=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/chronicle/archive/2004/06= /22/EDGUM78RO71.DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, June 22, 2004 (SF Chronicle) S.F. lands Virgin; now can SFO land Virgin? Stanford M. Horn Now that Virgin USA has turned thumbs up on San Francisco as the site of its future hub, the city faces one more hurdle before it can lay permanent claim to Virgin -- or, as recent experience has shown, any other airline or passenger. That hurdle is an improved runway system that will allow planes and passengers to arrive and leave on time. Without such runways, SFO has turned in virtually the worst record in the world during the past four years in terms of losing passengers, according to the Airports Council International. It has dropped from 41 million annually to 29 million. Airlines have either not come here at all (Jet Blue, Aloha), put their Bay Area growth elsewhere (American, Mexicana) or totally moved out of SFO (Southwest, in favor of developing an 8- million annual passenger hub in Oakland instead). While SFO spent $75 million and five years studying runway alternatives starting in the mid 1990s, it has little to show for the effort except consultants' reports and consultants' bills. Those consultants studied filling the bay with runways up to twice the size of Golden Gate Park, spending upward of $2 billion and taking a decade to build the solution. Consultants don't make money by recommending simple answers to problems when they could recommend complex ones that require continuing studies. So, while they studied dozens of "Cadillac" solutions, they never considered a simple "Chevrolet" plan -- proffered by Bay Area transportation wonks (myself included) -- that would add a runway to the east of the main north/south runways. It would solve the problem in six months, fill less than 1 percent of the bay mentioned in their reports and cost less than 5 percent of the $2 billion. If the simple plan is pursued, each of the factions in the battle could claim a victory. Environmentalists could claim that they eliminated 95 to 100 percent of the proposed bay fill; the activists who believe fish welfare should come ahead of the Bay Area's economic health could claim that the runway will now be foisted off in a brackish backwater that fish rarely enter because it's only two feet deep and almost totally surrounded by land; and the airlines and passengers who only want an on-time airport in their lifetimes could claim they've finally achieved the goal that users of other airports take for granted. The simple, new runway would: -- Allow two lanes of planes to approach SFO 4,300 feet apart during cloudy weather, an FAA safety requirement. Currently, delays are caused because runways are only 750 feet apart -- too close in cloudy conditions -- forcing planes to land in single file and quickly backing up the normal flow. -- Be longer than one of the existing main runways, allowing enough leng= th for virtually all aircraft. -- Be located mostly on existing level, open land, making paving a simple job. -- Require crossing just 3,000 feet of brackish, almost-landlocked water, most of which is only about two feet deep. Sometimes, at low tide, there is almost no water there. Consultants' studies showed that fish largely avoid that area. Either fill could be used, which would leave 99.999 percent of the bay in its current condition, or a viaduct or trestle similar to that used on the San Mateo Bridge could be used. The San Mateo Bridge job was 10 times longer and in deep water and took about four years to complete. By that yardstick, the core overwater portion of the runway could be finished in less than six months working regular hours. -- Pose no straight-ahead conflicts with San Bruno Mountain or with the main runways in the rare event of a missed approach that requires gaining altitude and going around the airport to try another landing. -- Pose no additional noise conflicts on the landing approach because the runway is 3,400 feet farther out in the bay away from homes than the existing runways. It poses no additional noise conflicts upon departures, because the runway would be used almost exclusively for landings. Furthermore, this plan has been evaluated as technically feasible by airline pilots and civil-aviation authorities who reviewed it informally. For years, anti-runway forces argued that a simple redistribution of flights to other airports would relieve SFO enough to make them all on-time. Now that almost 30 percent of SFO's passengers have indeed gone elsewhere, it's still a fact that rain or fog can back arrivals up for hours, screw up the national and international air transport system and keep airlines and passengers from feeling confident about patronizing SFO. The evidence: SFO now has zero nonstop flights to such formerly well-served places as Ontario, Long Beach, Spokane, San Antonio, Albuquerque, Nashville, Tampa, Hartford, Milan, Zurich, Moscow, Helsinki and Papeete. Yet the delays are almost as serious as ever. What now? Airport management, the Airports Commission, the new city administration and the economic development groups that successfully landed Virgin must now turn their considerable spirit and energy to the important other half of their task: landing Virgin and all the other airlines and passengers who would return to SFO if the runways were clear. The clear solution: adding a runway. Stanford M. Horn writes about Bay Area transportation and development issues. -------------------------------------------------------------------= --- Copyright 2004 SF Chronicle