On Monday (18 October), Edmonton had a civic election. Turnout, according to the Edmonton Journal, was 34%. I had a bit of a moral dilemma. As I'm currently trying to finish up my thesis, I have little spare time - yes, I realize the irony of saying this in my blog- so I didn't have as much time to educate myself on the candidates as I would have liked. I didn't go to any forums, so I was limited to candidate websites.
One of the unfortunate issues that flared up recently is the closure of the downtown municipal airport. Proponents of closing the airport argue that a downtown airport has much too valuable property to be used as an airport. Using it for residency and commerce would yield much higher revenue for the city. Further, with an international airport just outside the city, there is little need for an airport inside the city, so the argument goes. Advocates for keeping the airport open invariably point to the airport's historical value and the MedEvac planes that land there to take patients to a nearby hospital.
It's not that the arguments for closing the airport for development are incredibly strong, it's that the arguments for keeping it open are incredibly weak. If we stop development for the sake of preserving historical buildings, our downtown core would consist of a bunch of century-old 2-storey buildings without electricity or running water. Granted, this is an extreme argument, but the point is that preserving history doesn't require us to stop development. We can preserve history by creating historical musea. The university preserves history in its old horse barn, which has been physically relocated a few times, even though the barn itself closed long ago. Furthermore, the MedEvac argument is weaker than it seems. With an airport just outside the city, critical patients can get flown into the city with little extra hassle. Truly critical cases are choppered in, not flown in, so the downtown airport has little to do with truly critical cases. In the non-critical cases, an extra 20 minutes in an ambulance won't be the difference between life and death, so there is little point in keeping the airport open.
In spite of all this, the issue is still alive and a number of mayoral candidates voiced their support for keeping the airport open. I hope that, eventually, the city realizes the folly of keeping a downtown airport open with an international airport only 30 km away. In the meantime, here's to celebrating the victory of the one guy who didn't specify whether the airport should be kept open.
PS. Found this in my unpublished list from months ago, so this is probably outdated by now. Oops.
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