This indicates to me that we are not going to see any business at this Airport for years to come.

Using the recession, competitive issues, etc; etc; etc; at this point in time is rather lame. All these considerations should have been taken into account prior to the spending on $33 Million on the shakey foundation of ****Build it and they will come***


Time will tell.

What a waste of time and money this is turning out to be. Is it just me or has IPG suddenly gone mute on this subject?

"Using the recession, competitive issues, etc; etc; etc; at this point in time is rather lame."

How dare they use facts to support their arguement!

"All these considerations should have been taken into account prior to the spending on $33 Million"

Yea, why didnt the IPG know about the pending economic disaster? Why did they fail to warn the government, regulators and federal banks?

So three years ago when all this process was starting you saw the meltdown Palopu?
You must have made a killing in the markets heh.
It is going to take years , how many is anyones guess, to bring this all to fruitation but it is a good move forward for the area

Well "they might come", if they run out of fuel and can't make it to any other runway.
This whole runway thing in my opinion has been a CROCK since the onset, at best a lot of wishful thinking...

Hope for the best. At least we can boast in having one of the longest runways in Canada.

Which comes first?

The access to path/road or the people?

The access to a navigable river to the people?

Access to a railway or the people?

Access to an airport or the people?

Access to a long runway or the people?

The places that have none of the above have few people.

If you want to grow, or even stay "alive", it is important to have as many good tranportation options as are possible. As with anything else, diversification typically means better survivability.

So, we have much of the infrastructure after we develop the land for warehousing (or as they prefer to say these days, logistics buildings). Lack of infrastructure is no longer an excuse.

Now we need some smart people to figure out how to take advantage of that, and investors who can see a good idea when they come accross it.

Perhaps that will be the biggest challenge.

Gus, Bang on, if we let the nay sayers have their way, we would not have the university, or any development that will encourage growth.

A lot of people are content with what they have, thus taking opportunity away from young people to make a go of it, in the north.

The bleeding hearts down south, feels that the north should be kept in a time bottle. Little do they realize that they get to live in a bubble because we hew the logs, and dam the rivers for them.

I predicted that I would see more negative comments/told you so comments than positive ones when I clicked this story.

Who in their right mind announces they are "close" to a deal.
Here's a thought....wait until the deal is actually done before you go around spouting off about it. At least that way if it goes sideways (as things tend to do) you don't look like a moron and further feed the fire of all the nay-sayers PG seems to be full of.

Its awfull nice to sit back on a full stomach, and b**ch about whatever you think is wrong with the way others are managing the city, province, country ---- whatever, and of course its nice to not have to take responsibility for making any forward thinking decisions that can go "wrong" for any number of reasons beyond any single individual's control, but the fact of the matter is ---

1. This airport is the KEY TO THE FUTURE of the city of Prince George, just the same as the ROAD to Prince George was its future many years ago, and the RAILROAD was years ago as well.

2. In spite of the unfortunate turn of events in the global economy, the severity of which NO-ONE, not even the presidents and dictators of countries forsaw, never mind the armchair critics of this world, this airport and its surrounding infastructure will be the one of the biggest, (if not THE biggest) employers in Prince George within ten years!

3. The money already spent on this project may not give as quick a return on investment as hoped for --- but --- the money spent has already bought a lot of shoes and lunches, for a lot of kids in this community over the last year or so, and is still continuing to do so today, and will continue to do so for waaay more years than all of us have left on this ever shrinking earth.

I wish this project every success, have absolutely NO DOUBT it will succeed in the near future BIG TIME, and am very, very pleased we have men and women of vision in the right places that have what it takes to get these things moving! I also wish our new airport manager every success, and fully believe we've got the right man at the helm today.

palomino

exactly, "close to a deal to making prince george their alternative stop" So when there is a volcanic eruption, or some other major event, they might refuel in prince george. Nice. 33 million for a alternative stop...

Palomino is right on the money. I for one am glad the expansion happened. If we didn't have the new runway there would not even be any hope of attracting new business. Some hope and optimism is better than none. You have to spend money to make money unless you are the government or the mint.

I am also glad that the expansion happened. If nobody would look ahead and build for the future the same people who are critical now would be complaining that nobody ever does anything around here.

The money was spent here and soon enough it will bring results.

If it had not been spent here it would have been spent elsewhere.

Soon (when?) Ottawa is going to make stimulus infrastructure funds available to municipalities all over the country.

We need a lot of it for road construction and road/street rehabilitation. If we don't stand up for our fair share some other city will get it.

