Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Consultant Damns With Faint Praise
The region got a nice “attaboy” from a consultant on its efforts to develop land around Pittsburgh International Airport. The adjoining counties of Allegheny, Beaver, and Washington worked together to form a partnership to attract development, something that the consultant suggested in 2002.
Great work, but here’s the catch. “The Pittsburgh area still lacks a beltway system common in other cities and must further upgrade its freeway system” since “we live in a country where people depend on automobiles and trucks to get to and from and to get their goods to and from, and the reality of it is air cargo is 2 to 3 percent of total freight movement. Your solution to transportation issues is on the ground. It's not in the air.”
Wonderful. That must have deflated the hopes of the boosters in the room. The state and the region pump millions of dollars in infrastructure work around the airport, and the roads getting people and goods there are inadequate. The state is in the midst of what is characterized as a transportation crisis with bridges unsafe and some collapsing. Build a beltway? We doubt the consultant or any of the public and civic leadership will be here by the time the region gets a beltway. An interstate designation for the route to the airport and $45 million in improvements won’t do it.
So let’s suppose we take the consultant’s suggestions to heart and lobby for highway improvements and get them. What happens if the promised development does not materialize? Then what obstacle will we need to eliminate?
Great work, but here’s the catch. “The Pittsburgh area still lacks a beltway system common in other cities and must further upgrade its freeway system” since “we live in a country where people depend on automobiles and trucks to get to and from and to get their goods to and from, and the reality of it is air cargo is 2 to 3 percent of total freight movement. Your solution to transportation issues is on the ground. It's not in the air.”
Wonderful. That must have deflated the hopes of the boosters in the room. The state and the region pump millions of dollars in infrastructure work around the airport, and the roads getting people and goods there are inadequate. The state is in the midst of what is characterized as a transportation crisis with bridges unsafe and some collapsing. Build a beltway? We doubt the consultant or any of the public and civic leadership will be here by the time the region gets a beltway. An interstate designation for the route to the airport and $45 million in improvements won’t do it.
So let’s suppose we take the consultant’s suggestions to heart and lobby for highway improvements and get them. What happens if the promised development does not materialize? Then what obstacle will we need to eliminate?
