ENDOW Study. Air Travel First

 

 Federal Express at the Natrona County International Airport.  An airport that can  handle a plane like this could sure easily handle intra state air travel.

We've posted a lot about Wyoming's Boom and Bust economy over the years, particularly the last few years as we've slid into a bust.  Supposedly we're coming out of that right now, although a report that the state issued last week stated the opposite.  Citing employment figures, the report felt we were still in a bust.  Perhaps note noted in that, although I've discussed it here, a revived petroleum economy is not likely to be quite as labor intensive as prior booms as technology has developed to the point where exploration and drilling are not as labor intensive as they once were.  This will not be true. . . yet, of the support infrastructure where more of the jobs actually are, but we note this as the oil industry as subject to the labor reducing aspects of technology just like everything else.  This should give economic planners in Wyoming pause.

Anyhow, a study was commissioned by the Legislature on this topic, not that such legislative committees are that unusual.  The committee had some heavyweight executive members at that.  So what did the committee come up with?  Here's its very first recommendation:

ENDOW Preliminary Findings and Recommendations:

Focus on Infrastructure

Improve and Expand Wyoming’s Commercial Air Service

Finding

Commercial air service is a significant limiting factor to expanding and diversifying Wyoming’s economy. Multiple pressures within the aviation industry have forced many states to compete for a limited number of opportunities to solve this problem. Wyoming must be aggressive in finding a solution that will support attracting and retaining reliable air service. Air service is critical to supporting businesses, residents, and entrepreneurs.

The Aeronautics Division of the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) has proposed a Commercial Air Service Plan (CASP) that will create a predictable, reliable and affordable option for air service in Wyoming.

Recommendation

The Executive Council supports WYDOT’s 10-year CASP to augment the existing Air Service Enhancement Program (ASEP) and recommends the Wyoming Legislature appropriate funds necessary to fully implement an approved CASP.

What's the WYDOT  Commercial Air Service Plan?  Well, its the Wyoming Department of Transportation plan to have subsidized intra state air travel here.  It had some legislative support, but it seems marooned right now.

None the less, according to Joan Barron of the Casper Star Tribune, something will be happening in the legislature, that being:

To that end, the Legislature this month will be asked to consider a bill to set up an 11-member commission comprised of a mix of legislators, executive branch and private sector representatives and the public at large. The governor serves on the council but without a vote.

So we're going to get a commission.

 

 Ford Tri Motor at the Natrona County International Airport.  Our air connections in the state aren't much better than when this airplane was new.

That's good, but it isn't exactly action either.

Not that there isn't some action.  As her article also notes:

Since 2004, Wyoming’s Air Service Enhancement Program has provided financial support to airports in communities around the state with a 60 percent state and 40 percent local match.

The current funding level, however, has dropped to $2.4 million per biennium.

“We can run it for another year,” [Converse County Senator]  Von Flatern said.

This whole topic, we should note, is just full of interesting ironies.  The lack of adequate air travel in the state has long been noted as a real deterrent to economic development in the State.  Indeed, since World War Two Wyoming has actually suffered, long term, an infrastructure decline.  Coming out of World War Two we had little regional air travel (we did have service however) but we had bad roads and good rail.  Following the 1950s, however, we lost commercial rail and had the highways, which were being much improved post war, including the introduction of Interstate Highways, and we had expensive air to the neighboring state and somewhat intrastate.  That continued on into the 1970s but by the 1980s we'd lost air connections except to Denver and Salt Lake, including the loss of much of the intrastate connections.  Now we have poor air travel for the most part and are reliant on the highways.

 Curtis CW-20 in what was, unfortunately, the golden age of transportation in Wyoming.  Passenger rail still existed, air travel did as well with what would became better connections than we have now, and the Interstate Highways were going to be started by the end of the decade.

Those highways receive a lot of Federal funding, making our "get the Federal government out" campaigns fairly absurd, unless we hear wish to return to an 1880s level of transportation around here. Without Federal money, our roads are going down the tubes and we know it.  We have no passenger rail, and we are dependent upon subsides already for air travel as it is.  If the Federal bucks were gone, the Interstates would become major state liabilities and quite frankly that would end any economic development here at all.  Of course, we know that the Federal government isn't going to pull the finding for the Interstate highways, but we seem not to notice that subsidies for highways differs very little from subsidies for any other type of transportation.  Indeed, a person can make a really good case for subsidies for rail and air travel being much more efficient in some ways.

Anyhow, its interesting that when this comes up, and it does repeatedly, air travel is always mentioned.  And the only way to get this off the ground, so to speak, is to have the state do something.  ENDOW has noted that and is expressly endorsing what WYDOT came up with.  But the legislature, while stating some support for WYDOT's plan, didn't carry through with it, or at least hasn't yet.

And, as the same time, we have three GOP candidates all claiming that the Federal Government needs to get out of the state, and presumably take their money with them, which would flat out kill air travel in some towns where it's barely holding on.

Now, I'll be frank that not only do I have an opinion in this, I have a vested interested.  In my occupation, I have to travel a lot, and that means traveling by car a lot.  In the winter its risky, and it takes hours and hours to do it.  It makes simply doing business in Wyoming expensive, and the legislature knows that.  Heck, they have to drive to Cheyenne, they can't get there any other way.

We know what to do.  But are going to do anything?

I sort of doubt it.