No one wants a new airport in their backyard. Let’s build a new city for it | Opinion

Washington’s need to build a new airport presents us with an enviable opportunity. It is an opportunity Governor Jay Inslee squandered.

As 2024 quickly approaches, we should ask a new batch of candidates for governor whether they will also stand flatfooted, or whether, unlike Inslee, they will lead.

As a member of the Seattle Port Commission in the late 2000s, I knew Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was approaching capacity. I also knew that population growth was already impacting Snohomish, Pierce and King county’s airports, and that existing airports could not expand enough to meet future demand for passenger travel and air cargo. I thought we’d need a new airport by the late 2020s.

The 2008-10 financial crisis then the pandemic bought us a few years, but, by 2032, Washington will need another major airport. We should all be excited about the opportunity that presents. We should all fear the consequences of inaction.

Washington’s population will grow by about two million people over the next thirty years, according to available projections, including from the state Office of Financial Management. Some estimates predict we will grow by two million within 20 years. Within only 10 years, even if SeaTac and Paine Field implement planned improvements, passenger demand will exceed flight capacity.

Washington’s Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission members reviewed this data, then concluded, 13 to one, that only a new airport could provide the capacity we need. But rather than seize the moment and lead, Governor Inslee agreed to create a new study group to look at the same data.

You might call that treading water, but since we’ve been treading for the past 10 years and only have 10 more years before we hit capacity — and since it will take 10 years to build a new airport — the reality is we’re sinking.

The consequences of not building a new airport are severe. As demand exceeds airport capacity, limited flight slots will go to the airlines that pay the most for them. As airlines bid up the price for slots, the increased cost of flying out of SeaTac will be passed on to passengers. Airlines will also fill their limited slots with bigger planes, trying to move as many people as they can with the limited slots they have. That means SeaTac will only serve big airports. To get to smaller cities, you will need to connect through San Francisco, Denver or Chicago.

Meanwhile, as our economy grows, so will demand for air cargo capacity — which could further constrict passenger service. Not building a new airport will mean more than congestion inside and outside SeaTac, it will mean Washington will be a less attractive place to live and do business.

So why are we stuck in indecision when it’s clear we must build a new airport?

I think it’s because of the question that keeps getting asked, “Where do we locate a new airport?” And the answer we keep getting is, “Nobody wants an airport in their backyard.”

An economic development officer recently told me her community didn’t want a four-lane highway lined with parking lots, quick-service restaurants and airport hotels. Unfortunately, this is exactly what some community will eventually get stuck with — unless we decide we are going to build the first modern, environmentally sensitive, socially just airport in the United States

That means we must build more than an airport.

Those two million new people who are moving here in the coming years will need a place to live. They will need schools, hospitals, elder care facilities and parks. We might need another public university or a hybrid university-technical institute as well.

Our problem isn’t that no one wants an airport in their backyard. Our problem is a dearth of imagination, vision and leadership in the governor’s office. The question Governor Inslee should have asked, and that voters must ask gubernatorial candidates, cuts to the heart of the matter:

“Where will we build a new city of 250,000 or more people?”

That is a new Tacoma, Spokane, or a new Vancouver. Wherever we build this new city — and I think it needs to be south of Olympia — is where the new airport should go. But we shouldn’t just consider where a new city should be located. We should think creatively about how we build this new city, this new university, this new airport, and how we include new transit, new open space and new sustainable infrastructure.

What this city will look like — every bit as much as where it is — will define how we want our state to grow and what we value.

An airport of the future could be circled with rings of forested land, bike trails and playfields. It should not be a magnet for minimum wage jobs, but could serve as an innovative center for sustainable fuels and alternative electrification research. Perhaps the new university-technical institute could be integrated into the airport. And since the new airport will require at least 3,100 acres, we know it will be built on ancestral grounds. Its architecture and public display spaces could serve as an interpretive center honoring first peoples.

The new airport would need to be connected to SeaTac, giving us the opportunity to build dedicated bus rapid transit lanes along Interstate 5 between the airports and between the Puget Sound corridor and the new city. In doing so, we would ensure that this stretch of I-5, including its culverts and surfaces, are built to flood protection, stormwater mitigation and salmon recovery standards. We might even explore expanding Highway 20 over White Pass so that the Yakima and the Kittitas valleys have an alternative route to Western population centers, rather than being forced to move their freight and people on Interstate 90.

Recently, Governor Inslee directed a new working group to do what’s already been done to death.

It is time to quit reexamining the same data hoping for a different conclusion.

It’s time we start discussing what we want our state to look like in 30 years, and to start building that state today.

Bill Bryant, who served on the Seattle Port Commission from 2008-16, ran against Jay Inslee as the Republican nominee in Washington’s 2016 governor’s race.

This story was originally published June 21, 2023 at 5:00 AM.