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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
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Out-of-County Sites Offer Potential

Out-of-County Sites Offer Potential

While it may sound illogical to build San Diego’s planned regional airport outside the county’s boundaries, it’s an idea worth exploring.

A not-in-my-backyard mentality? Perhaps. But of all the 18 current sites logged on the San Diego Regional Airport Authority’s drawing boards, March Air Reserve Base in southern Riverside County and another location near Plaster City in western Imperial County offer some enticing possibilities.

March, for example, is a 2,400-acre airfield with a 13,300-foot runway and a major interstate , I-215 , running along its front gate. What’s more, an official with the joint powers authority operating the 84-year-old base is already on record as saying they would welcome a plan to team up with San Diego on a regional airport. And because the base already operates as a cargo facility, adding passenger jets isn’t that big of a stretch.

Imperial County, of course, has no such built-in facility. It would be done literally from the ground up.

Land there is plentiful and Imperial County officials also welcome such a plan to reinvigorate an agriculturally based economy that suffers from a staggering 21 percent unemployment rate.

Indeed, these two sites offer tremendous potential. And, like any project that will cost several billion dollars, putting a regional airport some 80 to 90 miles away from San Diego’s population base has its drawbacks.

The commute, obviously, is one. But 200 mph rail lines could get people from one place to another in short order. Officials have noted high-speed rail can cut a 90-minute commute to 30 minutes.

And, for what it’s worth, March is along the corridor of a planned rail line linking San Diego to Sacramento. If voters opt to approve the nearly $10 billion bond measure for such a plan in November 2004, officials promise the link would be in operation by 2020.

With financial assistance from the feds, a similar high-speed rail line could also connect Downtown San Diego to Imperial County some 85 miles away via the I-8 corridor.

With the economic opportunities such plans offer to our neighboring counties, any deal with either Riverside or Imperial must come with stipulations that San Diego County also benefits from the obvious financial impacts a multibillion-dollar modern regional airport brings with it. San Diego would stand to lose millions in tax revenues by opting to build in another county.

It’s quite clear, however, that any proposal within the county’s boundaries will be in for a prolonged not-in-my-backyard fight. No one here will welcome a new airport in their neighborhood.

Relocating the airport by expanding small local airfields in Carlsbad, Oceanside or even Ramona doesn’t hold water. And any large chunk of land, such as Warner Springs near Lake Henshaw, will mean paving over some of the backcountry’s most pristine habitats.

It’s also quite clear that until the Department of Defense decides MCAS Miramar or Camp Pendleton are no longer crucial military assets and hands over the keys, San Diego County has no other viable location for a new airport. Expanding Lindbergh Field is a dead issue since it was determined earlier this year the adjacent Marine Corps Recruit Depot will not move north to occupy a corner of the former El Toro air station in Orange County.

With so few viable options within the county, airport authority officials will have to ask themselves what San Diego is willing to sacrifice in order to gain a new airport. As absurd as such a plan may sound, our neighbors to the north and east may have an offer too good to refuse.

, Rick Bell

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