Why Moffett?
- San Jose International Airport does not allow
night-time flights, or flights before 6:30 in the morning. The city is able
to set this curfew only because SJC was built prior to the current federal
law which forbids local regulation of airports. Even if Moffett Airfield
changes from a federal to a commercial airport, because it would be new,
the surrounding cities would still have no control over noise or hours of
operation. Also, if SJC is expanded, then it would lose its' exemption from
the federal law, and San Jose would lose its' power to regulate operations.
[22]
- Package companies have many overnight delivery customers in Silicon
Valley. There is capacity at Oakland and San Francisco airports, but packages
must be trucked farther to Silicon Valley.
- Expansion delays at Oakland International Airport.
-
Offloading lower profit cargo and general
aviation flights to surrounding communities would allow the San Jose airport
to handle more high profit commercial flights.
A January 14th article
[10]
cites IBM government relations manager Merle Gorman explaining why Moffett
cargo flights are important to the Silicon Valley economy. "We
have run into situations where we have had to shut down a manufacturing
line because necessary components were on a truck stuck in a traffic jam
on 101 somewhere between San Francisco Airport and here."
- But IBM is located at Santa Teresa in far south San Jose. Traffic also
gets stuck between Mountain View and South San Jose.
- The more significant issue is the impact of traffic on Bay Area industry.
Is the only solution to inadequate freeways and
public
transportation systems to build more airports?
- Presumably IBM also has an interest in alert and productive employees
who were not awakened at 4:30 am.
Three Possible Futures