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Letter to the editor: Get me to the airport on time

Posted on December 23, 2008 by Staff

Get me to the airport on time

Chancellor Thorp confuses the Orange County community again (“no decision has been made”). But this time, despite his self-proclaimed “analytical skills,” it may have backfired. Talbert & Bright have planned 64 airports in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast region over 15 years. Their 2005 UNC study was based on the same criteria: no airport within a 30-minute drive of another airport, and that the doc’s wanted it within a 20-minute ride. T&B selected Raleigh Durham International Airport. How did they get it wrong? They even showed sensitivity to the environment and went east before southwest.

Since there are no new major highways or development projects, and the topography is unchanged (hills becoming valleys, and vice versa, and rivers changing courses), what is the purpose of a second study? Thorp explains: The new study would include more current traffic and roadway data.

Does he not realize that a new airport would change this data? Is he basing his reasoning and planning on the present, or the future? Especially when he has already stated that the process will take several years to complete? Are T&B amateurs? The new study will be expensive, take time, and prolong indecision. And certainly embarrass T&B. Does Thorp take us all for fools?

Thorp has recently pledged cooperation on the airport. If he insists on a second study, we cooperate with our “analytical skills” and make a cost- and time-effective suggestion: clue the “second team” on the “right” answer. And at the same time, copy chair Valerie Foushee and the community.

In this manner, UNC (aka Airport Authority) will have the right answer in a day or so, all stakeholders will be on the same page, and the process will be ready for takeoff !

Michael Fernandes, MD

Chapel Hill

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