urbanSTL

And the answer is to codify an “unfair” budget?

If you disproportionally favor one part of the city over another - let’s say the Northside in this case - and give it a 5x budget allocation per capita and a 60% share of any airport lease proceeds (despite representing 30% of the City’s population), what do you think will happen in South St. Louis (which lost 9% of its population last decade)?

Do you think residents, who are already leaving at a significant rate, will be okay with funds for police, fire, parks, sidewalks, streets, etc... and whatever deferred maintenance projects airport funds could help out with will say, “Our area of the City is being systematically neglected, but it’s only because I’m on the wrong side of an arbitrary geographic dividing line, so I’m okay with it.”

The Northside lost 17,570 people last decade (15% decline). The Southside lost 16,692 (9% decline). But the Northside should get codified preferential treatment, since historically other parts were more heavily invested in?

More deeply entrenching geographic divides, parochialism and favoritism seems like it wouldn’t serve the city well in the future, as it hasn’t in the past.

I dont know what you've been doing for the last 50 years but in case you missed it, the entire City has lost a lot of people but you can still get a loan for a house in South City. 

^It struck me as a fairly dirty hit job. There were some deeply misleading graphics; one implied that the separation created by 11/29 was still below FAA bad weather minimums, but it showed a measurement between 11/29 and 12R/30L, which is just over half as far away as 12L/30R. Another showed the NE plan entirely within the airport footprint, but the runway in the drawing was maybe 6000' at most. It didn't show the displacement of 170 or the demolition in Kinloch that would have been necessary to achieve a reasonable 9,000' runway. It kept implying there was some magic bullet that would have solved the problem without demolition, which is patently false. Worse, it nearly implies there was no problem. I remember waiting nearly an hour to take off in completely sunny weather. I'd love to see what average taxi times were in the 90s. I'm pretty sure that if we'd kept the level of operations we had the  that 11/29 would dramatically decrease average taxi time, even if you did have to taxi clear from one end of the airport to the other. What's more, it implies that the land is vacant because of mismanagement, when it's basically written into the rules of the federal money that was used for a lot of the buyouts. It was a hatchet job by an angry Bridgtonian with some Grow MO money to give it nice production. (Since making the current management look incompetent fits nicely into the Grow MO agenda as well.)

Isn't the growth in recent years especially with 737 sized craft would have resulted in the same delays as there were in the 1990s returning if the new runway was never built? Especially with the spacing issues and bad weather.

Also many of the neighborhoods that were bought out and demolished for the runway may have ended up with the same fate due to the West Lake Landfill.

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Nov 05, 2019

Totally agree with the NW plan...that runway graphic they put up was exceedingly short, but I would probably argue that should 170 have been rerouted and that chunk of Kinloch bought out it probably would have been less disruptive than clearing out Carrollton and a sizable chunk of Bridgeton.  By the time 1996 rolled around Carrollton was still going and the section of Kinloch nearest the airport had already been mostly cleared out.

Making a quick mockup using Google imagery if you just translate 11/29 to the north side of the field you get this:

It does technically fit on airport owned land, but it's a tight squeeze to say the least and realistically you'll still have to move a highway. What's more, you'll have to move quite a lot of airport and associated industrial infrastructure and that won't be cheap, and even though the Kinloch properties were vacant by then, I bet you end up needing to buy out a lot of Berkley properties at a minimum for noise. And that's even assuming the terrain works, which is hardly guaranteed, since there's a low ridge east of 170. The glide path for 30R already pretty well follows the ridge down. And there's another ridge on the west side. (The airport is pretty much in a bowl, at the bottom of the Coldwater Creek valley.) You'll have to take that into account to more accurately locate that theoretical north runway. I think it would work, but I haven't checked a topo map. Add to that moving Boeing, Signature, the cargo ramp, the associated infrastructure, and the old Wabash line. You'll have to find land outside the clearance area for the runway but inside the fence or with good access to it. You really don't want to lose those jobs, and the airport footprint wasn't big enough for all of that plus another runway, no matter how you slice it. I just don't see this being a cheaper option. Better, maybe, but not cheaper. And even then, only with a lot of 20/20 hindsight. None of this was as obvious then as it is now. Not TWA's third bankruptcy. Not Boeing losing two major contracts in a row. Not the aviation downturn following 9/11. Not American's dehubbing. Some people in the know might have guessed at one or two of the above, but nobody could have foreseen it all.

