(00:00:01) The Metropolitan council is embroiled in some (00:00:03) fairly tough decisions these days one is over the future of the air transportation system for our region. Another has to do with light rail Transit and all this is occurring as the Twin Cities is experiencing a significant population growth Metropolitan Council chairman. Steve. Keefe has joined me in the Studio's today and we'll open up the phone lines for your questions for him about these and other issues of Metropolitan wide significance that you might want to talk about. Steve welcomes. Nice to have you on the air today. Thanks, Mom. Thanks to be here. Steve Keith has been chairman of the Metropolitan Council since 1986 prior to that. He served as commissioner of the Department of Labor and Industry from 1983 to 86 and he spent eight years in the Minnesota state senate from 1972 to 80. Well Steve, why first of all, do you think it is a good idea (00:00:51) to both expand the runway service at (00:00:54) Metropolitan at Twin Cities International Airport and put land aside essentially for a new airport somewhere else. Well, the the task of building a new Airport takes a very long time. If we were to decide we needed one right now would take at least 15 years and possibly as much as 30 our projections indicate that we're using up capacity at the existing airport much faster than anybody thought and we now think it's possible that we'll need a new airport as soon as 20 years from now possibly even sooner but wouldn't it make sense though. If you think that's the case to just go ahead and say all right. We're going to build a new airport and not horse around with putting another runway in it at Twin Cities International actually know for for three reasons first, you can't we will we will we could very well exceed capacity with the existing airport configuration as early as five to ten years and we can't possibly be The new airport that fast and the impact on the Twin Cities economy if we have constrained capacity is very severe. The other thing is we can't say for sure now that we really will need an airport in 20 years. Our projections depend on the assumption that the economy will continue about the way it has been in the past that are Transportation will continue to grow the way it has been and if another unexpected change like the fuel crisis or major depression or something like that comes along it could throw everything into a into a cocked hat. The problem is you can't make reliable projections as far ahead as it takes to decide whether or not to build a new airport. And so what we're proposing is that we proceed on two tracks at the same time and that we would be prepared for either contingency. If we need an airport. We have to be ready to move quickly enough to get it if we don't need a new airport, we cannot afford to be in the situation Washington was in when they built Dulles and then and then found they didn't need it for years after the build-up. Yeah. How long would it take to put a new Runway a new north-south runway in at Twin Cities International? That's a good question. We don't think it'll be needed before 5 years and maybe as His 10 years depends on how things go. It could very well take that long. In fact extending the runway that was just completed at at St. Paul Airport, which was the extension of an existing Runway at a relatively smaller much quieter airport took 16 years. It depends on the environmental approvals and on whether the community and the and the legislature and others are willing to support it. If somebody were in the Twin Cities, I suppose about 20 years ago and and left and hadn't heard nothing about what happened in the Twin Cities since then in came back today. They would have heard debate about another airport. I mean, this is a replay of what happened 20 years ago and there's talk about that so-called Ham Lake site, which of course never worked out. It isn't. Why do we think now that yeah, they're couple of important differences. Let me add that it not only 20 years ago, but 40 years ago. We went through this too and the decision to expand Wilt Chamberlain rather than keep two separate st. Paul Minneapolis airports was made at that time. Is important difference though between what we're proposing right now 20 years ago the airports commission decided to propose to airports a second airport one North and one South and a much of the community opposition came from Northwest Airlines itself. Who said we can't operate with two airports. It makes operations impossible and furthermore. It's not justified the projections that were developed at that time were developed after the decision was made and so there was a certain amount of skepticism on the part of people who didn't agree with the figures suspecting the airports Commission of having developed the figures to support their own conclusions. In this case first, we went at the question of whether before we went at the question of where or if to build will we actually need one and secondly, in this case, we have the support of a wide range of interests including the the neighborhood noise groups and Northwest Airlines themselves airports commission and the Metropolitan Council not because they all agree on what is going to happen or what ought to happen. But because they agree that the contingency planning processes that we've set up Protects us that we proposed protects us from any serious eventuality of growth is strong and we need a new airport where we're ready for it if growth isn't strong we can save the money and it is a substantial amount of money to moving the airport would probably cost something over three billion dollars. Ouch three billion dollars who in the world. Let me let me open the phone lines here and then I'll ask you where that money would come from Steve Keith chairman of Metropolitan council is with us today as we talk about among other things the debate over the airport facilities in the Twin Cities. You can join the conversation if you like by calling us in the Twin Cities at 2276 thousand 2276 thousand in the Twin Cities or elsewhere within the state of Minnesota toll-free at 1-866-553-2368 for a new airport. Obviously the taxpayers or somebody is going to get stuck with that. Who and how will you decide well interestingly enough who pays for airports in the In cities are the Airlines and indirectly the airline passengers through increased air fares and oddly enough is expensive as adding capacity is and even adding in a run with existing airport is something like a half billion dollar proposition it these Investments pay for themselves remarkably quickly in terms of fuel savings to Airlines and Time Savings to airline passengers. For example, a new Runway would pay for itself within two years a new airport within eight years. But only if there's enough demand to justify the increase in capacity if there's not a demand there's no source of additional Revenue to pay for it. What do you do with Twin Cities International if you build a new one decommission it yes, you would be able to decommission It Right Way, there'd be certain amount of transition time. But there are one of the strong recommendations of the study is that we stay a single airport town. And in order for us to have the kind of interconnections that make things work. Well, you have to have all the planes coming in and going out of one location that applies to to Commercial and cargo flights. It does not obviously apply to the to the A to the single-engine small airplanes which could use other airports quite effectively number of folks on the line with questions for Steve Keith chairman of the Metropolitan Council and will go first to you. Hello. Thanks for calling. Good afternoon are good. Yeah, good afternoon. I'm calling from st. Paul and I have a number of points that I'd like to address if possible. The first of which is the possible prohibitive environmental impacts that such a project might cause I just like to know to what extent have these be been considered and studied. Secondly, I'd like to know how about the possibility of planning for competing forms of public transportation. I happen to work for Amtrak and I am very cognizant of the fact that very very little attention and certainly very few resources are allocated toward developing competing forms of public transportation that might at some time Minimize any environmental and other impacts on this area? Okay, I think that that might that might be enough here for the first