With the airport tunnel opening in May and the runway atop it opening June 28, city councillors are pressuring the Calgary Airport Authority to ease up conditions acting as a barrier to another key connection.
The $295-million tunnel will connect Airport Trail motorists between the Deerfoot and 36th Street N.E. when it opens for traffic May 25. But the city can’t rush to extend the road farther eastward to Metis or Stoney Trails, as a contract concession to airport officials worried a longer Airport Trail would add cut-through traffic and snarl access to the air terminal.
Airport CEO Garth Atkinson told council Monday he’s open to renegotiating that deal if traffic isn’t as bad as the airport had projected.
"We’ll have to wait and see what happens," Atkinson said in the airport authority’s annual update to city hall.
According to the airport’s contract to allow the tunnel beneath its runway, the city must help fund interchanges at Barlow Trail and 19th Street N.E. as soon as Airport Trail connects to Metis.
The airport is offering the land and $20 million for the interchanges toward the airport, but the city would have to fund the rest of the project, estimated at $50 million in 2011 dollars.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi told the airport executive that he’d like to announce to Calgarians a better deal on the Metis Trail link by the six-lane tunnel’s opening in May.
"We’ll have to come up with something that’s different than what’s on the table now."
Atkinson shrugged off what he called the politicians’ "gentle encouragement," telling reporters he doesn’t expect the deal to change in the next month or two.
"I think our commitment is simply to observe on how traffic develops and sit down and talk to the city," the CEO said after he briefed council.
"I think it may be a bit optimistic to expect any changes in the near term."
The $600-million airport runway, like the tunnel, will have a public opening and tour before it actually begins handling traffic. Atkinson said there the public will likely be able to take a walking tour of the four-kilometre takeoff strip the weekend of June 14 and 15, including an organized fun run. That’s two weeks before the first landings and takeoffs on Canada’s largest runway begin June 28 at 2 p.m.
City officials have scheduled a vintage car show and walking tour in the 620-metre-long airport tunnel — which has no sidewalks — on May 24, the day before that six-lane road extension welcomes passing cars.
More Airport Tunnel Madness
Quote