Did you notice the Better Together plug?  Haha

No. Somehow I missed it. Not that I really want to go back and rewatch the silly thing just for the sake of seeing one more paid plug.

I looked up some of the airports DB mentioned that some of the RFP respondents operate and got curious about the other airports serving London. Curious how they handle so many passengers with fewer runways? Bigger planes?

Luton 16,5M passengers 1 runway
Stansted 28M 1 runway
Gatwick 46M 2 runways
Heathrow 80M 2 runways

Lambert needed 4 runways for 40M passengers?

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Nov 06, 2019

^ I really hadn't put that much thought into it.  Just a few thoughts after looking at some historic aerials and realizing the utter destruction of that section of Bridgeton.  Like I said, I was a kid when all this went down, and while I understand the boondoggle of the runway and the reasons for the demise of Lambert's prominence, this part had really kind of flown under the radar for me.

I spend way too much time on the "what ifs." And I'm still not convinced it was a "boondoggle." The bet didn't pan out, but I don't think it was a terrible bet. Things are really only now getting back to something like "normal." Traffic is certainly well beyond 2000 levels, but the big hubs also grew dramatically at exactly the moment there was sudden slack in the system, so the rebound on connecting traffic everywhere else has been slower. It's probably much more efficient to operate one enormous hub in the middle than several small ones, and the majors all have their mega hubs . . . except one. Time will tell.
(Which is another gripe, by the way. The thing implies that the hub and spoke model is dead when nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone who believes that has never been to Atlanta. Or Chicago. Or DFW as I hear tell. Or London, Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, or . . . well . . . any major airport, really.)

quincunx wrote: ↑

Nov 06, 2019

I looked up some of the airports DB mentioned that some of the RFP respondents operate and got curious about the other airports serving London. Curious how they handle so many passengers with fewer runways? Bigger planes?

Luton 16,5M passengers 1 runway
Stansted 28M 1 runway
Gatwick 46M 2 runways
Heathrow 80M 2 runways

Lambert needed 4 runways for 40M passengers?

Lambert had 3 but it was almost like having 1. You couldn’t use 2 at once. There was a tad overlap because you could have one leaving the ground as another one is touching down but it still wasn’t a true 2 runway that can be fully used at the same time. LHR can use both and has many widebodys. They are at max capacity there and building a 3rd runway. I’d have to see aircraft movement numbers to really compare.

One issue with that runway proposal to the north was that the area around there has some serious environmental issues as part of the FUSRAP site. I'm guessing that was one reason it wasn't done as well due to issues there that contaminated areas down Coldwater Creek from there.

The county library has all the plans for the Columbia Waterloo airport, plus the Lambert 2000 plan.
Columbia Waterloo would have essentially had the DFW runway layout, massive plan.
Lambert 2000 was to place a 3rd parallel runway near 270 and Lindbergh Blvd and a very large terminal complex near the former McD headquarters building, over 100 gates.
Emerson and AB led the torpedo of Columbia Waterloo and Mr. Mac killed Lambert 2000..

Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), Madison (MSN) in Wisconsin, Portland (PDX) in Oregon, and St. Louis (STL) are all markets where Sun Country plans to grow. Or as Bricker puts it, cities where “we’d like to build a brand in and have loyalty.”

Bricker and his team plan to grow the airline to at least 50 Boeing 737-800 aircraft — it will operate 33 jets by March — and establish its brand, if not bases, in at least four markets outside of the Twin Cities, he said.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/sun-count ... t-carrier/

Good to see they want to grow more here. I would be more than happy if they were the largest ULCC-ish airline here. Power in seats, personal device entertainement, free non alcoholic drinks, etc. A lot better than Allegiant/Frontier at that price level. 

I keep forgetting about these guys when booking flights to SW FL.  I just booked Allegiant and it will be my first trip on them so I'll try Sun Country for the next. Nice to see that they have ambitious plans here.

Couple of related stories in PD, Southwest pushes back Max and land development..   I can only assume that getting the max issue resolved obviously helps Southwest Airlines but STL as well.  

