New Solution for Waukesha Airport Would Avoid Disrupting Roads

WAUKESHA, Wis. - Faced with inadequate safety buffer zones around the main runway at Crites Field, airport officials have identified a corrective strategy that would allow them to avoid relocating roads and disturbing nearby businesses.

The issue has vexed Crites officials for years because the county-owned airport fails to meet federal standards for guarding against wayward aircraft skidding into traffic on Silvernail Road or Pewaukee Road.

Possible solutions in the past included relocating roads or building underground tunnels for motorists to avoid a conflict with aircraft traffic. But neighborhood opposition and the projected cost for such dramatic overhauls prompted airport officials to look for a simpler fix.

With the federal government's blessing, officials now are considering a strategy that they say would allow them to improve safety without any construction outside the airport's current boundaries.

Crites manager Keith Markano said the federal government has relaxed its requirements for improved runway buffers, partly because of the cost of retrofitting airports nationwide.

"They changed the criteria to make it a little bit easier for airports in our position," Markano said.

The new solution, which has not yet been endorsed by Crites administrators, would involve mostly operational changes intended to give aircraft more room to maneuver through a process known in aviation as "declared distances."

Such a strategy still would require expanding the main runway from 5,700 feet to 6,500 feet, but the biggest changes otherwise would be in how aircraft are routed and cleared for takeoff or landing in Waukesha.

Crites has no commercial airline service, but it is home to about 200 private aircraft that record about 100,000 takeoffs and landings annually.

For business owners near the airport, the new approach to better runway safety comes as a relief.

Gina Rhodes, owner of Taste of Italy restaurant on Blue Mound Road, said converting Pewaukee Road into an underground tunnel, as proposed in the past, would disrupt her customers.

Although she was unfamiliar with the "declared distances" option, Rhodes said she and other business owners would welcome any alternative that did not require changing the flow of street traffic significantly.

"I think that would make everybody along here happy," she said.

Members of the Waukesha Airport Commission today will consider the first step - asking state transportation officials to approve a related change in future plans for Crites, the Waukesha County airport. That would be followed by an official county decision to pursue the new strategy and, ultimately, to request federal funding.

Even though the project would cost about $5 million, Markano said it would be cheaper than other options.

Less expensive

Tunneling under roads would have cost more than $20 million, which Markano said was one reason the Federal Aviation Administration in late 2005 agreed to more widespread use of "declared distances" as a method of improving their runway safety buffers.

"That became available to us, thank goodness," he said.

Waukesha city officials, who have also expressed concerns about the possible upheaval for road reconstruction, expressed support for the new approach.

Paul Feller, the city's public works director, called it "an acceptable alternative" that would leave business owners in the area undisturbed.

MEETING TODAY

Members of the Waukesha Airport Commission today will consider the first step - asking state transportation officials to approve a related change in future plans for Crites Field, the Waukesha County airport. That would be followed by an official county decision to pursue the new strategy and, ultimately, to request federal funding.

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