Leave our danged airport alone

Here we go again. The front page article on the Star today is on the city's ideas of tinkering--meaning tearing down--our very functional and popular 3-terminal airport and replacing it with a one-terminal one. Ai-yi-yi. WHAT DO WE HAVE TO DO TO KILL THIS DESTRUCTIVE, WASTEFUL, UNAPPRECIATED IDEA? Not only is it a great-looking, still contemporary airport but WE LIKE THE WAY WE CAN GET FROM OUR CARS, STRAIGHT TO THE GATES AND ON THE PLANES. Leave the damn thing alone. city aviation director Mark VanLoh said in an interview. “It’s a mess” and that "Airline mergers have resulted in one crowded terminal at KCI and two that are half-empty. Multiple security checkpoints require nearly 500 screeners, hundreds more than other airports need. Environmental contamination and antiquated heating and cooling systems can’t be fixed without new construction. When people ask whether a new terminal is the best way, VanLoh responds, 'It’s the only way. We’ve tried. We’ve remodeled.'" To which I reply "hogwash." You can't tell me replacing old heating and cooling systems--which would also be far more efficient due to far newer technology--would be more expensive than tearing down a building and starting all over again. That cannot possibly make sense financially or logically. As for the traffic at the terminals? Here's a thought--put the busiest airlines at the two end terminals--A and C--and fill all the rest of the spaces--beginning with B, of course--in the rest of the spaces. Fill B completely, with all the little airlines possible, then go out from there to the busier airlines. It's a balance. The fact is, we all know, we like our terminals and to tear them down would be wasteful and then, building yet another, new one in its place would also be wasteful. Let's spend our money on all the other things we need like, oh, I don't know, how about repairing all the sewer and pipe lines across the city? There are still 2 very significant leaks on Southwest Trafficway, just South of 31st Street that have been putting out pretty good quantities of water for months now. Here's another idea: How about somehow cleaning the water of Brush Creek so it isn't always and forever a sewer? Here's yet another: The bridges and streets are yet more infrastructure that need attention AND we've already gotten one big fine from the Federal Government because we've been slow on repairing them. What say we avoid yet another, additional, possibly bigger fine? Another, new, different airport when a) we like this one, b) it's very functional and effective, c) it's still attractive and finally, d) to bulldoze it would be grossly wasteful are clearly all reasons we should KEEP MCI AS IT IS. Leave the damn thing alone. Leave us alone. Go do other, productive and helpful work that we really need. Sheesh. Let this idea die a quick death, once and for all. Please. Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/19/3276094/like-it-or-not-kci-needs-to-change.html