Old Items you might still want

Budget Analyst Report On December 10, the Budget Analyst's office reviewed their audit of SFIA for the Finance and Audits Subcommittee of the SF Board of Supervisors. At the meeting, according to published reports, "... the airport, a city department, reversed course Wednesday and admitted it had hired lobbyists and published materials that highlighted only the disadvantages of not building the runways." The main report is available at the Budget Analyst's web page. One of the more interesting parts, however, has been left out. That part is a letter from Harvey Rose, the Budget Analyst, to the Board of Supervisors. You, however, can read it here(PDF, 2 meg) It's worth the bandwidth, trust me. Only the SF Examiner covered the meeting.

Final Report SFIA released something called "the final report." It is dated March, 2002 and is subtitled "Airfield Development Planning." You can read the Executive Summary. Or, call Kandace Bender at (650) 821-2112 and see what a complete CD-ROM version will cost you. But remember, the Airport is losing money so it won't be cheap. Here's the Table of Contents.

Revised Forecast SFIA released a revised forecast(PDF, 5 meg) to the above report on Oct. 4, 2002. While it makes some adjustment for the economic downturn, and the resulting drop in SFIA traffic, it shows SFIA is still in denial about what is really going on. See Current Stats for more details.

Alternatives We don't need any stinking alternatives. Hidden away in the handouts for a Board of Supervisors Finance Committee meeting is this letter from the Airfield Development Bureau listing the "alternatives" that are being investigated(and I use the word lightly). Apparently alternatives, as used at SFIA, means "try to find things that we know won't work and tick off Oakland while we're at it." Note that, if we lived someplace other than the Bay Area, say San Diego, a single runway would support on the order of 30 arrivals per hour. Oh, golly, that's what SFIA claims for a single runway now that I think about it. But, when thinking about managing OAK and SFIA as a pair with slot controls, then OAK must be limited to 21 arrivals per hour.

Salt Ponds Restoration There are two reports on restoring the Salt Ponds: One from SaveTheBay and another from Stuart Siegel of Wetlands and Water Resources - Siegel was a member of the first NOAA panel. Siegel's report, Feasibility Analysis of South Bay Salt Pond Restoration is available at Wetlands and Water Resources. The report is the scientific study initiated by Save the Bay and published independently.

Political Evaluation Recent news articles referred to a report done for SFIA on the politics of Santa Clara County. Now you can read the report right here(PDF-900K bytes). Prepare yourself to be amazed at what $25,000[ recent- May, 2003- reports are that the report cost $100,000] will buy. I have not included the appendices that are nothing more than a print-out of the various cities web pages.

New Technology. New technology is on the way. Read this summary of GPS-based navigation such as WAAS, LAAS and other technologies in the Jan. IEEE Spectrum. One quote, "For far too long a time, too many airports were scheduling too many takeoffs or landing for any given period, driving the numbers of delays up and into the news again and again". For an example of how this works at SFIA, see this page.

BCDC Consultant Report. BCDC consultant, Williams Aviation, finally was allowed to release a report saying once again, SFIA is not looking seriously at alternatives. SFIA's favorite technique to to look at an alternative in isolation instead of considering combinations of techniques. SFIA is sooo afraid they might find a solution to the problem. For example, "All of the studies conducted by SFO consultants and the FAA failed to consider the cumulative benefits of the available options to address the issues of bad weather capacity and delay." (Page 16, Executive Summary)You can read the Williams report on the BCDC web site.

No Purpose and No Need. The Fab Four( BCDC, Regional Water Quality Board, Corps of Engineers and EPA) sent SFIA a letter stating(Click here to download a scanned copy in PDF) that SFIA was (1) not really looking at alternatives and (2) had not established a need for the project. Like that's a surprise? But at least our trusty regulators are sounding tough. Read coverage in the Chronicle.

Project Costs(Before 9-11): Want to know how much SFIA has spent so far? Well, I can't tell you the total but here's the subtotal.(PDF-300K) It does not include 'administration' - think Kandace Bender, for example.

Technology Report: BCDC and SFIA have released the technology report. You can download it here. Appendix A is the Scope of work while Appendix B contains info on the panel members.

Connections between Airports: SFIA released this report on the eve of a public meeting. If those people spent as much on actually looking at alternatives as they do on trying to knock down alternatives, SFIA would be delay-free by now. Most of the fog at SFIA is generated by the PR department. This one says nobody would take a train between airports because it would be "inconvenient." I guess that means no one uses the trains between terminals at Denver and Dallas/Fort Worth. Strange, I have had to stand every time I've been on those trains... You can read the actual report.

Alternative Sites for Airports: SFIA also re-released an old report, on potential sites for new airports which the always eager-to-please Chronicle called "new" - check the author's disclaimer on the third page - that concludes (Surprise!), given a lot of assumptions, there is no suitable upland alternative for a new airport. One thing they assumed was an area the size of LAX to Denver. Golly, what about assuming the same size as SFIA? Or Oakland?

