But Planning Agency Hasn’t Given Up on an El Toro Airport
If El Toro is not built as a commercial airport, other regional airports,particularly Ontario and March , are expected to see a tremendous increase in demand, according to a recently released report by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG).
As a result, more homes near those airports are expected to be exposed to higher noise levels. And the vast majority of these homes are in minority neighborhoods, said the report.
The SCAG study, which has been in the works for several months, is not a direct response to Measure F, which was overwhelmingly approved last month by Orange County voters. Measure F requires that an airport receive a two-thirds approval from voters, throwing into doubt the future of the planned El Toro airport.
However, the study did make projections of air passenger demand at airports in the region with and without a facility at El Toro, and those projections take on added meaning in the wake of the Measure F vote. A top director of SCAG last week reiterated this support for a commercial airport at the former Marine base.
“It’s still an integral part of our regional transportation plan,” said Ronald Bates, a Los Alamitos City council member who is curently a first vice president at SCAG and who is expected to be elected soon as its president.
Bates, who noted that Measure F didn’t specifically stop El Toro from becoming an airport, said the measure’s passage wasn’t well received outside of Orange County.
“El Toro is part of an integrated effort to make the airport system in Southern California work effectively,” he said. “Without it, the transportation problem becomes more difficult, if not impossible. Others are saying to Orange County, ‘Do your fair share.'”
The recently released SCAG aviation forecast predicted that aviation demand will nearly double within 20 years, from 85 million in 1999 to 157 million by 2020. According to the SCAG projection, the existing airport system has the capacity to meet 140 million passengers.
SCAG’s projections, which are used as the basis for applying for federal grants to improve the region’s airports, have been attacked by opponents of El Toro airport, who said the projections are too high. However, SCAG’s projections are conservative compared to others, including Orange County government’s estimate (179 million passengers); LAX’s estimate (175 million); the Federal Aviation Administration’s (195 million passengers); and Boeing’s (198 million).
Options for Growth
SCAG originally released nine scenarios and its most recent report has whittled them down to four scenarios. The first one is a baseline of the projection for unrestricted demand at the region’s 12 airports. The other three are predictions of how a rail system among the major airports, which SCAG is planning, would affect the demand. The scenario labeled No. 9 examines life without an El Toro airport.
“The data is very clear that without El Toro, there is an adverse environmental impact” on other regional airports, said Mike Armstrong, an aviation demand expert at SCAG who helped prepare the forecast.
For example, the bulk of the demand is expected to shift to Ontario Airport, where the passenger count is expected to increase from 6.6 million passengers in 1999 to an estimated 33.8 million by the year 2020.
Since Ontario’s current top capacity is 20 million passengers, the extra demand could push Ontario to install a third runway.
The passenger count would also increase at Los Angeles International Airport, assuming there is an airport expansion there, from 64 million passengers to 86 million by the year 2020.
Impact on Minorities
The increased projections at both Ontario and LAX are expected to be controversial because of their effect on minority homeowners near the airports. By federal law, SCAG was obligated to calculate the impact of air demand on minorities. SCAG said that by 2020, there are expected to be 14.9 million minorities in the greater Los Angeles area. Of these, 190,000 are expected to live within zones where the average decibel reading over a 24-hour period is greater than 65. If El Toro is not built, this increases to 212,600. The increase is expected to be near Ontario Airport because a new runway would have to be built to accommodate demand.
One of the expected controversies about this projection is the estimate that John Wayne could handle 8.4 million to 9.4 million passengers. Opponents of El Toro said the airport could really handle upwards of 13 million passengers. Armstrong said SCAG didn’t do its own analysis of John Wayne’s projection because it lacked funds. Instead, it relied on a projection from P & D; Aviation, which is planning the El Toro Airport
Juggling Cargo
March Inland CargoPort, a private marketing company at March Air Force Base, has joined efforts to stop El Toro from becoming an airport, in the hope of generating business for themselves. According to this forecast, March, which currently handles a few thousand in passenger traffic, is expected to grow to 5.5 million passengers, which would make it about twice as big as Long Beach airport.
But as far as cargo, March will benefit only somewhat, with its expected tonnage in the year 2020 rising from 1 million to 1.2 million. Most of El Toro’s cargo is expected to go to Ontario, which is closer. Its cargo will double in 2020 from a previous estimate of 1.2 million tons to 2.7 million tons.
The loss of the El Toro airport is expected to impact the region’s freeways, as vehicle mileage is expected to increase nearly 14% as a result of more people traveling further to reach an airport.
Because more vehicles are expected to be on the roads, the air quality is also expected to worsen. This reaffirms a controversial position of the county’s environmental impact report that air quality will worsen without an airport at El Toro because more vehicles will be on the road.
Another area of controversy could be SCAG’s promotion of a rail system to link the region’s airports; it’s a system that’s considered a long shot, but which SCAG officials are promoting and hence have included it in their projections.
“If we can get funding for $25 million over the next two years to advance the project, I think there is real good chance that it will be built,” said Bates, who estimated its first stage could be operational by 2010. n
