City Hopes "If You Build It, They Will Come"

St. Louis's Lambert International Airport opened its new Runway 11-29, its first in nearly 50 years, this week... but whether the airport needed it or not is still the subject of debate in that community.

Proponents of the new runway who were present at Thursday's dedication -- celebrating the end of a $1.1 billion project that was more than 15 years in the making, the Associated Press reports -- hope the new runway will reduce weather delays, and allow the airport to handle increased passenger demand.

"Critical to continuing the region's economic momentum is an airport that is efficient, so the airlines can serve our growing demand for air service," St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said.

Critics of the project, however, say the airlines aren't responding to that "growing demand" fast enough to support a new runway. They cite current traffic levels at the airport that remain a third less than they were prior to 9/11. An entire concourse remains nearly empty, critics say, and an FAA forecast says it will likely be after 2020 before traffic rebounds to pre-2001 levels.

"[The new runway] amounted to an excessive waste of resources and the destruction of a community," said Sara Barwinski, who led one of three groups opposed to the project.

Barwinski would know; her family had to leave their home in the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton, a community that lost about 2,000 homes, businesses, and schools to make room for the new runway in 2003.

St. Louis began talking of a new runway in 1989. Business was (comparatively) booming at that time; TWA was still in business, and Lambert Airport was its main hub. But that was before the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- and in the months that followed, American Airlines (which had since purchased TWA) cut half of its flights to the airport. By that point, however, work was well underway on the new runway.

There is a slim degree of hope for Lambert, however -- after a decade of declining numbers, traffic levels increased in 2005, by a healthy 10 percent.

"You know the saying 'If you build it, they will come?'" FAA regional spokesman Chris Blum said. "Now that St. Louis has the capability, it becomes a much more attractive option for airlines to do business here."

Regardless of the need for a new runway based on existing passenger levels, Lambert director Kevin Dolliole said he's glad to have 11/29 for another reason: weather.

"Previously, our two major parallel runways were too close together to allow simultaneous aircraft arrivals in inclement weather," Dolliole said, adding the new runway allows for simultaneous arrivals in more than 99 percent of all weather conditions.

FMI: www.lambert-stlouis.com/