The Star comes out wrong on the airport

The Kansas City Star published an editorial piece yesterday on our airport and why a single, new terminal is a good idea.

They only made 2 claims and as it turns out, they were wrong on both counts.

Their first contention is that a new airport, however expensive and wasteful it would be, is good for travelers because it would improve security and so, be more convenient for us.

This, after all, is the only reason the airline companies came up with this idea of a new, single terminal anyway. They want to cut their costs for security so the Airport Authority agreed we need a single terminal. They want to keep those airline companies happy.

They also make the point that lines will be shorter, somehow, at a single terminal.

Right. We're all going through one building, especially for security and somehow, magically, the lines will be shorter?

Doesn't that defy logic?

Okay, so if we need one building for security, let me propose here yet again the idea of making terminal B the "Security terminal", still using some of B's gates for flights, if and as needed, and then having walkways to the other two terminals, B and C, for all the other flights?  That would totally work and we wouldn't have to tear any buildings down. We would still not have to go as far to catch our flights as you have to go at, for example, Atlanta's or Denver's airports so it can't be said it's too far to have to trek.

Their second claim is that a new, single terminal would be more evironmentally-friendly because the drainage of cleaning the jets would all be at that one terminal and it could be drained away to treat it better with the new building.

Well, okay, let's totally ignore that you have to tear down and throw away--in a dump--an entire building in order to build this new, single terminal, let's ignore that evironmental nightmare and fact and analyze this idea.

How about, again, instead of tearing down a terminal and throwing it away, additionally, hugely expensive as that is, why don't we go in and do this new drainage to the existing buildings so the chemical runoff from the jets goes where we need it to go anyway? That would surely cost far, far less, at 1.2 billion dollars, than an entire new terminal.

That's got to be far and away more environmentally intelligent and far less expensive than--sorry, one more time--tearing down an entire building, throwing it away, hauling it off to a dump and building a new terminal.

That only makes clear sense.

Sorry, Star. You blew it on this. You're mistaken. You're wrong. A new terminal makes no sense, especially financially but environmentally, too.

Links:   A KCI good for travelers and the environment

 Save KCI!
  
Save KCI | Facebook