The Juiceman
Aug 11, 07, 11:43 pm
From the 8/12/07 edition of the Athens Banner/Herald:
Airport council revived
Group created in '89 to find area site for flights
By Blake Aued | Staff Writer | Story updated at 11:55 PM on Sunday, August 12, 2007
Sparked by Atlanta's need for a second airport, business and government leaders are reviving a long-dormant commission to try to bring a regional airport to Northeast Georgia - and Barrow County is the early favorite to host it.
Surviving members of the Northeast Georgia Surface and Air Transportation Commission, created by the state legislature in 1989, will hold their first meeting in 15 years Aug. 23 and ask officials from 13 counties and eight cities to appoint new members. The reconstituted group then will seek state and federal funding for studies and scout sites for a 20- or 24-gate airport that could offer flights to 20 to 40 cities and draw passengers from the north Atlanta suburbs to the South Carolina line.
As it did in the early 1990s, though, advocates of a regional airport will face a tough task convincing skeptical politicians, under pressure from voters who fear noise and traffic, that building such an airport is a good idea.
A regional airport would make flying more convenient for Athenians who now travel two hours to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta or to Greenville, S.C., Athens-Clarke Mayor Heidi Davison said, but she immediately ruled out expanding Athens-Ben Epps Airport or building a new airport in Clarke County. There's not enough open land around the 400-acre airport, and residents would never accept it, she said.
"I just don't see that happening, given the multitude of barriers in place to put an airport in Athens," Davison said.
"They're not desirable," she said. "Nobody wants to live next to an airport, and I can't blame them."
A 10,000-acre tract off Interstate 85 in Jackson County was one of three sites the original transportation commission touted, along with 10,000 acres the city of Atlanta owns in Dawson County and an expansion of Gwinnett County's Briscoe Field.
"I must have gotten 500 letters" opposing the airport, Jim Dove, director of the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center, recalled.
One of the opponents was Jackson County Commission Chairwoman Pat Bell, who helped fight efforts to bring an airport to the I-85 site before she was elected to office.
"We had a lot of citizens who opposed that airport," Bell said. "I believe in citizen input, and I'd have to listen to my folks on that."
Barrow County Commission Chairman Doug Garrison, though, said he is open to talks about expanding his county's airport, a 450-acre facility that soon will extend one of its two runways to 7,000 feet, long enough for medium-sized jets to land and take off fully loaded. Barrow County officials long have pushed to make the former Winder-Barrow Airport the pre-eminent one in the area, even renaming it Northeast Georgia Regional Airport in 2005. And there is enough undeveloped land between the airport and Georgia Highway 316 to expand it even farther, Garrison said.
"The potential is there if the support is there," he said.
Members of the transportation commission have no specific site in mind, nor have they ruled any out, Vice Chairman E.H. Culpepper said.
"All we're doing is starting a dialog," he said.
Talk of a regional airport started up again after Delta Air Lines exited bankruptcy recently and Atlanta received a $1 million federal grant to study an overflow airport for Hartsfield, one of the busiest in the country. So far, officials have mentioned Macon, Chattanooga, Tenn., Dawson County and 10,000 acres Atlanta owns in Paulding County as potential sites. A call to Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin's office was not returned.
Each site has its drawbacks, though, according to University of Georgia economist Jeff Humphreys, who wrote a study in 1992 naming the I-85 corridor east of Atlanta as the best place for a second Atlanta airport.
Chattanooga is 100 miles away from Atlanta and many of the jobs and dollars associated with an airport would go to Tennessee rather than Georgia if it's built there. Residential growth is quickly swallowing up land around the Paulding County site. The Dawson County site was dropped because the terrain is difficult to build on, according to Culpepper. And Macon is on the wrong side of Atlanta to serve passengers from the city's populous northern suburbs.
The original transportation commission had the power to condemn land and issue bonds, and consisted of representatives from Banks, Barrow, Clarke, Elbert, Greene, Hall, Jackson, Madison, Morgan, Oconee, Oglethorpe, Stephens and Walton counties, and the cities of Athens, Commerce, Elberton, Gainesville, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Winder.
It stopped meeting in 1992, after the Federal Aviation Administration awarded Georgia a $1.8 million grant for a statewide feasibility study, rather than one focused on Northeast Georgia, Culpepper said. The second airport was never built because Hartsfield added a fifth runway and increased its capacity.
A sixth runway at Hartsfield is unlikely, so now is the time to start the 10- or 20-year process of planning and building a new airport, Humphreys said.
"The overall message is the same, but the timing has changed," he said. "In other words, there's still a need for a second airport, the need is just not as great."
