Southwest Airlines may provide low-cost travel to its passengers, but its proposal to relocate its terminal to Boeing Field will cost Seattle neighborhoods and businesses immeasurably.
The Dallas-based airline says it considers its impact on its airports' residential neighbors, yet it proposes to pay only $130 million, and that's for its own terminal, parking garage and accommodations for its own airport traffic.
Even if the neighborhoods were to receive the same amount of money, it still wouldn't compensate for the resulting decrease in property values and the displacement of thousands of homes, businesses and jobs - no matter what the misguided Ron Sims says.
The dozen businesses Southwest Airlines claims to displace include the Seattle-founded UPS parcel carrier, which only has about a dozen flights daily. Yet, interestingly, the airline's proposed plan doesn't appear to include the King County Sheriff's Special Operations building nor Paul Allen's large, private hangar.
That is not to speak of the many other airlines that will want equal treatment from the county, including Seattle-based Alaska Airlines and Horizon Airlines, which have already voiced their desire to defect from Sea-Tac International Airport as well.
With Southwest's proposed "maximum" of 80 daily flights and the possible addition of numerous other commercial flights, this could only bring even more constant noise pollution to the communities already affected, even with quieter engines on Southwest's 737s.
And despite community protests, Sea-Tac's third runway is being built only a few miles away to accom-modate the increased air traffic that Southwest Airlines projects to bring to the area.
It doesn't stop there. The roads around Boeing Field cannot accommodate the added traffic. The Georgetown neighborhood's arter-ials are at capacity most of the day as it is, with heavy commercial trucks and others working in the nearby industrial area.
Georgetown would effectively cease as a residential community with all the acres of land that the county will no doubt take by eminent domain to construct better, wider roadways for the airport.
The infrastructure alone would cost millions, if not billions, and that would mostly be paid for by King County residents and not the thousands of others outside the county who use Southwest Airlines. Not to mention the costs of enhancing the security all around Boeing Field, which the airfield's current tenants will incur because of their access to the runways.
As members of the Greater Seattle community, we should boycott Southwest Airlines and instead support Boeing Field's current neighbors, tenants and users. We should let the Metropolitan King County Council know that their constituents won't stand for the airline's Texan arrogance or the King County executive's ignorance of his own Seattle communities.
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