LOL..."official" opening of the new runway. I guess this is because the previous "official" opening 5 months ago is too embarrasing to reflect upon, given that they have since lost a CEO to terms never made public and nary a single cargo jet has put rubber to the road in that time?

Hey Pat, Shirley & Tim...don't get caught in the jet wash of any of those 747s while you're up their cutting the ribbon! I guess one year from now after we've filled in the potholes and dusted off the cobwebs...can we have yet another "official" opening?

Is this official opening open to the public? If so, why wasn't there a public announcement?

The runway has been completed just in time before the GLOBAL recession began which caught even the experts with their pants down.

We would never get any funding for it now or in the next two or three years.

Fortunately it is now ready to go.

It's a valuable asset and it's ready for use when business requires it. Now we must promote its availability and advantages.

A special news/press conference is a good start and I am going to attend for sure and celebrate.

In a time of recession, a celebration is to be held for the most expensive and most ungreen way to transport goods. It's time for our economy to become sustainable and that means getting rid of the BC Liberals.

Can anyone rent the loooong airport runway when it is not in use for some low cost drag racing? Sure would beat the old one on Chief Lake Road. AND they have an overpriced coffee shop at the airport , too!

Diplomat. Why wouldnt we get funding for it now. Isnt that what all the infrastructure spending is for. Wouldnt an Airport Expansion be a perfect project for infrastructure funding???

In any event it was funded by the Federal, Provincial, Governments $11 Million each and the Northern Trust Initiative loaned them $11 Million, plus another $3Million from somewhere for a total of $36 Million.

Every failed project in Canada will be using the Global recession as an excuse for the failure. You would think that if the Prince George Airport is cheaper than the alternative (Anchorage) that Airlines would come here to save money, during a recession, not stay away.

This was an ill conceived project from the very start and is a total waste of taxpayers money. I suspect that it is one reason for Hoegs moving on.

The last hope of those that conceived this idea is that maybe if there is a volcano eruption in Alaska some of the Anchorage business would come to Prince George. Another is that if one of the refineries in Alaska that produces Jet Fuel closes down, then it may be cheaper to fuel up in Prince George. These are pretty pathetic hopes to be coming from people who are supposed to have some business acumen.

When you attend the opening ceremony, be sure to wear a hard hat, and ear plugs, because those huge jets will be buzzing you.

I don't see it as a "total waste of taxpayers' money." The more than $20 billion dollars that have been spent by Canada on the *war on terrorism* in Afghanistan is a better example.

40 million is two tenth of one percent of that 20 billion.

It's built. It's ready to go. The logistics park will be next plus the 48 million dollar new access road.

There is only about $110 million in total new federal infrastructure money for all of B.C. and everybody is trying to get a little slice of it.

Fat chance that P.G. would get any money for a runway extension project (when other cities also want their airport runways lengthened) during this global recession which has greatly impacted international trade.

2008 was the best year for P.G. Airport in passenger volume.

I see the glass as half full - others prefer to see it as half empty.

See you up there! I'll bring my hardhat and earplugs, just in case.

Cheers!

I agree with diplomat on this one. The runway is completed, the money has already been spent and by all accounts, the next phase will be the logistics park and the new road to hopefully bring it all together.

Many of us will likely have moved on or be dead by the time that this overall project could be reaping rewards for the city and region, but that doesn't mean that it won't eventually occur, nor does it mean that we shouldn't move forth with these plans.

In 1960 or 1970, nobody in PG would have ever predicted that we would eventually have a university, a medical school, a cancer clinic, the infrastructure and facilities we currently have, nor the diversity in the economy that we have today. These changes can and usually will take decades and generations to develop and if you rely on short-term results or trends to drive your decisions, your long-term success can be severely impaired.

I'm still waiting for the space shuttle, that will probably be the first big aircraft to land on the new runway. Like a snowball chance in hell.

Wow, would an emergency landing of the space shuttle ever put Prince George and the airport on the international map! Tens of millions of dollars of free advertising!

Please, let it happen!

Cheers!

Diplomat, those numbers about the airport passenger volume are skewed. They are lying to you. City taxpayers shelled out over 200-grand for Horizon Air to fly daily trips to Seattle for 5 and a half months. Considered those 76-seaters were only about a third full, the idea was an abysmal failure from a business perspective (as anybody could have told the idiots at IPG long before they pulled the trigger). However, even at 25-people per plane, each way, 7 days a week, for almost 6 months...it added thousands of body counts to the YXS passenger pass through for 2008.

You can hardly suggest that "2008 was a banner year for the PG Airport" just because we wasted a quarter-million of taxpayer money to achieve those numbers. Take away the count from the Horizon Air debacle and the numbers would be no different (if not slightly worse) than the previous year.

Am I wrong in thinking that we can land a jet and take off but where in the hell will it park, it would have to stay on the runway would it not? the taxi aprons are not widened or completed yet, but they are still calling it ready to go??? also i do not think they have the capacity to even fuel the aircrafts, why are these money spending fools thinking we are so stupid? Calling this project completed is a joke. how much more money is this going to cost to have it operational, maybe the announcement is to spend another 30 mill for nothing.

Part of the problem is that all these damn politicians and promoters have MASSIVE egos and need to be seen cutting ribbons and kissing babies. I don't care what their stripe or background, they are all narcissists who can't just be prudent with taxpayer cash. Not in their blood. Their supporters will argue "hey, at least they tried to do something positive for the region" (even while pissing away millions or billions of our hard-earned dollars).