time for the first one. Go ahead. Well, the environmental impacts are exactly why it takes so long to site and build a new airport. If you actually decide to do it, they actual construction doesn't take very long. It's getting the various environmental approvals that are quit required by the airport environmental citing Act of 1969 a federal law. In fact, there are some who argue that it is impossible to cite an airport under the under the Eternal major airport under the terms of that law. They're so difficult. We don't agree and there are cities that are working at it right now who think it can be done. But the question remains to be answered that's actually the idea of land banking. The whole point of that is to identify a site and begin the Environmental Studies to German if the site is environmentally acceptable now and not proceed to spend the money to actually build until you finish that process and you know that you actually need the airport with regard to competing modes of transportation. We've actually looked at that in some detail and we've looked at, you know, the possibility of a bullet trains or different kinds of Planes being used or something like that and is possible to predict those fairly long in advance because the time from drawing board to implementation estate is fairly well known and the and the rate at which the fleet turns over the airline Fleet turns over is fairly well understood to for us in the midwest train travel does not offer a very economically competitive alternative to airplane travel because we are fairly far from other important population centers. The the very rapid trains are most likely to be implemented first in this country on the East Coast where the population centers are are fairly densely situated and I think we are fairly far away from that furthermore. We're interested in your travel not only for access to places relatively nearby like like Chicago. Actually, I think the automobile will come into wider use for trips to places like a Bemidji and Brainerd and Duluth and and to places like that before before trains will will come back for us that the issue is not only access to other big cities its access to the rest of the world for Twin City businesses. Eating in an in the economy of the 21st century. We're not only have to worry about access to places like Chicago New York really have to worry about Hong Kong and soul. Hmm on to our next question, please Steve Keefe is listening. Go ahead. Yes, good afternoon. I was kind of curious listening to all the debate that's been going on has the council gotten around to setting some kind of limit on growth like that. I mean, it seems like we kind of get out of hand and there's half empty airplanes or 1/3 empty airplanes flying out my own experience and I was wondering if they took some kind of limit on the number of flights or the density or the number of people that have to be on a flight in order to justify having it in there. No, we don't limit that and in fact, it's actually the airports commission that operates the airport. They don't limit the flights either. In fact, there's some resistance on the part of of a private airplane pilots to being to being forced to use other airports as opposed to Minneapolis st. Paul and there's a constitutional argument that it since the airport is run by the government that everybody should have equal access to As a practical matter is the airport becomes more congested Airlines have no choice because Landing fees go up in the cost of getting two Gates goes up and Airlines find that they are not economically competitive. If they don't keep your plane's fairly full and the average number of passengers on airplanes is increased fairly dramatically over the years as a result of that. The other concern that a lot of people have is the airport is not just a metropolitan a resource. It's a Statewide to resource in the airports commission is under the controlled legislature and many of the smaller flights are connecting flights to smaller cities in Minnesota Rochester Worthington Moorhead Bemidji Brainerd places like that and the legislature has always been anxious that we protect those because they're so important economic growth in the Greater Minnesota whose economy has been somewhat troubled in the past. Have you had any preliminary reaction or indication from Key legislators about your plan to have this so-called dual-track approach the possibility of land banking and at the same time looking at building a new air new Runway we have not I've talked individually with the few legislators that I happened to run into since the task force report has been adopted. The council has not adopted that as first reported in probably will not adopt it in exactly the form recommended by the task force. Although my guess is that it that the council's final product will be very close to what the test versus come up with because of the compelling strength of the task Force's arguments, but we intend to to begin to present the the report to the legislature actually quite soon. We've talked to the to the leadership of the Committees in the Senate house leadership and committees is being changed right now. We're not sure which committee will have jurisdiction but as soon as that's established will try to arrange for for hearings there. We don't actually need legislative specific legislative authority to proceed with the course. That's been that's been suggested by the task force at least not at first but as a practical political matter, we would not want to go ahead and list. We are sure that the legislature was signed up for this. I personally think it will have tremendous appeal to the legislature because it is so carefully focused on what's the most cost-effective way of providing enough capacity to meet the demands for economic growth and that's been the critical issue to the legislature in the past. Moving on now to your question for Steve Keith. Hello there. Hello, I would like to say that I have followed the work of the council for the past 15 years and I would like to commend you Steve and your staff on the open Innovative public policy analysis done on this airport. Adequacy study. Thank you. My question is in regard to the article written by or wall which was printed in the Sunday st. Paul Pioneer Press expressing skepticism about the ability of the parties involved to maintain the spirit of the decision made by consensus. Could you please comment on the kind of plans? The council has to continue this open process that can avoid the polarization as the recommendation goes to the broader Community. Yep. That's very good question. There's no question that that's a potential problem. One of the things we hear from people a lot is sure to bring process but which prong really and with us in this is not just a political compromise. It's not an attempt to strike a balance between the foes and and and Opponents of a new airport. We really think this is right on the merits and I think it's critical that we proceed with both prongs at the same time. Furthermore. I think the legislature will will think so too the the idea of this is that the differences between the people who say will need a new airport and those who think we can exist at the existing airport are differences in opinion about what will happen to air travel over the next 20 years and people are entitled to their opinions and their lot of people who think they're expert the beauty of this solution is we don't try to guess what's going to happen. We prepare ourselves so that whatever happens we're ready to deal with it and that really solves a lot of the things that divide for example the noise groups from Northwest Airlines or the or the airports commission. As far as a public process is concerned. We're trying to continue the task force that we've had to help us with the various aspects of the siting process and also frankly, whatever needs to be done in terms of expansion at the existing airport. We are in discussions right now with the air. For it's the commission who with whom we've frankly disagreed a lot about airports of policy over the past in the past. But with whom we agree quite closely right now, and we hope to have a strategy worked out to present to the legislature this legislative session for how we're going to make sure that both sides are protected. One of the difficulties is everybody agrees that the process is proposed by the task force makes a lot of sense whether they trust the people to