Checkingthe comments, it appears that more people do support it. Good, the spending of 33 million on the expansion is the catalyst to something more than we ever imagined. Once it takes off.... we need to be strategic about it, and ensure that we are leaders and not followers.

Get people employed, get people wanting to move back to Prince George. Give us alternative employment opportunity. Get us to over 100,000 people, than you will start seeing thing rolling and real estate market be stronger.

Wow, some impressive, optimistic and refreshing positive comments to counter the sewage some people love to spray out of their tiny little narrow worlds. Time will indeed tell if the airport expansion is a good deal, the same way that time will tell if every other piece of infrastructure built in spite of the armchair critics will add to the future of our city. (Like the building of highway 97; railroads; original airtport; industry; University; CN Centre; Aquatic Centre, etc. etc. etc.)

Now some positive comments, that's nice to see.

The airport runway expansion is a great step towards the future success of Prince George.

Once the new road is built, I believe things will start getting busier up at the airport.

Good luck to YXS!

Palomino- right on. If some of the "visionaries" like palpou were running the city we would still be walking on wooden sidewalks.
Nice to see some positive comments.

Mark me down as part of the "positive" crowd. My simplistic view is that if don't at least make the effort, you won't reap any rewards. I believe it was Wayne Gretzky who said "you miss 100% of the shots that you never take".

I don't think anyone expected there to be overnight transformation of the City once the runway was built and like others have said, the current economic woes ARE a factor that were not around when the business case was being developed. One would assume that with time, the economy will eventually turn around, airplanes will still be flying and people will still need to move cargo. When that occurs, we'll have the opportunity to take advantage of it.

Of course, it won't just magically happen. We need people who are willing to work on it and I have all the time in the world for people that want to try and create new things and who are energetic and optimistic about those possibilities. Those types of people generally get results and I'm happy to have those types of people living in my City.

Right on Palomino and Gus. I share your sentiments. We are the Hub of the north. We are the crossroads to every part of the province. Get a map out and tell me that we are not living in the best place in the province. Air, rail and road has been continually improving and we are grateful.

We can spend money or we can invest money. I believe we have invested money into the future of our city and we will be further ahead for having done this than done nothing.

Just think how many potholes we could of filled with all that new ashpalt on the new runway. :)

Im just sad, that the Horizon air flight, direct to seattle couldnt last.

"Just think how many potholes we could of filled with all that new ashpalt on the new runway."

I personally was out on both ends of the runway before the expansion. You have no idea how many potholes there were. I lost count after 2,873. Unbelievable!!!

However, they are now all filled and landing and taking off on those extensions is much smoother now.

I'm a supporter of this expansion of the runway, but I do have a complaint... clearly this was a sovereignty infrastructure project first and foremost from the feds perspective... the feds should have paid 100% of the cost for this as a result (military budget for northern sovereignty)... the spin of benefits should have been for PG Airport authority, but not a dime of their money (thus our improvement fees) should have went to paying for this project.

red2b wrote: "If some of the "visionaries" like palpou were running the city we would still be walking on wooden sidewalks."

We may yet be doing that once again. Other communities are getting into the habit of putting in some modern wooden sidewalks.

1. Promotes wood ....
2. Sequesters carbon instead of burning it and releasing it into the air ....
3. allows water to drain into soil to be filtered and added to the water table rather than sending it down pipes to dump it into the river with all the surface pollutants it picked up .....
4. feels nicer than hard surfaces underfoot ....

Portland, Oregon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/william200549/3521178918

New York City (block wood pavers)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/william200549/3521178918

Chicago
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markbaratelli/2739025134

Miami hotel
http://www.flickr.com/photos/koshalek/3096776162

Ketchikan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mackenzieandluke/2671916908

New Westminster
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76103677@N00/2503536937

Toronto
http://www.flickr.com/photos/flocci/190487907
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensonkua/2900118123

I would love to see a few wooden sidewalks/boardwalks in Prince George. They would be a maintenance item, just as are asphalt and concrete sidewalks as we know all too well.

I too, really like wooden sidewalks gus, -- but my wife says they're hell on spike heel shoes.

Do I see a potential lawsuit brewing?

Maybe the city will need to get some "sprained ankle insurance" if we go ahead with this idea.

:-)

palomino

I think the law suit with spiked heel shoes should be against the shoe companies that produce that kind of damaging shoeware these days.

I suspect that such cases would be thrown out these days since the walker must take precautions to be properly attired for the exercise they are about to undergo. You know, the proper PPE (personal protection equipment).