To the Editor,
Executives at the Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC) are making bundles of cash. The President and CEO enjoys $800,000 per year in salary and bonuses.
And we get an airport, R.I. T.F. Green International, with convenient and reasonable parking, stately marble restrooms, and some early-morning and late-night noise. We put up with a few negatives for the neat flights to wherever.
But now, hunger pangs strike. The RIAC execs are desirous of more cash bonuses. So they dedicate part of our favorite Lot E as a parking lot not for cars but for planes, coming and going with Boston’s Air Cargo, not Rhode Island’s. This way, the execs collect more bonuses on Boston air freight traffic. The roadway system to the new Air Freight Terminal is being worked out, they say.
The question arises: With that parking lot being whittled away for freight, where are we to park when Breeze fulfills its promise to take us to more and more destinations? Take a drive by Strawberry Field Road and peek at Lot E through the fence. Almost filled up. And watch your step as you navigate the broken pavement where the heavy trucks went to “build the berm.”
Our Mayor was concerned enough at the prospect of freight-bearing trailer trucks using our local streets that he filed a Petition for Review at the second-highest court – The U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. No trailer trucks on our city streets, he asked reasonably.
But what happened next is bizarre. I advised the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that trucks would not be able to clear the low bridge at the passenger terminal. FAA said “Yes,” that is definitely a concern. We’ll get right on it. But then, using magical thinking, they concluded that the bridge actually offers 16 feet of clearance. My measurement is only 10 feet.
FAA officials later added that because Warwick had petitioned for an environmental review, FAA would not look at our concern, even though it is their concern also.
That bridge fantasy is a hole six feet deep that FAA refuses to explain, unless a hole of at least that depth is made to lower the road. And that requires millions of highway funding needed to fix the Washington Bridge to East Providence. In any case, all is “pending litigation,” they say.
If our Mayor wants trucks off Warwick city streets, I invite him to join me in petitioning the Court of Appeals to explain how a 10-foot clearance morphs into a 16-foot clearance. You bet that there is pending litigation!
Otherwise, the suits at RIAC will shrug their shoulders, say the six foot hole can’t be funded, welcome the trucks to city streets, over run part of Lot E with truck traffic to Boston . . . and collect more bonuses.
Job well done! RIAC’s Board Chair will say to the RIAC execs as he goes on to endlessly investigate the Washington Bridge fiasco.
Richard Langseth
Warwick