implement the process fairly is another question altogether and we need to find some way to raise this above the point of having to get the noise groups to trust Northwest Airlines or Northwest Airlines to trust the noise groups, which I don't think is likely to happen in the immediate future because they have such different views about things Steve Keith is Chairman of the Metropolitan Council as we talk about Metropolitan wide issues so far. We've been focusing mostly on the airport, but Steve keys can chat about other Metropolitan Council activities to if you so desire next to your question, please you're on the air with him. Go ahead. Hi. I moved here from another large city and when I moved here, I was quite Proud of this area seems so enlightened in so many ways but I couldn't believe the lack of support for public transportation and I don't understand why this area doesn't utilize it more and also I can't understand why they haven't seen the wisdom of the light rail yet. Well we have with men from Council think laetrile is a good idea. We don't think of Light Rail in a vacuum though. We do transportation planning for the Twin Cities in general and we've been trying to look at the whole system highways the automobiles the buses light rail car pooling different things you can do with the freeway demand management the Twin Cities transportation system has grown up a based on a strong highway system. We're not constrained. We're not a port city where we're smack up against the ocean or something like that. And as a result, it's been easy for us to grow in several directions at once to allow ourselves wide streets where relatively young City and traffic moves here much better than it does in most places. One of the reasons you you take public transportation New York City for example is because it's a hopeless to get around in a private automobile, but there's no question that if we want to Continue to grow and develop density that there are corridors where the cost of providing adequate Highway capacity is not only too expensive in terms of dollars. But also too expensive in terms of social costs on the neighborhoods that passes through you have to take too many houses to provide enough Lanes to provide uncongested freeway. It's very expensive. There are corridors University Avenue 35W several others where Light Rail Transit is a cheaper way of mu or at least can be a cheaper way of moving people then the alternative ways of investing that kind of money and we think that it ought to be pursued in places like that. The counties are pursuing those plans fairly aggressively Hennepin County is a headbutt Ramsey Anoka County are working very actively on this as well and all counties in metropolitan area are at least looking at it. We think that it's important that those systems be well designed but also that they be responsive to local concerns. So we don't object to the County's working on this we think there's a good chance that light rail will be underway in the Twin Cities in the next couple of years knock on wood. It's a big Controversial process and it's going to need a lot more public scrutiny before we get to a plan that everybody agrees on but I think that we're starting to a 0 in a consensus is starting to build it made let us proceed in that area. We there was an article in the paper today suggesting that there's some concern about on the part of the federal authorities that the Ramsey County may be so far behind Hennepin County that a joint kind of a project may not work out very well. What are your feelings on that? Yeah, we're not too sure what the federal government is getting at there. We are. I have a call in to the person who's in charge to see if we can find out what it did what their concern is the I apparently one of the things that's causing problems is Hennepin County's preparing a Grant application for the work that they intend to do in Hennepin County Ramsey County is not as far along in development and our priority Corridor University Avenue is mostly in Ramsey County and the federal government which gives heavy consideration to what the local planning agencies priority Corridor is obviously takes that to heart what I think they are afraid is that they'll get a grant application from Open County now and just after they give it two years later Ramsey County will be along and they'll want a grant to and they don't want to be in a position where they're where they're hit twice for the for the same system. I would think that we could work it out. There's no question that this system of allowing extensive local control in the development is going to result in some inequities. It's possible that Hennepin County will be ready to move ahead on corridors that are less priority from our perspective from the whole region because there will ready to do it. They're willing to spend their own money. But I think that in return for that you do get a greater sensitivity to a local considerations and that's important too when you run a whether it's a freeway or light rail line or an airport through a neighborhood. It has substantial local impacts, and those have to be taken into account as well on now to your question, please for Steve Keith. Hello. Yes, I was born and raised in Minneapolis quite close to the to the airport and I'm 44 years old and I've been flying most of my adult life and little bit before. I became a legal adult. I've lived in all five or six fairly metropolitan cities during my lifetime and I find not only the airport system but the the highway system woefully inadequate. And I think that minnesotans need to really address it. They haven't even gotten onto a decent Corridor between Downtown Minneapolis directly to the airport by o Hiawatha Avenue has taken like 30 years to do that. All right, Steven erection still he's coming actually I think if you compare Highway congestion in the Twin Cities to other metropolitan areas of our size, you'll find that the amount of congestion and it's extent are substantially less here than they are in most major cities. That's partly good two Transportation Planning. It's partly luck mean we're here on the Prairie and it's a lot easier to lay out cities and and freeways and so on here than it is in most places. We also have very busy airport facilities in the Twin Cities and growth in the airport has been substantially faster than growth in the region for some time Northwest considers our Hub to be a very attractive competitive device in competing with other airlines who have an in other airports. We think it's According to keep it that way but we also think our responsibility as as planning Agency for the community is to provide enough capacity for growth in the Twin Cities, but to not provide too much capacity. One of the things we've learned in places like East Metro where we put in more freeway capacity than is actually needed at the moment is that it doesn't cause development to to occur there that wouldn't have occurred. Otherwise that the trick in providing cost-effective infrastructure is to provide just enough to meet the needs not to provide too much and in highways particular the cost of providing to continue to provide the the low congestion transportation that we've been able to provide in the past would be immense for the for the region. We think that we ought to be able to live within our means and not have to go that far a question sort of related to what the caller was talking about in terms of getting from Minneapolis to Twin Cities International Airport. If in fact this new airport is built and it will be built you say because of increased demand for air travel. Presumably they'll it'll be a bit. It'll be a lot further from both cities than Twin Cities International presumably they'll be an awful lot of traffic road traffic on that too that too and from that airport, what are the costs involved of that ground transportation in addition to the airport? They could be substantial effect. They almost certainly will be substantial but I just exactly how substantial depends on where you put it and that's one of the points of this two-pronged planning strategy. One of the questions is where could you put a new airport? If you did it one of the things about the debate so far is we've been comparing an existing real airport with its actual warts with a sort of a vague hypothetical ideal airport that people have in their minds but where you could actually find a piece of property big enough to build an airport and