Airport board to consider shifting runway, and not taxiway, after feedback from federal officials
Aspen/Pitkin County Airport/Courtesy image
Feedback from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and contacts in Washington have forced Pitkin County and the Aspen/Pitkin County airport to reconsider a major component of airport design plans: moving the runway, not the taxiway.
In a joint work session between the Airport Advisory Board and the Pitkin Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday, longtime airport consultant Brad Jacobsen of Jacobsen Daniels, County Manager Jon Peacock, and Airport Director Dan Bartholomew updated the boards on a recent FAA meeting and trip to the nation’s capital.
“From the FAA’s perspective, they are looking at this as how do they maximize accessibility and meet the level of safety that their requirements (dictate),” said Jacobsen. “To do that, they want to review other alternatives other than the preferred plan that we bring forward.”
Reviewing alternatives ensures, in the FAA’s eyes, that their money is invested soundly, which runs in line with the grant assurances with the funds invested in Aspen and all other airports.
FAA “edits” to the revised ALP
Jacobsen laid out the FAA’s four points of issue for further consideration with the revised Airport Layout Plan (ALP): the need to relocate the Air Traffic Control tower, the runway crossings for west-side development, the west-side taxiway extension, and the fourth was access to the 33 (departure) end of the runway.
None of these points are hard stops for the FAA, he explained, but rather that the FAA would like to see alternatives to what’s proposed in the revised ALP.
ALPs are planning documents used to guide funding investments from the FAA. Pitkin County, the airport’s sponsor, currently has an approved ALP from 2016 on file with the FAA. The process of approving that ALP came to a halt when community outcry over environmental, safety, and noise concerns prompted the formation of the Visioning Committee.
That committee, which included over 100 participants, resulted in the Common Ground Recommendations, which lays out community goals for the airport. The commissioners codified those goals in 2020.
Since 2021, the county has been working with Jacobsen Daniels and the then newly-formed Airport Advisory Board to translate those recommendations to an ALP that the FAA would approve.
One of the biggest changes in the ALP that the county took to the FAA in January involved shifting the taxiway 80 feet east, not shifting the runway 80 feet west.
The need to shift the airfield is a result of a desire to expand the terminal, which is woefully small for the travelers and staff who move through it, and the need to widen the taxiway/runway separation from 320 feet to 400 feet to allow the full breadth of aircraft eligible to fly into the Aspen airport to do so.
The airport is an FAA Airport Design Group II, which normally allows aircraft with a wingspan of up to 118 feet access to the airport. Currently, the airport has a “modification of standard,” which limits wingspan to 95 feet.
While the FAA has stressed the importance of widening that separation to eliminate the modification of standard, the potential for planes with a wider wingspan has also caught the ire and criticism of some community members, most notably the group Aspen Fly Right. Founder Amory Lovins has pushed back repeatedly on the need to kowtow to the FAA’s demand that the separation be widened.
The first area of focus in the revised ALP is the Air Traffic Control tower. If the county chooses to move forward with the taxiway separation, the Air Traffic Control tower will need to be relocated and constructed at the FAA’s current standard.
The current tower stands at 37 feet high north of the terminal. Shifting the taxiway would necessitate its relocation, which the FAA would require its construction at 100 feet tall east of the terminal, likely across Colorado Highway 82.
The cost of the relocation study and eventual construction would fall to the airport sponsor, Pitkin County, as the county would be the driving force behind relocating the tower as it is the county’s preference to move the taxiway instead of the runway — which does require a tower relocation.
That cost is estimated to hit over $100 million. Bartholomew said while Aspen’s tower is in need of updating, many other airports’ towers are further ahead in the line of priority for FAA funding.
When the Aspen airport tower reaches the front of the line for FAA funding, that tower will have to be built to its current standards, which might necessitate a 100-foot-tall structure. Peacock said the hope is that developing technology will allow a shorter structure, but it’s impossible to say what that will look like 10-plus years from now.
Another major factor driving the reversal on the taxiway shift preference is the state of the runway. Subsurface issues on the runway have rendered FAA-financed repairs almost moot, and the FAA has stated that they will not pay for any further repairs.
The existing accepted ALP with the runway shift has already gone through a federal environmental assessment, which resulted in a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI). To submit a new ALP without the shift from a runway to a taxiway change would cut the timeline for environmental analysis from about 18 months to 6, according to county officials.
That expedited timeline would put the airport in a better position to capture Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding for the terminal, which is anticipated to cost about $1 million.
“Both of our senators were pretty clear on ‘We have money in our hands that needs to be spent; you need to give us a project, so we can get you a check,'” said Commissioner Patti Clapper.
The other issues the FAA brought up concern maximizing airport access. The FAA’s greatest concerns are safety and access, which local Denver Airports District Manager Jon Bauer has stressed to local officials before.
The FAA would like to see runway crossings toward the ends of the runway and not in the “high energy area” or the middle of the runway, citing a concern over an already complicated runway/taxiway environment
The FAA would also like to see alternatives for a longer west-side taxiway, which is currently limited by City of Aspen Open Space that the county would have to purchase to expand. Jacobsen said the FAA has conceded that they would not force Pitkin County to acquire additional land for that extension.
For the final issue, the access to the departure end of the runway, the FAA wants a different approach. Jacobsen said the FAA is concerned about outbound traffic building up.
Pushing the Aspen agenda in the Capitol
Commissioners Francie Jacober and Clapper traveled to Washington with Peacock to talk with FAA and congressional representatives.
The county officials went in to test the waters on a carbon tax at the airport and use airport-generated revenue outside of the airport. Currently, all airport sponsors nationwide must keep airport money within the airport. In the Pitkin County budget, that fund is the Airport Enterprise Fund.
Jacober said that while the carbon tax would require legislative intervention, expanding the use of airport funds to support something like a solar field or other climate-based solutions seemed to catch the positive attention of the FAA.
What’s next for the boards
The Airport Advisory Board will discuss the FAA feedback at their next meeting on March 21, with an opportunity for public comment. Board Chair Jacquelyn Francis said she hopes to get the board to a vote on the revised ALP, altered to accommodate the recent feedback and incorporating as much of the Common Ground Recommendations as possible.
Both county commissioners and airport board members stressed the importance of incorporating as much of the Common Ground Recommendations as possible into the newly-revised ALP, which likely will turn back to the runway shift to avoid issues with the Air Traffic Control tower and expedite FAA funding to repair the runway.
“We still have plenty of people very concerned about bigger aircraft coming in here and overall growth,” said airport board member Valerie Braun. “I don’t think we should do this decision-making because I think we don’t necessarily know what the community would vote on if they had an opportunity to do so.”
There was no opportunity for public comment at Tuesday’s work session, but there will be at the March 21 advisory board meeting and the future county board meeting.
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