Humphreys' original study said a regional airport would create more than 47,000 jobs and bring $2.6 billion in 1990 dollars to the region, figures he said now are long out of date.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 081207
Airport council revived
Group created in '89 to find area site for flights
By Blake Aued | Staff Writer | Story updated at 11:55 PM on Sunday, August 12, 2007
Sparked by Atlanta's need for a second airport, business and government leaders are reviving a long-dormant commission to try to bring a regional airport to Northeast Georgia - and Barrow County is the early favorite to host it.
Surviving members of the Northeast Georgia Surface and Air Transportation Commission, created by the state legislature in 1989, will hold their first meeting in 15 years Aug. 23 and ask officials from 13 counties and eight cities to appoint new members. The reconstituted group then will seek state and federal funding for studies and scout sites for a 20- or 24-gate airport that could offer flights to 20 to 40 cities and draw passengers from the north Atlanta suburbs to the South Carolina line.
As it did in the early 1990s, though, advocates of a regional airport will face a tough task convincing skeptical politicians, under pressure from voters who fear noise and traffic, that building such an airport is a good idea.
A regional airport would make flying more convenient for Athenians who now travel two hours to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta or to Greenville, S.C., Athens-Clarke Mayor Heidi Davison said, but she immediately ruled out expanding Athens-Ben Epps Airport or building a new airport in Clarke County. There's not enough open land around the 400-acre airport, and residents would never accept it, she said.
"I just don't see that happening, given the multitude of barriers in place to put an airport in Athens," Davison said.
"They're not desirable," she said. "Nobody wants to live next to an airport, and I can't blame them."
A 10,000-acre tract off Interstate 85 in Jackson County was one of three sites the original transportation commission touted, along with 10,000 acres the city of Atlanta owns in Dawson County and an expansion of Gwinnett County's Briscoe Field.
"I must have gotten 500 letters" opposing the airport, Jim Dove, director of the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center, recalled.
One of the opponents was Jackson County Commission Chairwoman Pat Bell, who helped fight efforts to bring an airport to the I-85 site before she was elected to office.
"We had a lot of citizens who opposed that airport," Bell said. "I believe in citizen input, and I'd have to listen to my folks on that."
Barrow County Commission Chairman Doug Garrison, though, said he is open to talks about expanding his county's airport, a 450-acre facility that soon will extend one of its two runways to 7,000 feet, long enough for medium-sized jets to land and take off fully loaded. Barrow County officials long have pushed to make the former Winder-Barrow Airport the pre-eminent one in the area, even renaming it Northeast Georgia Regional Airport in 2005. And there is enough undeveloped land between the airport and Georgia Highway 316 to expand it even farther, Garrison said.
"The potential is there if the support is there," he said.
Members of the transportation commission have no specific site in mind, nor have they ruled any out, Vice Chairman E.H. Culpepper said.
"All we're doing is starting a dialog," he said.
Talk of a regional airport started up again after Delta Air Lines exited bankruptcy recently and Atlanta received a $1 million federal grant to study an overflow airport for Hartsfield, one of the busiest in the country. So far, officials have mentioned Macon, Chattanooga, Tenn., Dawson County and 10,000 acres Atlanta owns in Paulding County as potential sites. A call to Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin's office was not returned.
Each site has its drawbacks, though, according to University of Georgia economist Jeff Humphreys, who wrote a study in 1992 naming the I-85 corridor east of Atlanta as the best place for a second Atlanta airport.
Chattanooga is 100 miles away from Atlanta and many of the jobs and dollars associated with an airport would go to Tennessee rather than Georgia if it's built there. Residential growth is quickly swallowing up land around the Paulding County site. The Dawson County site was dropped because the terrain is difficult to build on, according to Culpepper. And Macon is on the wrong side of Atlanta to serve passengers from the city's populous northern suburbs.
The original transportation commission had the power to condemn land and issue bonds, and consisted of representatives from Banks, Barrow, Clarke, Elbert, Greene, Hall, Jackson, Madison, Morgan, Oconee, Oglethorpe, Stephens and Walton counties, and the cities of Athens, Commerce, Elberton, Gainesville, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Winder.
It stopped meeting in 1992, after the Federal Aviation Administration awarded Georgia a $1.8 million grant for a statewide feasibility study, rather than one focused on Northeast Georgia, Culpepper said. The second airport was never built because Hartsfield added a fifth runway and increased its capacity.
A sixth runway at Hartsfield is unlikely, so now is the time to start the 10- or 20-year process of planning and building a new airport, Humphreys said.
"The overall message is the same, but the timing has changed," he said. "In other words, there's still a need for a second airport, the need is just not as great."
Humphreys' original study said a regional airport would create more than 47,000 jobs and bring $2.6 billion in 1990 dollars to the region, figures he said now are long out of date.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 081207