what the environmental impacts would be at that location is something that we really don't have a very good handle on until we try to select a site. We've been fairly scrupulous about not looking at where an airport could go because frankly when you're in the business we are if you start the nose and around it word gets out to people and we don't want to fuel speculation, but there's no question that With all the environmental impacts of the existing airport. There's no place in the Twin Cities where there aren't some people living and their airplanes have to make approaches to a new location just as they do to the existing location. They're going to be noise impacts and transportation impacts and so on the three billion dollar figure that I use which is a very rough figure for the cost of moving an airport in today's dollars include some money for infrastructure, but very hard to say how much additional Urban infrastructure we'd have to provide until we know how far out it is. One thing we do know for sure though, even if we don't need a new airport for 30 years if we find and Bank the land now, it will be a lot closer than if we wait 20 years and try to find in Bank the land then where does the land come from? I mean, is it publicly owned land or do you have to condemn it and purchase it presumably if we were to build an airport, we would have to condemn land in purchase it the there are no large public tracks on here. We're not like Denver that we have a sort of an unoccupied desert nearby that we could take for this. Meanwhile that land is sitting in the land bank so called off the tax rolls and not contribute anything to the rest of the area. Really probably now we have worked out all the details about how we would land bank but it would be our expectation that the land would continue to be used for whatever purpose is being used for now during this process of getting environmental approvals. For example in the landfill citing presses. We have eight potential landfill sites that are being studied for environmental impacts right now. We don't own any of those sites. They're being studied and we pay we have a moratorium on development there two, people can't develop the land so that we don't have to buy a new developments and if anybody wants to develop the land they have the right to seek compensation for their loss development rights, but we probably won't use all those sites. We probably only use at most three or four maybe only as few as one and the rest of the land is being used right. Now. Most of it is in is in farming uses and will continue to be used for that and it will be returned to that. One of the interesting things about land banking is if we don't if we decide not to build the airport if something happens and we don't need it after all you can probably turn around sell the land at a profit. All right, 25 minutes past the hour Steve Keith chairman of the Metropolitan council is here and thanks for waiting around with him now. Go ahead. Yes, I was just having listened to show and it is a pretty informative show. What I want to know is that I know that the existing airport that has to be built another airport with that but what happens what would happen to the existing airport? And I'm also interesting the fact that there has to be some sort of shuttle method to get out to the new existing airport. And that would that be contracted to private Enterprise or towards the commission itself? That's good question probably transportation to the airport would be handled. The way other transportation is in the Twin Cities interestingly enough. If it were very far out. The number of passengers allowed might might permit some fairly sophisticated modern rail Transportation even conceivably heavy rail, depending on when we do it and how far it is with, you know automated cars and and that sort of thing. That's our thing is handled right now, but the Metropolitan Transit Commission probably would in the future although more and more in real Transportation. We're going to a Contracting with with private firms to deliver different kinds of mass transit and in the light rail discussions are going on in the County's right now, they're talking about conceivably a Contracting out the construction and at least the first few years of operation of a system to have some sort of a private firm with specialized expertise in that area. So I wouldn't be surprised if we did that the existing airport site. Once the transition was completed in most of the traffic had been moved to the new airport most plans would call for returning the existing airport site to some other I'm sold for development of housing or shopping centers or business communities or something like that. It's very large very attractive piece of property very well served by transportation and right in the heart of the metropolitan area and it ought to be a very Plum real estate development opportunity Megamall to move on to your question, please Steve keep his listening. Go ahead. Yes. I have a question regarding to the light rail Transit. I like to concur with the lady that call before who expressed their concern that the public transportation system is not really well developed here. In fact, it's lags far behind and many a places in Europe. I have a specific concern or we would be here with regard to the corridors. For instance 35W. I wonder what kind of thought the council has given to utilizing that Corridor and the overpasses as stations where people could get off and on and then use the middle Corridor there between the lanes. Is that part of the Concerns that have been that have been considered and what specifically has been been discussed about that. Yes, that's part of what's being considered right now. There's a big environmental impact statement going on in the 35W quarter right now being done by the highway department with our help and with help of Hennepin County in the cities along the corridor and so on to try to decide what to do next about 35 W 35 W quite congested and as with for 94-94 is at the top of our list for Highway improvements in the metropolitan area. What we're trying to do is analyze all the different combinations of Highway improvements and Light Rail improvements. It could be done in that Corridor to see which provides the best cost/benefit transportation Improvement for the region the idea of putting light rail on a freeway right of way has a certain appeal but it has some significant drawbacks for one thing freeways are not very pedestrian friendly environments and it's harder to do attractive stations park-and-ride parking lots and so on in a freeway location than it is in a in a city Street location or some place that where pedestrians are more inclined to go. It also turns out to be fairly expensive, too. Do the interaction between Light Rail trains in the cars getting on and off the freeway have to have fairly elaborate bridging mechanisms and things like that for allowing the cars and Light Rail trains to a pass each other without the danger of collisions. And as a result turns out to be quite a lot more expensive to build a light rail along a freeway right of way than elsewhere furthermore. There are other things that could be done within that freeway right of way. For example, the addition of existing Lanes possibly High occupancy vehicle Lanes, which would allow preferential access for carpools and buses Express busses, especially might be a more effective and more compatible use of the existing space on the freeway so that you could expand the freeway capacity without taking houses and then put light rail somewhere else among the things that have been proposed as a tunnel from downtown to to a 29th Street something along Nicholas Avenue and there are other possibilities. All of those are being studied as part of this environmental impact process and we hope to be able to come back to the community with what the choices are and what the what the the pluses and minuses are of each choice in terms of cost benefit and impact on the neighborhoods and and see if we can't get a good decision about how best to proceed. It's very possible that some additional houses. I'm down along that whole route to that, isn't it? There is some danger that have depending particularly on what you do in 35 W. If you widen the freeway too much. It would be necessary to take a lot of houses. In fact, if you do sort of traditional Highway planning and expanded for the next 30 years of a projected capacity. We'd