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After Seven Years the Price Tag is Still Secret Seven years into the aerotropolis planning, city officials have still not revealed what it will cost to service this huge addition to the urban area. The latest reports say the AEGD is “justified and feasible” but when questioned at the public information meeting in late May, both consultants and city officials were unable to provide cost figures, leaving citizens to continue guessing. Major requirements include a new 25 km trunk sewer between the airport and the Woodward Avenue sewage treatment plant that would run up Centennial Parkway and then through 12 kilometres of rural land along Dickenson Road. The consultants report characterizes that as a “significant amount of infras-tructure”. Part of the water supply would come by the same route, requiring a new feedermain on Centennial. Both systems will require new pumping capacity – the sewers because part of the area slopes in the ‘wrong’ direction. Indeed, all servicing is challenged by the fact that the airport is the highest elevation in the city. Stormwater management is further complicated by the headwaters of four major streams that originate in the aerotropolis lands, forcing “enhanced or level one stormwater treatment from a water quality / fish habitat perspective” according to the consultants. If all the wishes come true, including a mid-penisula highway, road costs alone will trump all of this. The consultants call for “creating an east-west link connecting the Highway 6 extension from the airport to the Red Hill Valley Corridor”. They also warn that the current width of “Highway 403 through the escarpment may pose transportation capacity constraints to the development of the area.” |