But what's wrong with the politician who goes "hey folks...things are chugging along pretty well right now...I think we'll sink a few million bucks a year into GICs and help the taxpayers out when times get tough"? They simply don't exist. When there is extra fat to chew on, they blow it on megaprojects that they hope will be named after them one day.

I can't wait for the day the sign goes up on Highway 16 that reads "Welcome to Prince George; Home of the Hill-Harris-Bell-Kinsley Disaster Strip for Space Shuttle Recovery and Volcano Re-Routing"

Good post tombstone81.Nice to see someone seeing it the way it is, instead of always through rose coloured glasses.Until we start getting mad about all this "Government" B.S. they will just keep on feeding it to us.It is just amazing how they insult our intelligence day in and day out.Sure can tell when an election is coming up,more B.S. by the hour.

Interesting opinions! Politicians have problems:

1) when they don't do enough or anything (no projects and funding for future needs like better highways, better bridges, better air ports, better container ports, etc) - people will complain about the inactivity and lack of planning and missed opportunities for the future.

Chances to get re-elected = very slim.

2) when in fact they do a lot in order to get a share of federal funding (it's a competition between provinces and cities) people will complain about all the spending.

Even provincial funding is hotly contested by cities in B.C.

Chances to get re-elected = very slim.

Option #2 results in getting some of the federally available funds, jobs, progress and improved infrastructure and additional business opportunities which spell taxes and jobs in our capitalist business driven society.

As for option #1 - well, it all depends on how we look at the present and the future.

Ask the people in Prince Rupert who are employed at the new container port if it was a good idea to take a chance and pump some considerable funding into the project.

Even the 2010 Winter Olympics have created tens of thousands of construction jobs that wouldn't have been there otherwise.

(I hate to admit that, because I certainly never was in favour of the Games at all).

The trick is to find a middle way, not too much and not too little!

Politics are not done that way, no matter what party.

In the meantime ain't we got fun!

I agree 100% with tombstone. Prince George is loaded with small time Politicians who think they are in the big league and spend money accordingly. They are never around when the chickens come home to roost.

The Highway 16 connector between 16 and 97 running through the Airport will be more beneficial to whoever will build the new industrial park in that area. It will never get any business of any consequence from the Airport. I can see an Industrial Park that will pull business from the Carter Light area, the BC Rail Industrial Park, along with some courier companies like DHL, and Fed Ex. Maybe a new state of the art truck stop, and perhaps a Hotel or Motel. All these business will pull from other areas of Prince George at a cost to other business such as the Husky at the BC Rail etc; etc; etc;. There will be little of no business from the Air Cargo dream.

This is called churning and is just a relocation of present business because of cheaper costs associated with a new industrial area.

There is no new business in Prince George, and therefore there will be no new traffic on Highway 16 or 97 in the foreseeable future. Maybe less. So dont get your hopes up.

I am under the impression that the $48 million Boundary Road project is part of the planned Prince George Ring Road and the Dangerous Goods route. It would also divert some heavy truck traffic from the roads the traffic is forced to use now and which traverses the inner city, posing a danger and contributing to the problems of air pollution.

However, if it does not do any of the above and is just another pie in the sky total useless waste of taxpayers's money I will reconsider my impression.

Are the private developers who will put up $8 million dollars as *delusional* as the politicians?

Hard to believe.

Not really that hard to believe, diplomat. Remember that in the majority of cases, these "private investors" are still just public companies. Sure, it may not be direct taxpayer money, but neither is it Ma & Pa Kettle throwing in their retirement money because they believe in the dream. It's people like CN executives spending their shareholders' dividends on wasteful junk like a $20-million dollar intermodal facility that sits empty...so they can keep greasing local palms and getting an important voice in the City and tax breaks and favours when needed.

As much as we would like to believe that there are CEOs and politicians out there with a ton of business acumen and fiscal prudence...the reality is otherwise. The US is littered right now with multi-million dollar compensated executives who drove their companies into the ground. So it shouldn't be "hard to believe" at all that private enterprise would be chipping in a few bucks (20% of the proposed project) in the continuing hopes of "if you build it they will come". Doesn't mean it's a smart investment.

In the end, no CEO or politican ever really has to answer for their screw-ups and waste. The CEOs get golden parachutes and the politicians get golden pensions. In a lot of cases, the politicians (as bad or as stupid as they are) just keep getting voted in again and again because the electorate is so brain-washed and polarized in their thinking that they will refuse to vote against the sitting MP or MLA at the time simply to avoid giving the party of another stripe a chance to govern.

Around and around we go.

"Around and around we go."

In spite of that going on for decades we have one of the highest standards of living in the world, the lights come on when one flips the switch, the water flows when one turns the tap on, the garbage gets picked up, the natural gas comes to the house and heats it and the water too, the stores have food and merchandise, the kids go to school, the bus comes on time and the hospital has a bed for you when you need to have an operation...

Aren't we a lucky bunch.

"In spite of that going on for decades we have one of the highest standards of living in the world, the lights come on when one flips the switch, the water flows when one turns the tap on, the garbage gets picked up, the natural gas comes to the house and heats it and the water too, the stores have food and merchandise, the kids go to school, the bus comes on time and the hospital has a bed for you when you need to have an operation"

Way to ruin all of the ranting with a reality check, LOL :)

NMG: "In 1960 or 1970, nobody in PG would have ever predicted that we would eventually have a university, a medical school, a cancer clinic, the infrastructure and facilities we currently have, nor the diversity in the economy that we have today. These changes can and usually will take decades and generations to develop and if you rely on short-term results or trends to drive your decisions, your long-term success can be severely impaired."

That great comment should have been enough of a reality check already! It was bang on!

Cheers!

Ditto NMG and Diplomat.