The second story I believe is more related to privatization I believe as the angle of real estate is important to private equity taking over public infrastructure or offering public like services.   Think of Brightline now Virgin rail service in South Florida and the proposed private high speed rail service between Dallas & Houston.   Both are about real estate just as much as the rail/transport service provided.  

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local ... a5223.html

 https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... 17a91.html

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Nov 08, 2019

Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), Madison (MSN) in Wisconsin, Portland (PDX) in Oregon, and St. Louis (STL) are all markets where Sun Country plans to grow. Or as Bricker puts it, cities where “we’d like to build a brand in and have loyalty.”

I couldn't quite be sure, but I thought I glanced an add for Sun Country in  an electronic billboard rotation the other day. I think I was sitting in traffic on 40 eastbound, and it cycled out before I could be sure. But it was definitely a surprise seeing an airline ad.

Alder Roddy making some news today. Commits to a not voting for airport lease without a public approving it via vote. And he also makes another interesting point about how the valuation we get out of this process can be used by the Board of Freeholders

From today's Business Journal, citing the WSJ --

By Jacob Kirn  – Economic Development Editor, St. Louis Business Journal
Nov 13, 2019, 2:38pm CST Updated 6 hours ago

St. Louis Lambert International Airport ranked 16th out of 20 midsize U.S. airports in a Wall Street Journal survey published Wednesday.
The newspaper ranked the airports on convenience, reliability and value, and incorporated a survey of more than 2,500 subscribers into its methodology.

In Lambert's category, Tampa ranked No. 1, and New York LaGuardia last, or No. 20.

Lambert struggled in categories including average domestic fare ($388.24, and 19th), airline market share (Southwest Airlines with 61.9%, and 15th) and the cost of an UberX to the city center ($30.40, and 17th).

Its Yelp restaurant rating (2.4) was 17th, WSJ reader satisfaction (2.53) was 16th and maximum walking distance (2,100 feet) was 13th.
Lambert performed better in the reliability category, coming in at No. 6 for TSA screening time (4:48), No. 7 for average taxi time (12:51), No. 8 for on-time arrival (81%), No. 9 for average arrival delays (54:10) and No. 10 for flight cancellation percentage (1.15%). It also came in at No. 9 for nonstop destinations (74) and No. 11 for Wi-Fi speeds (60.2 Mbps).

Journal readers said the following about Lambert:

• "Recognize that Southwest is in its own terminal and that the shuttle there to car rentals comes through a highly congested area where pickups are occurring and the buses can't get through"
• "TSA PreCheck line at STL is the only way to go here. You are the only person in line, compared to the non-TSA line, which can be a hundred people or more."
• "If you don't mind paying a little extra, you can park extremely close in the Terminal 1 garage. It's rarely crowded."
• "Security can be slow with long lines for a relatively small airport. The baggage claim is efficient, so don't be frightened to check a bag."
• "Long walks to gates and offsite rental cars can take additional time. Don't cut it too close!"

A spokesman for Lambert, which is owned by the city of St. Louis, said if the Journal's ranking considered large and midsize airports together, Lambert would have ranked higher than 11 other airports, including some major hubs. "Given that, STL is extremely focused on improving air service and the passenger experience," said the spokesman, Jeff Lea.

He said in the past two years, Lambert has focused on improving concessions, most recently adding Three Kings Pub in Terminal 2. The new Blue Note Bar and Grill will replace Chili's in Terminal 2 in mid to late January, he said. "The Wall Street Journal rankings do give us just another barometer, more data, to review and use to help us improve in all areas of operations and customer service," Lea said.
One of the goals of an examination of whether to privatize Lambert's operations is the "improvement of the Airport for all stakeholders, including incremental uses of the Airport's significant excess capacity." The other goals, according to the city, are to get money from a lease that can be used for needs elsewhere in the city, and to develop excess property at the airport.

A city working group on privatization is currently evaluating the qualifications of 18 firms interested in the public-private partnership.

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... urvey.html

Per the airports twitter, United is adding flights to Panama City Beach for spring break. 

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Nov 25, 2019

Per the airports twitter, United is adding flights to Panama City Beach for spring break. 

I will be shocked if this is not a one-stop through flight (STL-IAH-ECP, for example).