have to take literally thousands of houses. We think it ought to be possible to do most of what needs to be done in 35 W within the existing right-of-way with the exception of the some things at the curve where the fort where 94 turns to go around toward St.Paul and also at the Spaghetti Junction where it meets with the crosstown there in order to minimize the number of houses, it'll be necessary to remove entrances and exits, which is a good idea from the point of view of Highway planning how we probably will tell you that the best freeway is one with no entrances or exits in terms of of a maximum capacity. But of course it raises questions about the weather the people in the neighborhood can can get use of the freeway which is expensive important to them too. Yeah, we have about a half hour left with Steve Keith. Let's move on to your question for Middle there. A small see your listeners are interested in how they're going to get to and from the airport. I'm primarily interested in who is accountable or responsible for the decision in the end result of where the airport were goal or what decisions will be made and in that vein since I know it's so difficult to plan more than a few years five to ten years out. That's that's an extremely difficult task why the decision isn't based on what is currently best for the community instead of what they're projecting. The airlines are going to need in 30 years Norwest primary Northwest primarily has the market in this area, but most major Metropolitan airports are served by a variety of Airline carriers, and that seems to be a better goal to be going towards for this communities Airport Service. Yeah, that's an interesting and complex question. It has several aspects to it. The reason we can't just plan for five or ten years is because if we need a new airport, it probably takes 15 or 20 years at least to build it. And so by the time we realized in a five-year planning cycle that we needed. It's far too late. And the impact on the economy is absolutely devastating if we have constricted capacity. Our estimate is that the direct contribution of the airport to the to the Twin Cities Regional economies about two billion dollars a year now, we'll go to 2.5 billion possibly as much as three point eight billion by the year 2010 if we have enough capacity to a permit that existing growth if not the if we kept at the current airport configuration the the growth in the economy would be limited to about 2.6 billion dollars a year. We lose about a billion dollars in economic activity with regard to the process. The legislature is ultimately responsible the governor and the legislature of course are ultimately responsible for this process the process that they've setup requires. The council to begin what's called a search area selection process. We would choose a large area of the Twin Cities where an airport might be located. And then once we've done that it's up to the airports commission to select a site and to do the actual construction of the airport to contract for it and so on but the airports commission can't proceed with their part of it without getting explicit permission from the legislature and from the from the image Bond counsel. That's an important distinction and the ultimate Authority for this rests at resides in the in the elected officials of the not only the Twin Cities, but of the of the whole state with regard to the relationship with with Northwest Airlines, there's no question that here in the Twin Cities Northwest is the dominant carrier and this is their Hub and one of the reasons that they're about half the passengers coming and going from Minneapolis st. Paul are not people from here. They're people who are passing through here on their way from one place to another those extra passengers while they provide an additional load on the airport are what contribute to the large contribution to the economy and they're also what make it possible for us to have so many nonstops in such. Good are An access to other cities which is very helpful to the local businesses to help them have access to their markets and their customers and service and and so on the idea of capacity has very little to do with whether Northwest is carrying local passengers or not. It is unlikely that a city like the Twin Cities would have a second tubbing are airline in general how Airlines compete with each other is by trying to have better hubs than each other and they don't like to have their hubs in the same airport because the people they bring in can leave on somebody else's airplane. They like to have all their all their huh being in no one airport as a result of that but the local traffic whether it's carried by Curry by Northwest or by a series of Airlines has very little impact on the airport's capacity mean takes the same number of airplanes whether they're all North West Plains are half northwester others. And so the the question of planning for the airport is not very heavily dependent on whether Northwest carries the local traffic or whether a combination of Airlines do and there is a fair amount of competition with Northwest for those local passengers. It's the humming traffic that Northwest Is here and the way other airlines compete for that is they have their hubs in other airlines. I mean United is in Chicago and Continental is in Denver and so on right Steve Keith chairman. The Metropolitan council is here and you're on the air with him now. Go ahead. Yeah. I have listen to part of your program and I've been calling you from outstate Minnesota. I'm a native of Minneapolis. I'm picking up on your response to the lady who said she'd moved in and was Disturbed at our lack of public transportation. You cited a number of factors that you thought were important, but I don't know how old you are at my age. I can remember when we had a good surface transportation and we threw it away and let the late 40s and 50s partly because of merchandising of automobile transport and partly because gasoline was so cheap, but I really upsets me now to sit out here in outstate Minnesota and we took the loss we have to help build the interstates. Now, we're going to have to build it all over again. And when we get done, we're going to be left out here back 60 years ago with no Transportation. Well, you folks just won't cut down your appetite. I'd like some comment on that. That's a Good question. And the and the point is very well taken I would argue that doing Light Rail in Twin Cities if it's a good idea at all is as good an idea for Greater Minnesota as it is for the Twin Cities. There's a certain amount of Transportation demand in the state and there are limited dollars to meet that demand and it's problem in the Twin Cities. It's a problem in Greater Minnesota everywhere. If we are limited in the tools we can use so that we can only use tools like highways to meet our transportation needs. It's going to be more expensive than if we have a choice of tools and in each location can choose the tool that's cheapest for meeting the need in that particular area. And so from the in the big picture sense the idea of of the light rail for the Twin Cities means if we can meet a traffic demand in 35W partly by Light Rail and partly by Highway, it'll be cheaper than if we have to meet at all for all by Highway and that'll mean less drawn those dollars from the Twin Cities to take dollars away from the from Greater Minnesota. The other thing that's important. I think people in Greater Minnesota who see the rush hour and the very strong economy in the Twin Cities. And they say why do you need to add infrastructure? I would argue that the economies of the Twin Cities and greater. Minnesota are very closely tied. And that while it's true that more money is raised in the Twin Cities than is spent in the Twin Cities on Transportation that we ought to be in favor of that because we are the market at the end of those farm-to-market roads and interconnections with Greater Minnesota. I don't think are our only Greater. Minnesota has a responsibility. I think they're just as much our responsibility is theirs but allowing enough infrastructure in the Twin Cities to allow the Twin Cities economy to continue to grow as much as it wants to creates a big driving engine that creates spin-off opportunities for Greater Minnesota and I would argue that the that for the very same reasons that Greater Minnesota wants to be connected to the Twin Cities by transportation that is to say it it increases