investment, and in the end, it will likely tank anyway. That’s not speculation, it’s history.
You’re assuming a justification study would show a longer runway would create more direct flights in and out of Erie. But that’s what the study is for: to move from assumption to reality. Even if your assumption is correct, at what cost? And is there a local market at that cost?
That’s the unwarranted assumption and rationale on which Pittsburgh’s “world class” airport was built a decade or so ago. But look at it now. Dozens of gates designed for big jumbo jets are now closed or servicing small commuter aircraft, with many more to close soon. Since 1997, air passenger traffic at Pittsburgh International has dropped from 21 million to ten million per year. It’s a fiscal disaster area on the way to becoming a ghost town.
The runway project is the new convention center writ small. Though spectacular, the center is a house built of cards – pyramiding assumptions on top of pyramiding assumptions. It too was launched without benefit of credible market surveys and studies, riding on a hope and a prayer.
Joe,
You are dead on about Kyle Foust's actions and the ambition that motivates his actions.
He continually panders to the paper for favorable coverage and possibly an endorsement while he flushes his constituents down the fiscal toilet.
As the city has teetered on the brink of bankruptcy it is important to remember that the Times Publishing Company advised and directed the city in its long road to insolvency. Now that the city is broke the paper has turned it's "expertise" loose on the county taxpayers.
I keep hearing and reading that the runway expansion will allow for expansion of cargo service. They claim they will be creating a cargo hub. Along with this will come huge subsidies fro cargo building and other infrastructure. At the present the state is getting ready to subsidize the construction of a new cargo based airport in the eastern part of the state. The direct subsidy is in the tens of millions of dollars and bond financing in the 100s of millions. With that kind of investment one would think that cargo business would be pushed in that direction from state officials. Why has this airport within minutes of Erie flight time wise not put on the table or better yet. Does anyone in county or city government even aware of the plans for a more competitive airport about to be built near by?
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