Once, back in 2001, I took a flight from Paine Field.
It was a short trip, with bird’s-eye views of the hot tubs and manicured yards of Harbour Pointe. After a loop out to Whidbey Island, we landed back where we started — at the Snohomish County Airport.
It’s true, but the aircraft was no commercial jetliner. I was lucky enough that August day to take a slow-speed, low-altitude ride on a Goodyear blimp. The floating billboard was here for Seattle’s Seafair festival.
That was the first time I ever flew out of Paine Field. If vocal opponents of commercial air traffic at Paine Field have their way, my blimp ride could turn out to be my last flight from Snohomish County.
In my mind, that doesn’t make sense.
Since 1998, I have written three times about wishing for airline service to Snohomish County. The 1990 Census found 465,628 people living in Snohomish County.
In 2008, when Allegiant Air and Horizon sent letters to the county indicating interest in operating Paine Field flights, I wrote that communities much smaller than ours are served by commercial airlines. When I wrote that 2008 column, the state Office of Financial Management estimated Snohomish County’s population at 696,600.
Just our county’s population increase between 1990 and 2008 — 230,972 people — is more than the population of Spokane, Washington’s second-largest city and the first place I’d fly if airline service came to Paine Field.
On Thursday night, more than 500 people packed the performance hall at Mukilteo’s Kamiak High School for the last of three public hearings for the Federal Aviation Administration to take comments on a draft environmental assessment regarding commercial air service at Paine Field.
Horizon Air has said it wants to fly from Paine Field four times a day to Portland, Ore., and twice daily to Spokane, using 75-seat Bombardier Q400 turboprop airplanes; Allegiant has plans for two flights a week to Las Vegas, using 150-seat McDonnell Douglas MD-83 jet aircraft.
At a public hearing Jan. 4 at Meadowdale High School, Christine McCroskey of Lynnwood shared her opposition to commercial flights: “We moved out here for the quality of life, and we want to keep it that way,” she said.
Many at the meetings fervently questioned the conclusions of the environmental assessment, in which an Oklahoma-based consultant found that introducing as many as 8,000 commercial flights a year at Paine Field would result in no significant impact.
How can residents of one part of Snohomish County expect no change, when all around them communities see massive changes — in traffic, construction and, yes, quality of life?
On Jan. 15, The Herald reported that Swedish Health Service will soon build a three-story medical building near I-5 and 128th Street SE. The Puget Park Drive-In theater will be torn down to build the facility, which will include a 24-hour emergency clinic.
Tuesday’s Herald told of plans in Monroe, near North Kelsey Street, for a 24-acre development that may bring a big-box store such as Wal-Mart, Costco or Target. Two blocks from my house, a 12-story tower is being built at the Colby campus of Providence Regional Medical Center Everett.
Neighborhoods all over the county are experiencing changes that bring jobs and amenities, but also traffic, noise and people.
These are changes we can see. Other changes aren’t so visible, but they cut deep.
In October, we all swallowed a bitter pill with news that the Boeing Co. would build a second assembly line for its 787 not in Everett, but in South Carolina. That’s a change sure to harm quality of life around here in years to come.
How about this change? Thursday’s Herald told us that Snohomish County’s jobless rate jumped from 9.5 percent in November to 10.3 percent last month.
On Paine Field’s Web site, www.painefield.com, I found a history of Paine Field, “A Brief Look Back.” It tells us that “Snohomish County Airport-Paine Field was originally constructed in 1936 as a Works Progress Administration project. At the time of development, it was envisioned that the airport would create jobs and economic growth in the region by becoming one of the ten new ‘super airports’ around the country.”
Seventy-four years later, a commercial airport would still create jobs.
I won’t hold my breath. The opponents have spoken — loudly, and perhaps at even their own peril.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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