their economic viability by being connected to that big Market. They ought to want the Twin Cities economy not to be hampered in his growth by limitations on its infrastructure because that growth in the in the local economy in the Twin Cities provide spin-off opportunities to the rest of Greater, Minnesota, which are very important. It's growth to I think if you talk to professional Economist in this area, they will agree that we think of ourselves in Minnesota much too much as separate economic units. Actually. There's a much closer tie between these these economic between are all of our economic face and that's clearly true in the airport where the flights that are most likely to be under economic pressure to be gotten rid of if the airport gets too tight are going to be the smaller flights that connect us with the Greater Minnesota cities. The bemidji's brainard's and worthington's the world. I think our caller was lamenting the Twin Cities demise of the streetcar you sorry about that too. Well a little although the light rail systems that were talking about are much more sophisticated and modern than the streetcar system. I sure wish we had those track bits left. I'm old enough to have ridden On A Streetcar not old enough to be willing to accept any of the brain blame for having gotten rid of them 20 minutes before they are and you're on now is Steve Keith. Go ahead. Yes, good afternoon. Mr. Keith. I am a Chicago expatriate and a veteran of not only I-94 the notorious Dan Ryan Expressway, but also of flying in and out of both airports down there. And now I'm well familiar that the infrastructure here in particular that of the public transportation is not quite as well developed as that of Chicago, but I do know from experience that with all its drawbacks the dedicated right of way down the middle of an expressway is and can be a highly effective tool in reducing congestion on any particular public right-of-way such as it has in Chicago. In fact, very very soon within the next two or three years are in Chicago. We're going to be experiencing the opening of a second dedicated rail line running down mostly existing rights of way in particular that of the expressways to one of the major air terminals. My main question. However, was that of taxes and I hate to bring up this dirty t-word something near and dear to the hearts of all of us. Live in Minnesota, but I was kind of wondering if you could address both of these issues but in particular are the possibility of losing more business and residents than this particular development might attract. Okay. Let's hope gets yep fairly clear that point is very well taken actually with the council believe that the the government's responsibility and economic development is to provide adequate infrastructure in order to support development and that includes not just physical infrastructure airports and highways and so on but it but social infrastructure Healthcare delivery and and education and so on which are very important to a business growth education especially and to do so at the lowest burden and I thought out National the National Committee for economic development, which is Blue Ribbon group of Business Leaders and academic experts and so on have have suggested that this is the most effective Local Economic Development strategy, and that's why we think it's so critical that we provide adequate Transportation at the lowest combination cost. That is to say thinking about the transportation. To me as a whole and how you can how you can meet needs using the range of tools available. And that's why although I say there are drawbacks to putting light rail on freeways. We don't think any to lot of be ruled out. We think any reasonable tool ought to be taken into consideration. What you ought to do is apply yourself to the to the instant situation like 35W there about six or eight different ways to provide a competent combination of Highway and Transit improvements on 35W know what ought to be done is each one ought to be analyzed in the most cost-effective one that has the most the least unpleasant impacts on the community ought to be the ones chosen in terms of tax is can we afford to do all of this construction of mean if you look at 3 billion for the airport countless knows how many more billion for light rail improving 35W and so on a man talking a huge amount of money here you are the if we were to build a new airport if we had enough capacity for it the loss if we didn't build it would be so substantial that we could pay for the cost of the new airport in just the guest All savings to Airlines and The Time Savings to passengers in about eight years and that's how it would be paid for wouldn't go on the on the tax base now, we'd probably have to bond for it. But the bonds would be paid off by user fees that are paid by the Airlines and indirectly by airline passengers the people who get the benefit in terms of fuel savings and Time Savings the airline passengers and Airlines would be the ones who would pay for that benefit and presumably there are costs for paying for that would be less than their than the benefits that they gain by it in the way of transportation is little bit more complicated because we can't the transportation system is not funded as a whole and I think that's one of one of the drawbacks. I personally believe that if the Twin Cities new what we face in the next 20 years in the way of increased Highway congestion, they would prefer to have the gasoline tax substantially raised a user fee again to make sure that that congestion was avoided when the price of gasoline tripled in the in 1979 as a result of the fuel crisis less than 1% of the people switched from automobiles to public transportation. Are very attached to their automobiles here, they like their congestion Free Ride, you know as well as I do that the the after after the Vikings and the and the twins the main topic of Breakfast Table conversation is the traffic jams on the way to work people don't like congestion. They would be willing to pay this kind of money. We think our job is to make sure that the money that they do agree to spend is spent as prudently as possible the end part of the difficulties. We can't use gas tax money. For example to provide Light Rail, even if light rail is a cheaper way to deliver the same kind of people moving capacity in a given quarter. Okay about 15 minutes left with Steve Keith. Thank you for waiting. You're on the air with him now. Okay. Yeah, one of the questions that I had is the talking about three billion dollars worth of new airport. I might just mention I currently work for Northwest and I am appalled at the airport. I'm sure it was designed in a what mid-50s and and built in 62 and it's a it's a nightmare having to work out there is really bad and I think we do need a new one, but How much money how much of that 3 billion could be offset by the sale of the current airport? And the land another question how much money both direct and indirect is generated by the airport that is flows into Minnesota or into Minneapolis. St. Paul and third. What is the prognosis or prognostication about Noise by the replacement of noisy or older dc9 and 727 aircraft with the newer Airbus 320s the 757s and things like that. I'll hang up and listen that's several questions. Let me answer them in reverse order as far as the noise is concerned. There's no question that in the short term by which I mean the next 10 or 15 years. There's much more impact on noise coming from technological change. Then there is from anything we could do to movie at the airport. We're not we don't see this as a solution to the noise problem far from it. In fact from our point of view. There are places in the Twin Cities where there are fewer people than at the existing airport location. There's no places where there are no people and we're going to have These problems environmental concerns wherever the airport is located. We hope that the that the new airplanes will will help that situation and the technology technology will continue to advance Beyond stage 3 in some. Well, I'm not sure where it will go next but there's no question that the increased frequency of flights is going to make noise an issue at the airport indefinitely. And I don't think in my lifetime. We're going to see it situation where we can live without the noise on the other hand the economic benefits of the airport. This is actually this is sort of a microcosm of the problem we have