The report knocks Travis as an alternative even though personnel at Travis said they had never been contacted by anyone. Under questioning by Aaron Peskin, San Francisco Supervisor, the author said "I called Travis - I got the information." And how does that constitute careful work or an 'official' request? Even better, the author used Denver as an example of why all three airports would have to close so airlines would use the new airport. When questioned by Peskin on that issue, the author finally said, "I'm not a careful student of the Denver situation." Wow. Seems like for $80K, one should be a little careful.

Jane Kay, environmental writer for the Chronicle, put together a nice series on wetlands and salt ponds in the Bay. The article says that "Tidal wetland restoration is an experimental science."That means nobody knows what works. And restoring the 300 acre Sonoma Baylands could take 50 years. So saying we're going to tear down the dikes and it will be 1850 again isn't even close to correct. The entire series can be read starting at this location. The photos are there also.

The IEEE Spectrum(Sept. 2000) has an interesting article on Weather and aircraft technology. This is available on-line to everyone for 90 days.(And a tip of the stopSFO hat to Greg for the info and URL) In particular, the section on AVOSS (Aircraft VOrtex Spacing System)is very interesting. For lighter reading, see this ABC News report on a test performed in July, 2000.

AVOSS could increase the number of landings by 6 to 11 percent and could be in place within "three to five years" (read way before runways) according to the article.

The full citation: Perry, T.S., Tracking Weather's Flight Path, IEEE Spectrum, Sept. 2000, pages 38-45.

Airport Consultant Charles River Associates released their spin on Demand Management and the FAA came out with a benchmark study. At a Stakeholder's meeting on May 18, George Eads from the Charles River said, "All airports will have some form of demand management." He also said it's not possible to lay enough concrete to solve the delay problem anywhere. He must have learned that when he was working for General Motors: more highways doesn't reduce congestion. In addition, he said, "Airports will have to control growth- slot controls are probably are the way to go.

BCDC hired an aviation consultant to review SFIA and FAA documents. The executive summary of the Consultant's review is good stuff. Download it now(300K, PDF). If you want the full report, call BCDC, Don Neuwirth at 415/352-3649 or send him an e-mail.

"In conclusion, the SFO Runway Reconfiguration Program EIR/EIS Alternatives Considered and Eliminated From Detailed Study Preliminary Report analyzes the various actions as separate, independent, activities. This compartmentalization allows the Airport/FAA to dismiss each as '...not meeting the purpose and need of the project.'"

"As the project is envisioned, the only acceptable proposal is one that provides two arrival runways spaced at least 4300 feet apart. All of those actions, therefore, that leave the airport in its current configuration are rejected.

Most grievous omission[sic] however is the complete lack of consideration of multiple actions which, when taken together, provide significant potential for delay reduction and offer the possibility of a true Bay Area airport utilization plan."

Ten Bay area members of Congress have sent a letter to the FAA and Mayor Brown seeking a thorough examination of impacts and alternatives in the SFO runway EIR/EIS. The letter was signed by Reps. Pelosi, Eshoo, Miller, Condit, Lantos, Farr, Stark, Woolsey, Lofgren and Lee.

SFIA released its Status Summary 2. There are several things of interest in the Summary but even more interesting is the comments mailed out by BCDC in preparation for the Jan. 4th meeting. According to BCDC, "All of the regulatory agencies have expressed their concern that non-Bay fill alternatives [in the Status Summary] are inadequate." "This problem as been compounded by a Federal Aviation Administration decision not to consider any non-Bay fill airspace and/or runway capacity enhancement measures at all in the federal environmental documents. If these shortcomings are not resolved, the [BCDC] staff believes it will be difficult for SFO to convince the Commission that all alternatives to filling the Bay have been fairly and comprehensively analyzed." Based on the dates of documents, it appears a major disagreement is in process. The complete(in PDF) BCDC memo.

And if you like coincidence, here's a PDF version of a press release from the airport, handed out at the BCDC meeting on Jan. 4.

Here's the Status Summary 2 (2.2 megabyte PDF fil)e. To keep it small, it's in B/W which makes the graphics less than perfect. For a print version, call Kandace Bender, Director of Communications for the Airfield Development Bureau, at (650) 821-2112.

If you want to read the Status Summary 1report from March, 2000 ( 1.6 megabytes-PDF) click here.

The Airport has said they will include up to 90% of the recommendations of the first Forum hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Now you can judge. Here's what the Airport said they would study.

The Airfield Development team released two reports that you may want to read. One, Reducing weather-related delays and cancellations at San Francisco International Airport, details delay studies done for the airport. While they try to say only runways will work, there are some interesting observations in the report.

The second report, Preliminary Report 3A, Water Circulation, Sedimentation and Coastal Studies, is a first look at what happens close to the proposed runways.

You, as a concerned citizen, can get copies of these reports. Send a letter requesting the report(s) to Kandace Bender, Director of Communications for the Airfield Development Bureau, at (650) 821-2112, P.O. Box 8097, San Francisco, CA. 94128. They will charge you $25 for the delay report(hard copy)and $125 for the sedimentation study(hard copy) The Sedimentation study is available on CD-ROM in PDF for $25. Make your check out to the City and County of San Francisco. Better call Kandace first to check on availability and price.