Imperial County Airport looking for a new Location

locoinclx

On today’s (Nov. 21st, 2006) IV Press’s front page, there’s an article on how they believe that Imperial Valley is still in the running for becoming the new site of the San Diego Regional Airport. According to that article, even if San Diego does decide to go else where (for which their options are second to none), Imperial County would still make a new airport. The county is scheduled to start looking into sites in January and that means… bring on the fight!

Though I am pretty confident that the City of Imperial would love to get the new Airport, it seems that it is pretty clear the two areas that will have a viable stake on the location.

1)El Centro/Holtville

I said both cities because if the airport is built in El Centro, which seems most likely, it would be built somewhere closer to Holtville. Reason being their proximity to the freeways as well as El Centro not being able to build west of them because of the military restrictions that they have from NAF. One of the other things that El Centro has going for them is that they are the hub of the Businesses and governments for the Imperial Valley. This would basically make them a prime location for a new airport. But if any big metropolis has shown in recent years is that it is better to have an airport far from the center of the metropolis in order for airport noise to become tolerable.

2)Calexico Smile

Calexico’s viability for the Airport comes as it has three of the 6 main arteries that run throughout the county, these being Hwy 111, 7, 98 all of which have reasonable access to Fwy 8. Calexico can also serve as a hub for the rest of the country, as it would be able to ship cargo that comes from Mexico through the airport. Therefore I think that if an airport would be built in Calexico, it would end up being near Hwy 7 and Heber Ave. The one problem that Calexico can face is the proximity to the border. Because of the border, Calexico would be faced only being able to build a runway that goes east to west and not north to south. I think this problem would not cause that much trouble considering the number of planes that would come in and out of the airport would be fairly small.

Other cities with in the county may have some problems in being selected for the airport, like:

The reason being that Imperial will want the airport but will be considered is that Imperial is too far from the freeways. Imperial has quickly become a considerable force to be recon with in terms of its growth, but it will always be dwarfed by El Centro.

Brawley as well as any other town north of imperial would lack the power to pursue the airport because of its distance from fwy 8. This is probably the reason why the county will want to stay near the main artery of the freeway which will make all other cities become inadequate for the airport.

What do you guys think? Do you think Calexico will want to have an airport built near by? Maybe the City would want to combine forces with the County to built an airport in Calexico and make that the new Calexico International Airport? Do you guys think the city even cares about this new opportunity that the county might offer them? [which is highly unlikely, but hey I optimistic Smile

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CX3 4life · Posted: 21 Nov 2006 05:39 PM Post subject:

I think an airport near the Calexico East POE would be a good choice, because highway 7 links to interstate 8 for the trucks and also there are already warehouses and other industrial type development that can support the airport. It is exciting to think we would get a project of that magnitude built in Calexico, you can only think of the opportunities this would create.

chuco boy · Posted: 26 Nov 2006 10:11 AM Post subject: New Airport

Where will the paying customers come from? Yuma has regional airport, Mexicali has airport, Palm Springs has airport, Ontario has airport, San Diego, John Wayne in Orange Co., Imperial already has regional airport status.

Simple economi cs....Supply and demand.

locoinclx · Posted: 27 Nov 2006 10:28 AM Post subject: Re: New Airport