Money has a funny way of changing people’s habits, says Orange County Board Chairman John Moorlach.
If officials were to lure passengers away from bustling John Wayne Airport to other regional airports with public transportation, money, time, and convenience will be the bait, Moorlach said.
“If I can convert time to money, people will say, ‘Wait a second, I’m willing to do this,’ ” Moorlach said.
An agreement that sets annual passenger limits at John Wayne at 10.3 million is set to expire in 2010, and a subsequent cap of 10.8 million passengers will end in 2015. Many county and city officials are looking toward public transportation as a way to divert travelers from John Wayne to airports like Palmdale and Ontario.
With rising jet fuel costs and airfares, people might respond favorably to cheaper ticket prices if they book flights from other regional airports, Moorlach said.
But whether passengers will really be willing to travel by rail or bus to more remote airports with fewer direct flights remains to be seen.
“We need to be open to anything,” Newport Beach City Manager Homer Bludau said. “It seems like there is an awakening to the fact that we’re going to need to move people to regional airports.”
Costa Mesa and Newport Beach are using funding from the Orange County Transportation Authority’s Go Local program for a joint study to examine ways the Metrolink commuter rail system could ease road and air traffic at John Wayne Airport.
The Go Local program, which began in 2006, provides funding for studies for cities to examine ways they can improve access to the Metrolink system.
The two cities are in the middle of completing a study to find public transportation alternatives for John Wayne Airport users, Bludau said.
“We want to take a look at John Wayne users to see where they’re coming from and the possibility of connecting to other regional airports,” Bludau said.
John Wayne could eventually serve as a staging area to link people by some sort of high-speed rail system to airports in Los Angeles and Riverside Counties, Bludau said. City officials hope to have the Orange County Transportation Authority study completed by the end of July, he said.