in cities in general. I mean, it is a dirtier noisier more congested place to live in a big city than it is to live out in the middle of the country. But there are certain economic opportunities that result from here that make us willing to put up with this sort of thing. Our job in government is to try to minimize those to plan the delivery of services well enough so that we minimize the adverse impacts and maximize the positive impacts on the on the Twin Cities economy. The sale of the existing airport site would be substantial benefit, but it but it wouldn't have much impact on that three billion dollar figure. I used that figure is very rough figure because without knowing where it will be. We have any idea what highway improvements will cost. There's the whole question of how much in existing infrastructures invested their Northwest facilities the terminal and all that sort of thing. That would have to be torn down and so selling the land would be a lot more money than I'll ever see in my lifetime but not much of a dent in that three billion dollars. Yeah, Steve Keith is Chairman of the Metropolitan council is we talk about Metropolitan wide issues the airport a large part of it also Light Rail and other concerns to thanks for waiting around there now. Thank you. Mr. Keefe. I'd like to inquire about what extent might there be pressure to expand. Let's say these secondary airports to relieve the Minneapolis st. Paul International Airport, and if that's done with such a policy reduce the likelihood of a second airport finally to that is what would be the effect on the compatibility of these airports with their neighborhoods today. Thank you. That's a good question. It's really hard to talk about the noise impact of an airport because it's so subjective. We get more complaints right now from Highland Park, for example, where it is getting 1 or 2% of the noise than we do from the from the east side of Cedar Avenue in Richfield where which is right under the under the runways because the noise has gotten a lot worse in Highland Park lately and also it's been in the paper lot. And so you hear from people and we have people, you know, building $300,000 houses in Mendota Heights right under the preferred take off Corridor down there and then later calling up and and complaining about the noise what is acceptable to people depends on the person and so it's very hard to say what's acceptable and what isn't there's no question that there is an impact on the smaller airports by diverting traffic there of the smaller airplanes in the people who live around those don't like him one bit and they complain and resist that sort of thing in the same way that people who live around the big or airport do but of course, there's no comparison between the noise that occurs at as at a small airport in the noise that occurs to people who live the same distance from from Minneapolis st. Paul with the big jets and particularly. The older noisier jets are projections taken. To account the assumption that we would move most of the non can remove most of the non commercial traffic from the airport and that we would need to use all the airport capacity to handle existing commercial traffic. There are some actually some problems with that quite a lot of the small airplane traffic at Minneapolis st. Paul our corporate airplanes of various sorts who fly there from other parts of Minnesota or the Upper Midwest and who do so in parts of that their Executives can make connections with commercial flights. And so to move them out altogether would have the same adverse economic impacts as some other limitations on on capacity but one of the things I think that's kind of related by the airports commission and that I personally think is a good idea is the raising of Landing fees and so on to encourage the small airplanes to do their takeoff practice. For example For Heaven's Sake which doesn't need to be done at Minneapolis. St. Paul and other kinds of activities as much as can be done to the smaller airports around the region that has a certain Economic Development benefit to the areas where that occurs. And whether you like an airport depends in part on whether noise or economic development is more important to you. And on where you live moving on to your question, please Steve keep his listening. Yes. I heard one of your cars earlier mentioned the idea of running a light rail down 35W and you seemed to dismiss it real quickly and it seems like if it was elevated up high enough, it would be above the streets and above the freeway. It would be a wonderful View and you could have elevators or ramps to include at 38th Street and 54th and all that. Secondly what is being done about that crazy intersection between 35 and 60 to merging on from Lindale or any of the other search short quick turning entrance ramps and they're really dangerous. Yeah, that that point is very well taken both points. I didn't mean to seem to be dismissing the idea of light rail on the 35W Corridor. What I meant to say is that there are disadvantages as well as advantages. All of those are being studied. Now, the possibility of light rail on that Corridor are are are still under consideration. The problems are Only that it's quite expensive the elevated trains and stuff like that are quite expensive as compared to putting it on a city street and that quarters fairly crowded already and there are other things that are competing for space in it. But that is one of the configurations of being studied and under the environmental impact statement will get a much better idea of what the cost benefit of that sort of an approach would be as far as the as the intersection with the crosstown and 35W. That's actually that in the the curve headed east for st. Paul are the are two of the major reasons that we're looking at improvements in that area. Those are relatively unsafe intersections. They're not they don't meet our current safety standards. And what we would like to do is reduce the number of entrances and exits in that in the in the crust on Spaghetti Junction intersection a straight in the curve some to make them safer and that would have an additional effect of boosting capacity but it's mainly safety consideration that both we in the highway department are concerned about that ought to be resolved. What will be done there though depends partly on community input about you know, whether Willing to give up intersection. So there's a sort of a local trade off. We can do it by taking houses or we can do it by taking intersections and the local community has to decide which is worse. Mostly they don't like to give up either and and we have a you know, sort of a dilemma but these are the kinds of choices that have to be made. When do you suppose it's some action might be taken on that. The environmental impact statement will be done in about 2 years. And I think it'll be some many years before construction actually begins on that free. We're talking about fairly long range planning on now to your question for Metropolitan Council chairman, Steve key fellow. Thank you. Good afternoon. My question has to do with the political structure of the metro area. I was living in Winnipeg Winnipeg expanded and absorbed all of the little towns around it and became the third largest city in Canada overnight and I understand that as long ago is Mark Twain They were the suggestion was that Cities and areas surrounding area the combined into a single Metropolitan entity and curious about whether you think that will ever happen or whether you think it's a good idea bad idea and all that sort of thing. That's a very interesting question. I'm not surprised that somebody who's not from here finds it hard to understand the way the government is organized here. We find it fairly hard to follow ourselves Twin Cities. Metropolitan government has several levels and several interesting ways of interacting which I think in the long run might turn out to be better than a strong single central government. I think the founders of the council really thought that they were creating the beginning of that strong centralized central government, but there's quite a lot of resistance from local communities the smaller cities particularly who didn't like the idea of losing their kind of very close to the people neighborhood oriented government to some big centralized downtown bureaucracy, and there's absolutely no question that there are advantages at both Level small communities have a