North Metro national airport? (Atlanta, Columbus: living in, flight path, beach)

[Carolina Knight]

Originally Posted by Turnerbro

Does anybody else think this would be a good idea? The main Atlanta airport is pretty far for most people living north of the city. Plenty of major metros like D.C, Chicago, NYC, L.A, Miami have more than one airport. I'm wondering if a smaller airport north of Alpharetta would be a good idea.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is maxing out in space. Another jetport is necessary.

If land is available to construct a new jetport in a new location, Cartersville, Gainesville, and Commerce should be in consideration.

[beach43ofus]

Why doesn't the City of Atlanta sell the BallGround/Dawson Forrest and the Paulding sites, and use the cash to upgrade the Cities badly decaying infrastructure, including water/sewer, Hartsfield, & all MARTA stations so they are properly policed, safe, and the restrooms can reopen?

The State could buy the Ball Ground/Dawson County site, do the P3 thing, and get that ball rolling starting out small at first, and growing it with demand. It doesn't have to be a major international airport from day 1.

The Paulding site could be sold off to a private developer to be developed into a business park, or manufacturing...something that would create jobs. Preferably a Technology, or Medical research hub to attract IT and Med Fortune 500's out of costly California and Illinois. Develop part of it as a small jetport.

[Huntsville_secede]

Originally Posted by Carolina Knight

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is maxing out in space. Another jetport is necessary.

If land is available to construct a new jetport in a new location, Cartersville, Gainesville, and Commerce should be in consideration.

It's needs to include some kind of northern loop to make it easily accessible for everyone if it's that far out. It's pretty impossible to get from east to west easily in that part of the metro. If it's in Cartersville for example, no one in Gwinnett would ever be able to get there in a reasonable amount of time and vice versa.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by LTCM

"As stated in the report, the final test of feasibility is the bottom line test of financial feasibility. Is there the right balance of cost and benefit? Based on the current cost-benefit analysis, none of the eight sites studied were found to be feasible at this time"

Thanks for making my point for me.

It didn't make your point. At all.

You keep saying never--the report said "[not] feasible at this time." And that was 2011.


And - the report highlights, extensively, the virtues of an airport at Dobbins.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by beach43ofus

Why doesn't the City of Atlanta sell the BallGround/Dawson Forrest and the Paulding sites, and use the cash to upgrade the Cities badly decaying infrastructure, including water/sewer, Hartsfield, & all MARTA stations so they are properly policed, safe, and the restrooms can reopen?

The State could buy the Ball Ground/Dawson County site, do the P3 thing, and get that ball rolling starting out small at first, and growing it with demand. It doesn't have to be a major international airport from day 1.

The Paulding site could be sold off to a private developer to be developed into a business park, or manufacturing...something that would create jobs. Preferably a Technology, or Medical research hub to attract IT and Med Fortune 500's out of costly California and Illinois. Develop part of it as a small jetport.

The City of Atlanta selling the Ball Ground, Dawson Forest and Paulding County sites for some much needed cash to pay for other pressing needs; and the State of Georgia buying the Dawson Forest and/or Ball Ground sites and developing them into commercial airports with the use of a P3 (Public-Private Partnership) are excellent ideas.

The CoA selling the Paulding County site to a private developer who would then develop the site into a business/manufacturing/technology park/jetport is also an excellent idea.

(… In 2007, the City of Atlanta actually sold about just over 160 acres of the more than 10,000 acres it owns in Paulding County to the Paulding County government for the development of the present-day Silver Comet Field/Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport.)

It is just that executing those moves would not necessarily be as easy it sounds or seemingly should be because of the environmental, political and cultural sensitivities of those aforementioned potential airport sites in Dawson, Cherokee and Paulding counties.

The Dawson County site in particular has become a state-protected WMA (Wildlife Management Area) that local/regional/national environmentalists and local residents continue to grow increasingly protective of, largely because of that property's location in the heavily forested mid-high foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The growing number of local residents (both natives and newcomers, alike) in the area love having such a large plot of undisturbed and undeveloped wilderness nearby that likely may never be developed.

