City Centre Airport YXD
Published September 19, 2008
The clamour is mounting once more to close Edmonton's venerable City Centre Airport (YXD), once affectionately known as the "Muni". Like many old pilots, I have a soft spot for City Centre having done my own flight training and endorsements there many years ago. Nostalgia, however, does not pay the bills, so I think it quite appropriate that the Edmonton review the future of its airport and how it fits into the city's long-term plans. While Edmonton alone will decide whether or not to close their airport, the decision will have a significant impact upon the Capital Region not to mention dependent communities outside the region. This is a serious decision; once an airport is closed it is never reopened and never replaced. The realities of winning public approval together with the enormous costs totally preclude the unwinding of a decision such as this.
Edmonton is unique in its convenient, centrally located airport. Very few large cities have an asset such as this and its closure would effectively leave Edmonton without an airport at all. The International (YEG) is Edmonton's in name only being located far from the city and in a different municipality. What then would Edmonton expect to get in return for the loss of this asset? The current suggestions involve some sort of residential or commercial development. The $500 million that some believe could be realised through the sale of land seems like a lot of money until one considers the infrastructure requirements that such a huge development would require. The same rules work for Edmonton as for Strathcona. Development costs money and residential development almost always results in a net cost to the municipality and certainly to the taxpayer if one factors in the cost of schools, recreation and other soft services. The road network around the airport is already congested to the point of gridlock. Even if unlimited funds were available, there is simply no practical way to deal with the additional thousands of vehicles that would need to access the airport site.
Many outside of Edmonton depend on City Centre for air access to medical facilities or to operate businesses dependent upon air travel. I hope that the needs of these folks will be factored into Edmonton's decision, though that seems unlikely. I am clearly a strong supporter of keeping City Centre airport though the irony is that its closure could well benefit Strathcona as businesses moved their operations to the Josephburg or Cooking Lake airports in the county. In a more pessimistic view they might move out of the region altogether to, say, Calgary where there appears to be less hostility to airborne commerce.
Alan Dunn
Councillor, Ward 6
780-464-8206
dunn@strathcona.ab.ca
Last updated: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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