Waste Check

[Amtrak Watcher]

My American Airlines flight recently landed at MidAmerica Airport (about 35 miles east of St. Louis) to wait for a storm to pass. This new airport (built in the late 1990s) reminds me of the airport in Normal, IL except that it has no airlines or scheduled flights save for a few charters once or twice a week. Nevertheless, there continues to be hourly bus service to St. Louis and return, with no passengers, since the airport opened. The airport appears to have a full security staff with nothing to do.

Why do we only hear about the Amtrak boondoggle, and not these failed regional airports, which sprung up all over the U.S. in the 1990s thanks to $billions in government subsidies?

 

[MrFSS]

My American Airlines flight recently landed at MidAmerica Airport (about 35 miles east of St. Louis) to wait for a storm to pass.

Their website shows one 6 day a week flight on a commercial airline to Florida (Sanford - where the Auto Train ends) and they have a car rental agency, too.

Maybe they are hoping for more business in the future. MidAmerica Airport

 

[AlanB]

Why do we only hear about the Amtrak boondoggle, and not these failed regional airports, which sprung up all over the U.S. in the 1990s thanks to $billions in government subsidies?

There have been a few reports over the years on shows like 20/20, 60 minutes, and Dateline about these useless airports. However by and large it tends to go ignored by most people. With no one to constantly harp on these airports, the public tends to forget about it. The same would be true for Amtrak, but it seems that a small vocal group continues to harp and berate Amtrak thereby keeping it in the limelight.

Additionally it doesn't help that Amtrak's budget comes up for a vote every year and is totally depended on direct appropriations.

The airports however by and large were built with local monies, along with the FAA's super fund monies. The super fund is largely funded with ticket fees, airport fees, over flight fees, and such. Only a small fraction of the super fund's monies are direct appropriation from the general budget. So it's more like they wasted the flying public's money and not the general population's money.

That's doesn't change the fact that it was still wasted money and money that was wasted thanks to political influence, what I like to call buying votes.

 

[Amtrak Watcher]

Having attended a local, public, mass transit meeting this past week here in Texas, I was annoyed to learn that our sundry transportation authorities are planning some initiatives (hundreds of millions of dollars) that would build toll roads in the so-called “Texas Corridor” (Dallas/Ft. Worth – San Antonio – Laredo) that would parallel and eventually “displace” I-35. I’m confused. We spend $billions building I-35 only to spend $100millions more to build a toll road to replace it. Why?

Utterly confused, I got permission to ask the officials a question: “Why not just skip the toll road phase and build a rail corridor?” I asked. The reply was, “Over time, the tolls can fund a rail corridor.” Now, I’m even more confused. The entire exercise in the “Texas Corridor” is to “relive crowding on I-35 and ease our growing demand for fuel.” How does a toll road do these? Wouldn’t a rail corridor accomplish both of these?

A stranger sitting next to me explained (privately to me) that a rail corridor would not speed up the transport of illegal aliens out of Mexico, but a road –even a toll road– would.

I give up; I’m missing the big picture.

 

[Allen Dee]

The mid-west has several of these largely unneeded airports. One that comes to mind is located in sparsely-populated northwest Arkansas. This particular airport was built with an infrastructure to accommodate jumbo jets, but serves only a handful of commuter flights a day.

Wasted money is wasted money, whether its public or private.

 

[warbonnet]

All good points and arguments about these small and seemingly "wasteful" airports. But there is a reason for these airstrips out in the middle of nowhere with 10,000 to 15,000 foot runways. Doesn't a 10,000 foot runway seem a little long for civilian and non-widebody flights? These long runways around the country are for use by the military if needed in time of national emergency. Even though Mid-America Airport is fairly new, this policy goes back to the 50's after WWII.

Wb

 

[EmpireBuilderFan]

These long runways around the country are for use by the military if needed in time of national emergency. Even though Mid-America Airport is fairly new, this policy goes back to the 50's after WWII.

