OC Blog

John Wayne Airport demonstrates its capacity

The El Toro Info Site reports that John Wayne Airport served over 900,000 passengers in both June and July with August typically its busiest month. Even adjusting for the usual winter slowdown, the airport is projected to hit its maximum allowed service level of 10.3 million annual passengers, set by a 2002 agreement between the county and Newport Beach.

If so, the county is expected to reduce the number of flights allowed or require carriers to fly with more empty seats to stay under the limit. More . . .

Special OC Invitation: "Truth About Trucks" by Ford F150

(Full disclosure, and I hope Jubal enjoys this...Ford Motor Company is a client of my firm.  Nonetheless, this is a cool event that Ford is doing next week and we've been authorized to invite some friends, and heck, all my fellow OC Blog readers are friends, right?)

Ford Motor Company and the F-150 Present...

Ortega Widening: Damn The NIMBYs - Full Speed Ahead!

Reading this article -- "Debate Swirls Around Ortega Widening Plan" -- in today's OC Register reminds me there are certain strains of NIMBYism resistant to even the largest doses of reality.

The situation is pretty basic: Ortega is needs to be widened from two to four lanes in order to safely accommodate increased traffic.

And traffic will increase: from 24,000 vehicles per day now to an predicted 42,000 per day in 2030.

Not such inexorable numbers deter those who are opposing the widening. They're stance is nostalgia-based: they like Ortega Highway just the way it is, and don't want it to become a thoroughfare.

That's a nice sentiment, but you can't based transportation planning on it. It would be like fighting the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s because Route 66 is cool and shouldn't be changed no matter how inadequate it became.

The Ortega Highway, I its present condition, is inadequate to our present needs. We can't wish increased vehicle traffic away. The right thing is to build for it as far ahead of time as possible, in order to accommodate the increases as they occur rather than playing catch-up.

Seek cost-effective solutions for air travel in Orange County - OCR

Commentary from two sides on spending a half-billion dollars on expansion at John Wayne Airport.

JWA sets a record in June

JWA has record month - El Toro Info Site report

John Wayne Airport served a record 900,969 passengers in June, demonstrating the current physical capacity to handle 10.8 million annual passengers (MAP).  That's the maximum number allowed under a county agreement that runs through 2015.

NPB to pass JWA anti-expansion resolution

Newport Beach Council to pass JWA anti expansion resolution - El Toro Info Site

Tuesday, the Newport Beach City Council is expected to pass a resolution that is a model for a group of John Wayne Airport "corridor cities" whose councils support restrictions at the airport. The Corridor City Coalition consists of Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, Tustin, Anaheim and Orange.

The resolution does not directly address utilization of the terminal space, new gates and parking that will be added to the airport in the next several years. Rather, it opposes expansion of the airport perimeter, lengthening of runways, displacing of general aviation (which would free up capacity for commercial aircraft), and changes in the noise ordinance that incorporates limits on the number of flights and passengers that are allowed.

In several ways, the action belatedly puts JWA expansion foes on the same page with El Toro airport opponents in South County who they once called NIMBY's.

More . . .

SD to add toll lanes on I-5 to OC

SANDAG rolls out 2007 plan: $58B package calls for car-pool, toll lanes on Interstates 5 and 15, Highway 78

San Diego County's 300-mile freeway system would undergo an extreme makeover of sorts, with dozens of new car-pool and toll lanes, under a $58 billion blueprint for road and rail improvements put out for public review Friday by the San Diego Association of Governments.

The association proposes building four car-pool lanes on Interstate 5 between Highway 56 and Oceanside. The agency intends to build four toll lanes each on I-5 north of Highway 76 to the Orange County line and on I-15 north of Highway 78 to the Riverside County line.

More . . .

John Wayne Airport operating at record level

Commercial passenger traffic was up 6.5% for the first 5 month of this year. The airport could finish the year close to its 10.3 million passenger limit negotiated with Newport Beach.

This is without the 300,000 square foot third-terminal expansion that is just getting underway. No one at the county is speaking publicly about how many passengers can be handled physically once the half billion dollar expansion project is completed and how many will be allowed to use the airport when the current passenger cap expires in 2015. More from the El Toro Info Site . . .

MTA To OCTA: "Slow Down, You're Making Us Look Bad"

The Los Angeles Times published a truly remarkable article today: "MTA Fears A Bottleneck At OC Line."

Basically, Metropolitan Transportation Authority is complaining the  Orange County Transportation Authority's ongoing program of freeway widening is making MTA look bad. OCTA's freeway-centered investment collides with MTA's lightrail-centered priorities at the LA-OC county line in the form of traffic bottlenecks. It's a vivid illustration of the different outcomes of the two agencies priorities.

OCTA has funneled its money into transportation modes the vast majority of people actually use: freeway and roads. As a result, our freeways move faster than those in Los Angeles. The MTA, by contrast, has prioritized its money into modes of public transit that far fewer people use, i.e. light rail. Or as OCTA Director Jerry Amante put it:

"We build lanes, not trains."

Non-stop airline service from O.C.

The El Toro Info Site reports that several SoCal airports have increased their number of destinations served by non-stop flights. However, the number of non-stop cities served from John Wayne Airport has slipped from 25 to 23 in the past two years and does not include popular destinations such as New York's JFK and Florida.

The website suggests that enhanced service be negotiated with the airlines serving Orange County without jeopardizing the passenger limits agreed to between the County and Newport Beach.