Squeezing the most out of Lindbergh

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Saturday, November 11, 2006 11:26 PM PST ∞

SAN DIEGO ---- Now that the idea of a Miramar airport has been rejected at the ballot box by a margin of nearly 2-1, it is back to the drawing board for the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.

With Miramar Marine Corps Air Station taken off the table through the overwhelming rejection of Proposition A last week, the regional agency that lawmakers created in 2002 is left with the task of making the most out of convenient, but little, Lindbergh Field.

Prop. A was an advisory measure that sought to gauge countywide support for moving the airport to Miramar. A yes vote would not have bound the authority to come up with a Miramar plan, nor would it have forced the military to do anything. But its defeat was a strong signal that residents don't want to pursue the idea.

Perhaps now more than ever is a time for fresh ideas concerning the county's existing airport, said Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego.

"We ought to take a breather, and then we ought to try to get some new ideas about how to approach this problem," Kehoe said in an interview last week. "Hammering on Miramar every 10 or 15 years is not the answer. Let's talk about realistic options and how we can accomplish this, instead of engaging in wishful thinking."

Steve Peace, the former state senator from East County who wrote the law that created the authority, said one thing is clear: Miramar is no longer an option and moving the airport is no longer an option. The state legislation authorized the agency to hold one election, in either 2004 or 2006, to determine whether San Diego County should move its international airport and, if so, where.

As of last week, the authority has had its election and the voters have spoken. And, he said, the message is: Keep the airport at Lindbergh Field.

Airport board member Mary Sessom of Lemon Grove, who cast one of the two dissenting votes in June when the board selected Miramar, said the election clearly puts the focus of the region's aviation future on the 661-acre airport on the shores of San Diego Bay.

"Lindbergh is going to have to be at the core of whatever basket of options we develop," Sessom said. "And at the core of what we do at Lindbergh should be a second runway."

A second runway

UC San Diego economics professor Richard Carson, an airport authority critic, said there isn't room for the two 12,000-foot-long parallel runways a mile apart that the agency wanted. That is what the authority had said was necessary in order to allow for simultaneous takeoffs and to maximize airplane capacity.

But, Carson said, "There are feasible options for a second runway, particularly if it is short or doesn't meet the requirements for full, dual independent operations, as is the case with most airports with multiple runways."

Many of those options could significantly extend the airport's useful life, he said by e-mail from an economics conference in Paris.

Joe Craver, airport board chairman, disagreed, saying capacity would increase only marginally, and at the expense of moving houses and businesses.

"The gain is not worth the pain," Craver said.

Carson also said the authority should consider shifting some of Lindbergh's commuter traffic to Carlsbad's McClellan-Palomar Airport. He said the authority should consider moving private planes to another county airport.

Carson said both moves would free up more time for Lindbergh's runway to be used for the main event: airline traffic.

"The airport authority kept saying that it could not do anything about general aviation because federal regulations say they have to accept all types of aviation," he said. "This was true as long as the airport authority did not have control of another airport to divert that traffic to. This issue is easily solved by obtaining some type of formal control over other area airports."

The authority, however, has said that moving private planes would provide minimal new capacity, as they accounted for 6 percent of takeoffs in 2005.

Others have proposed moving air cargo traffic, which comprises 3 percent of flights, to another county airport.

Sessom said another idea in need of study is the notion of a supplemental airport to take some of Lindbergh's traffic. Earlier this year, the board rejected the idea of building such an airport in North County.

A second airport

Carson said the authority was quick to reject the two-airport system idea, even though many metropolitan areas with crowded airports are moving in that direction.

The authority's consultants have suggested that San Diego County, with three million people, is too small a market to support more than one airport. Agency critics said they ignored the fact that the area is part of urban Southern California, one of the nation's most populous regions, and is next door to fast-growing Riverside and Orange counties.

The authority's own studies found that an airport on southern Camp Pendleton near Oceanside would capture more airline traffic than Miramar, because of its proximity to Orange County.

Going forward, Sessom said San Diego must coordinate airport planning with the other Southern California counties.

As for squeezing in a second runway at Lindbergh, the Port of San Diego ---- the airport's former owner and operator ---- studied that in 2001. And the airport authority broached the subject in 2005.

From those studies, three favored options emerged.

Two were variations of the same concept and entailed constructing a second runway next to the existing one, 800 feet to the north. Under one scenario, the new runway was to be 9,400 feet long ---- as long as the current runway. Under a second proposal, the new runway was to be 12,000 feet, according to a report in May.

In both cases, the new runway was to be for departures only.

And under both scenarios, terminals would be moved to Lindbergh's north side, where a new freeway offramp would tie it directly to Interstate 5. The airport's footprint would nearly double in size, mostly through acquisition of the 380-acre Marine Corps Recruit Depot. The Marines' West Coast boot camp, which trains 16,000 recruits annually, is not available, but area officials say the military is more likely to part with it than to allow an airport on Miramar or Pendleton.

A second look at master plan

Because the options would require moving terminals, Sessom said the board ought to scrap its master plan, which calls for $550 million in upgrades to roads, parking and Terminal 2 on the south side.

Sessom said the agency would end up tearing down those upgrades if a major expansion was pursued. The board is going to be asked Monday to approve a preliminary environmental report for the master plan.

Craver, the airport chairman, said that it will be up to the board majority to decide whether to drill down deeper on the 'F' options. He said he personally does not believe they are worth pursuing.

"That would only give you, at best, 20 percent more capacity," Craver said.

The third option for a second runway was an outgrowth of last year's study. It attempted to fashion Lindbergh into the type of airport that the agency was hoping to build elsewhere ---- with twin parallel runways a mile apart. The problem is, that would require moving 5,500 homes and 21,000 people.

"Just going through that study absolutely infuriated the community around Lindbergh," Craver said.

Sessom, who has often locked horns with the board majority, dismissed Concept 6, too. But she maintained there must be other more reasonable ideas for a second runway.

Whether those ideas get a full airing likely will depend on a new airport board, as the terms of five of the nine board members expire in early December.

A second look at airport authority

There is no guarantee the airport authority will determine the future of the airport.

State Sen. Kehoe is holding hearings on the authority's future, including one from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday at the new California Department of Transportation building at Taylor and Juan streets in San Diego.

Kehoe said she plans to write legislation next year to reshape the agency. She is exploring suggestions ranging from turning the three paid jobs on the board into volunteer positions, to scaling back board responsibilities, to merging it with another regional agency, such as the San Diego Association of Governments.

Peace, the former lawmaker who helped create the authority, noted that the agency was born out of the 2001 discussion on regional government.

Peace's desire at the time was to consolidate several regional agencies into one. But during the yearlong debate, then-San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy and real estate magnate Malin Burnham approached him about the need to settle the question of whether San Diego County should move its international airport.

Peace said he agreed to form a single-purpose agency to explore the question. Now that it has been answered, he said, his preference would be to fold the authority into another agency.

Carson, the UCSD economics professor, suggested the airport planning responsibility should be given to someone else.

"Having gone to a massive effort to make Miramar look like the only option, I think the real question is whether the airport authority can step back and look at the situation objectively," Carson said.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. Attempts to misrepresent your identity or impersonate any person will not be approved. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.