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Copyright 2000 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
July 25, 2000, Tuesday, FIVE STAR LIFT EDITION
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A1
LENGTH: 642 words
HEADLINE: GEPHARDT ASKS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO PROMOTE SPEEDY CONSTRUCTION OF LAMBERT;
TERMINAL
BYLINE: Ken Leiser; Of The Post-Dispatch
BODY:
House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt is urging the nation's transportation
czar to look at how the federal government can speed up construction of a new
Lambert Field terminal.
Gephardt, D-St. Louis County, met Monday with U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Rodney E. Slater in Washington to talk about a wide range of transportation
issues -- including the timing and funding of a proposed terminal.
Trans World Airlines, Lambert's biggest tenant, insists it won't benefit from
the future 9,000-foot parallel runway without additional gates because the
airline has reached its capacity at Lambert, its domestic hub.
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So the city, the airline and others are talking about ways to accelerate
construction of a new terminal -- or other options -- to coincide with the 2006
opening of the runway, airline officials say.
"Timing is the issue," Gephardt said in an interview last weekend.
"I believe that we can achieve the building of the new terminal almost
simultaneous with the new runway. It may lag by a matter of months, but it
won't be a matter of years."
He wants Slater to
"do everything that the federal government can possibly do," including possibly making available
funds from the Aviation Trust Fund, to speed up construction of a terminal.
Under the $ 40 billion
aviation bill Congress passed earlier this year, the Federal
Aviation Administration has
"more revenue in the
trust fund that can be used in a discretionary way to help situations like this,"
Gephardt said.
The bill also permits airports to increase the passenger facility charges they
can charge from $ 3 per flight to $ 4.50.
How to time and pay for a new terminal was actually more of a peripheral issue
of a meeting that focused more on the U.S. transportation department's
priorities for the remainder of the year and its rules on issues such as
trucker fatigue.
Gephardt spokesman Ed Rhode said
"they had a great talk."
While such meetings are not rare, the fact that the ranking Democrat in the
House of Representatives and the nation's transportation chief are talking
about Lambert Field is significant.
The potential new terminal is a major topic for ailing TWA, which concluded
long ago that it needs upgrades to its existing terminal gates in the short
term and ultimately more gates to benefit from expansion.
The St. Louis-based air
carrier has 45 fully operational gates at Lambert and ultimately will need as
many as 20 more.
"Nothing has changed as far as we are concerned," said TWA spokesman Mark Abels.
"Expanded and improved terminal capacity is necessary to go along with runway
expansion."
St. Louis and TWA are still talking about the timing of new terminal facilities
-- which are now banished to later phases of the $ 2.6 billion W-1W expansion
project.
No location has been chosen. Abels said the existing airport master plan shows
a mid-field terminal, near TWA's training center at Lindbergh Boulevard and
Natural Bridge Road.
But a new terminal could require an additional environmental review.
A December 1997 environmental study done for the expansion project referenced
only new terminal facilities west of the existing
Main Terminal at the site of the Missouri Air National Guard facility.
"It is just too premature to be addressing" the issue of location, cost and timing of a new terminal because discussions
are still at a preliminary stage," said airport spokesman Mike Donatt.
That isn't the only obstacle.
In a memo that was circulated around St. Louis City Hall several months ago,
the city concluded it would be
"very difficult and costly" to issue bonds to finance a new terminal.
But earlier this month, St. Louis Mayor Clarence Harmon said he thought the
construction of the runway and terminal could be timed closer together to
benefit the air carrier.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO Color PHOTO headshot - (Rep. Richard) Gephart
Lobbies for Lambert
LOAD-DATE: July 25, 2000