One of Mid-America's runways is actually the runway for Scott AFB. There's a connecting taxiway between the old Scott runway and the new Mid-America runway. That way, both civilian and commercial traffic can use either runway.

 

[IceColdMintJulep]

I work on KC-135's at Altus AFB. We also have C-5's and C-17's which all all heavy aircraft and we are the only training base. Although we have two runways and an assult strip (very short runway), our aircraft routinly use other airstrips around the area. Many are former military strips others such as Amarillo's airport are civilian. I'm sure mid-america's runway gets use by C-5's from Scott, but it is still a waste, as there are other places to go. There is a former military base north of here called burns flat and our aircraft use it to do touch and go's. One of the FAA requirements is to have fire/rescue service at an airport and the depending on the size of aircraft and payload it could require quite a bit as opposed to a general aviation airport (private). So anyway, uncle sam pay big bucks for a bunch of firefighters and emt types to sit up there and watch the planes go by. They pretty much never stop there, and it's so close to us that if a plane had a problem it would come back here. Now that's waste!

 

[saxman]

OK, most of these little airports serve alot more than the commercial or charter carriers.

Don't forget about the general aviation community. And your mistaken about them being huge tax burdens. Most are paid for by landing fees, parking fees, buying fuel, hanger rentals, etc. Being a Flight Instructor, I would rather not teach a student to fly into O'Hare airport because all the other airports have been closed. A good example is Meigs Field being bulldozed overnight, closing one of the most popular general aviation airports in the country. Now I love my trains, but don't compare them to the "too many" airports out there. There's alot more airplanes than the commercial carriers. Without them, I can't fly myself to get my "$100 hamburger." Any community over 3 or 4000 needs an airport. All we need is a strip to land on.

Chris

 

[saxman]

My American Airlines flight recently landed at MidAmerica Airport (about 35 miles east of St. Louis) to wait for a storm to pass. This new airport (built in the late 1990s) reminds me of the airport in Normal, IL except that it has no airlines or scheduled flights save for a few charters once or twice a week. Nevertheless, there continues to be hourly bus service to St. Louis and return, with no passengers, since the airport opened. The airport appears to have a full security staff with nothing to do.
Why do we only hear about the Amtrak boondoggle, and not these failed regional airports, which sprung up all over the U.S. in the 1990s thanks to $billions in government subsidies?

Do you remember which flight you were on and what day? I keep track of all the American Airlines diversions, and why they diverted. I'm just curious, so I can pull it up.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

In fairness, there are also LOTS of small cities that have a much nicer airport than air traffic would ever justify but which were initially built during WW II (or perhaps the Korean conflict) as military training airports. We have literally dozens of them down here in Florida, and I expect you can find them all over the Sunbelt of the Southern and SouthWestern U.S. Yes, there is a good bit of $$$ spent keeping them up, but it really would be a waste not to, since upkeep isn't nearly what bulding them from scratch would cost, and they are a boon to manufacturing for those small-to-medium size towns and cities.

Learning to fly down here it was rather wierd to find all those really nice airports that were basically out in the middle of nowhere, until I realized why there were so many of them. Down here the military student-pilots could learn to fly without fear of the nasty (icing) weather they have up north any time other than summer (and sometimes even then), they didn't have to de-ice the planes even on winter mornings (well, maybe in far northern Florida....), and we also don't have any "cumulo-granite" clouds down in Florida (that's a cloud with a mountain inside it), which can really ruin your day if you fly into it. And while we do have afternoon thunderstorms in the summer that you have to dodge, we have very, very few of the low-overcast late-Fall through early Spring fronts that seem to arrive up north and last for weeks sometimes, and which make non-instrument flight impossible.

 

[lepearso]

Indeed, these airports are important, but so is Amtrak. I guess what upsets me is the treatment that these airports get while Amtrak barely scrapes by. We need fairness in our transportation policy and we need cooperativeness in our transportation policy. Giving one transportation form a secure future while threatening the other with extinction is harmful.