certain closeness to the people which makes them responsive to to a local concerns that the way a big government can't be in fact big cities tend to develop st. Paul or Minneapolis. For example tend to develop some sort of neighborhood government or system of input as a result of the fact that you know, one council member represents thousands and thousands of people I think what we have in the Twin Cities metropolitan area and the Metropolitan council is actually served interesting combination of the two and one that I think he offers some distinct benefits in a way. It's sort of like the United States federal system where there's a where there's a centralized planning organization and government structure that handles things that need to be done on a regional basis because they're more cost-effective sewers Transit airports things like that and then people live in smaller communities where things that are a very important neighborhood concerned things like garbage collection and and dog and cat ordinances and Zoning requirements. And and what kind of curb Cuts you have to have and all that sort of thing that are very important to people in a local basis are Very close and one of the things that provides is if you live in a community in the Twin Cities and you don't like the mayor and you don't want your tax money spent for carousels or light rail transit or something like that. You can move someplace else and not only do you have the opportunity to choose a community that fits your taste but also frankly, this is a certain amount of competition between communities. I mean, it's not as if they're competing to be the best but people pay attention to who's taxes are highest in who has the nicest streets and who has the best garbage collection and so on and if a city isn't doing as well as its peers there's a certain Market pressure that the on local officials to provide better government and so as confusing as Twin Cities government is it doesn't make nice chain of command charts and things like that at all and it's hard to explain to somebody who doesn't come from here. I think it may have some distinct advantages in providing good Regional coordination, but protecting plenty of local control. So that local government is responsive to people. Well, we're getting down near the under the are less than five minutes left with Steve. Keefe will put as many of you on as we have time for here your next go ahead. Yeah. I have three things first of all with regards to The city's I think they're you know, very sophisticated got a lot going for them in so many ways but as far as the airport goes, it's really bad, you know, I've flown in and out through a lot of places and you know, if I were coming from any other city I go straight on to wherever because it's just you know, the connections are bad. The distances are awful. The facility itself is really poor. I hope we can you know, it can somehow be upgraded, you know with before 15 years. That's the first thing I wanted to say. The second thing is that speaking of other cities I recently was in Phoenix, which is kind of always been held up as an example of the awful sprawl that cities want to avoid and yet we my parents received their Highway and Rabbit Transit plan, which is very enlightened and far ahead of where you would think it would be and they have a pretty Advanced plan for highways and Rapid Transit and which leads me to the third point which is why is heavy rail not being considered. I know that Okay fine that we're short on time and I want to give Steve a chance to come in on these things. Good question. We don't have because we're Sprout as much as we are. We don't have the passenger densities that justify heavy rail, which is much more expensive to build Light Rail over rule of thumb is 10 million dollars a mile heavy rail is more like 70 or 80 and sometimes as much as a hundred million dollars a mile and we don't have any corridors where there's enough traffic density there be enough people willing to write on it'll carry huge numbers of passengers, but we don't have that many people going from the same place to the same place with regard to the airport. Our study is not our recommendation is not just that we prepare to build a new airport. If we need one. We also recommend that the existing airport be expanded to meet capacity. The airports commission has a 375 million dollar proposal for the next 10 years for expanding what they call landside capacity parking and Gates and terminal improvements and so on and we're recommending that there be an additional Runway so that the congestion doesn't get too serious in that period of time. Okay. We'll take maybe one or two more. Go ahead, please you're next. I'm from Southern Minnesota, and I was wondering if it's been given any thought. To move the airport solve the Twin Cities because south of you you've got Rochester Wenonah and Lacrosse two of those cities have fairly large airports already that could probably be combined with the Twin Cities airport and provide transportation systems from those cities to the airport (00:56:44) site. We think we haven't looked at sites and I have absolutely nothing to say about where we might put an airport because I'm afraid it'll cause a land boom wherever I say that we're thinking about doing it, but the but we intend to look at all those factors in developing a search area and we don't consider this to be just a metropolitan issue. The airport is clearly a Statewide resource and we ought to be thinking about the registers and st. Clouds and also frankly the dilution worthington's and so on in Minnesota because they have just as much a say in what we decide as the people who met van area. (00:57:13) Well, you may not want to get specific about sites at this point. But some time you're going to have to send people out to start nosing around. Are you going to do all this in the dark of night? (00:57:22) We propose to do in order to avoid speculation is to start with a very wide net and narrow it slowly and very publicly so that sort of everybody that's in the land business can have the same advantages and so that there won't be so that we won't feel speculation. We also think speculation will be damped some because we're not talking about where we're going to put the new airport we're talking about where we might put it if we need one and so speculators are there still people who own land and Ham Lake we haven't succeeded in selling it and and anybody that thinks they're going to make a killing on this is going to be making a mistake in my (00:57:54) opinion. When do you start this process of (00:57:56) casting the wide net? Not until we've got done until we're certain that the legislature has bought into this and wants us to proceed in this direction. We have the authority to start now, but we want to take this legislature first and make sure that the whole state is behind us before we go any further (00:58:10) we could obviously continue for a long time. Probably people interested in talking with you Steve, but we have run out of time. Thank you very (00:58:15) much. Thank you. I'd love to go on myself. It's (00:58:17) fun. Steve Keith chairman of the Metropolitan Council. Well, that means we just have to have you back sometime. Let's see the forecast briefly for the state of Minnesota includes a snow advisory for the southeast this afternoon a total of 1 to 4 inches is likely to accumulate by the time it ends in the Southeast. Otherwise, it'll be partly to mostly cloudy with flurries elsewhere highs today in the 20s and (00:58:39) 30s. Good afternoon. This is Gary eichten today. We get to meet the man who want to be the new president of the University Minnesota three finalists have been selected their meeting reporters this afternoon, they'll be interviewed by the Board of Regents tomorrow than the Regents will take a vote today on NPR Journal will hear from all three candidates. We've I to tune in for that story and the rest of the day's news MPR Journal is broadcast at five o'clock on our music stations, 5:30 on our news stations. (00:59:04) And that's our midday broadcast for today. Stay with us more good listing Straight Ahead. Today's broadcast of midday made possible with financial assistance from the James are Thorpe Foundation. This is Bob Potter. You're tuned to ksjn 1330 Minneapolis-Saint Paul K. NS R. 88.9 FM Collegeville. St. Cloud and W NS D 100 Point 9 FM Cloquet Duluth superior. Take out follows this news from the AP at one o'clock.