Close the City Centre Airport – Part 2
The following is the letter that I sent to Edmonton City Council (I emailed my councillors directly and CCed the general address):
Dear Councillors,
I am writing to you as a citizen who wishes to see the Edmonton City Centre Airport closed. While the ECCA has served the city well in the past, today it has become little more than a private airfield for a privileged minority and it limits Edmonton’s future growth.
Rather than maintain the status quo, I urge you to vote to close the airport.
Closing the City Centre Airport and redeveloping the airport lands is an incredible opportunity for Edmonton. It will help to revitalize the downtown core by removing height restrictions from the Outer Surface area. It will allow NAIT to expand the existing campus instead of building a new institution elsewhere, which will benefit NAIT students and also help to prevent urban sprawl (a problem that seems to plague our city).
The redevelopment of the airport lands must be well thought out, however. We cannot simply close the ECCA and hope that something wonderful will appear in its place.
Not only must the redevelopment plan honour the historical significance of the City Centre Airport—which can be done by maintaining and possibly even expanding the Alberta Aviation Museum—but it must also focus on building a sustainable and innovative community in our city core. If the airport remains open, the opportunity to build such a community will be lost, and Edmonton’s growth will continue to be defined by unsustainable urban sprawl.
If we truly want Edmonton to be a world class city, we must attract and maintain the type of young, creative professionals who define cities like Vancouver and Toronto. If we continue to grow the city via outward sprawl, rather than infill and urban redevelopment projects, these same young people will continue to ignore Edmonton as a potential home and those who currently live here will continue to view central Canada or the west coast as greener pastures.
With the points I have outlined in mind, I urge you to break from the status quo and vote in favour of closing the Edmonton City Centre Airport.
Sincerely,
Adam Snider
Edmonton City Council will be voting on the issue on July 8 or 10, so please email your City Councillor at councillors@edmonton.ca. For more information, visit notmyairport.ca.
While I do agree with closing the airport, and I like the idea of inner core re-development.
However I disagree with the following:
“today it has become little more than a private airfield for a privileged minority and it limits Edmonton’s future growth”
Anyone can fly from the City Center airport. It is open to the public. Air Mikisew (http://www.airmikisew.com) flys from city center to Ft.Mac and Ft.Chip. I believe there may be other airlines that fly to Lethbridge also.
Arguing that the city center airport is only open to a minority and privileged few is a weak argument.
Abe
15 Jul 09 at 11:56 am
Abe – I’m aware that it’s a public airport. However, my argument was that it’s primary users are elite business people with private jets. I never argued that it was only open to a minority, I said that it was only used by a minority, many of whom are privileged business people.
Perhaps it’s not the strongest argument, but it’s not quite the same as what you think I’ve said.
Adam Snider
15 Jul 09 at 1:05 pm