… That while local/regional/national environmentalists view both undeveloped and relatively lightly and sparsely developed areas north of Atlanta as a heated national political battleground in the fight against the encroachment of Atlanta's extremely heavy metropolitan development patterns on the wilderness areas of the southern part of the greater Blue Ridge Mountains region.

Any attempts to develop that Dawson Forest property into anything beyond undisturbed wilderness (including and especially a second major commercial airport for metro Atlanta/North Georgia) would generate the fiercest opposition that one can imagine from both local residents and those local/regional/national environmental groups... Environmental groups that are extremely active, extremely influential and extremely persuasive to the voting public at-large in this part of the country in the southern Blue Ridge/Appalachian region.

Because of Cherokee County's tremendous pride in being part of the greater Blue Ridge Mountains region (along with the heavily wooded foothills/mountainous terrain in the county), a proposed second major commercial airport in the Ball Ground area would run into many of the same political issues that a proposed second major commercial airport on the Dawson County WMA site would encounter.

Meanwhile, the Paulding County site has already run into intense public opposition when multiple pro-development/pro-airport expansion county commissioners were defeated in the 2014 elections because of their support for increasing flight activity and building more commercial development in a county in Paulding where much of the western half of the jurisdiction is an undeveloped state-protected WMA (Wildlife Management Area)… An undeveloped WMA that seems to be beloved by most Paulding County residents and voters as well as by hunters and environmentalists.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by aries4118

"Atlanta Metropolitan Aviation Capacity Study Phase II Executive Summary" (City of Atlanta, Department of Aviation, Planning and Development, May 2011)

From that link I gather that the most impactful location would be Dobbins, and the least disruptive would be the Dawsonville/CoA site.

But as some have noted, this is just a theoretical discussion for at least another couple of decades.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

From that link I gather that the most impactful location would be Dobbins, and the least disruptive would be the Dawsonville/CoA site.

But as some have noted, this is just a theoretical discussion for at least another couple of decades.

Yep.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

From that link I gather that the most impactful location would be Dobbins, and the least disruptive would be the Dawsonville/CoA site.

But as some have noted, this is just a theoretical discussion for at least another couple of decades.

Originally Posted by aries4118

Yep.

Even though one can (and most do) fully appreciate the gargantuan and astonishing economic impact that Dobbins (and particularly Lockheed) has had on Cobb County and greater Northwest metro Atlanta on the whole as an Air Force (and Air Reserve) Base, there is a part of me that (in regards to the siting of a second major commercial airport in greater metro Atlanta and North Georgia) kind of wishes that Dobbins had become a commercial airport as originally planned, instead of a military base.

As many posters on this board have stated and opined, Dobbins (because of its relatively very central location, particularly in relation to metro Atlanta's most heavily developed and populated Northside) seems like it would unquestionably be the best site for a potential second major commercial airport for the greater Atlanta region.

Dobbins would have been a good location for a second major commercial airport, if said commercial airport could have been established before the immediate surrounding area became so built-up with a very heavy amount of commercial and residential development.

But it is said very heavy amount of commercial and residential development in the immediate surrounding area that appears to be a major obstacle to any prospect of converting Dobbins into a second major commercial airport for a continued fast-growing Atlanta metro area and North Georgia region...

… That is despite Dobbins' clearly extremely favorable centralized Northside location.

… And the more time that goes by, the more distant the prospect of converting a site like Dobbins into a second major commercial airport for the Atlanta region as the immediate area around the base continues to urbanize and even densify.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Metro Atlanta needs:

A second (smaller) international airport at Dobbins.


Martin Luther King, Jr. International Airport (MLK)

ATL
MLK

As far as an official IATA/ICAO designator, MLK is already taken by the Malta, Montana airport.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

As far as an official IATA/ICAO designator, MLK is already taken by the Malta, Montana airport.

We will expropriate.