No Madison Airport?

Friday, March 02, 2007

Petroleum and Natural Gas Watch
by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin
February 27, 2007, Vol. 6, Number 4

Over the weekend I came across a web site (www.nomadisonairport.org) that advocates shutting down Dane County’s airport and moving it outside Madison city limits. The people behind the web site, mainly east side residents fed up with the increasingly obtrusive levels of jet noise in their back yards, envision a New Urbanist community springing up from the acres of tarmac where jets once taxied to and from the gates. Deriding the neighborhood surrounding the current airport as a “ghetto”, the web site states that the new airport could be situated in a greenfield location far from town, presumably in an area populated by half-deaf farmers too busy plowing and fertilizing their fields to notice the increase in jet traffic.

To airport relocation supporters—no doubt all Madison residents--this proposal is pure win-win. The skies become quieter above Madison, while its property tax revenues swell from the mixed-use developments rising up on what had been county-owned property. That Madison’s gain would come at the expense of an outlying township not yet overrun by commuter households is of little concern to the proponents. The objective here is simple: to find a place outside of Madison where noisy jets can ferry travelers to and from the metro area without disturbing Madison residents.

Continued here.