Friday, August 21, 2009
Parking Rates At Airport Raised; Politicians Still Park For Free
Faced with higher costs from a fancy new airport terminal and declining revenues, the Indianapolis Airport Authority is raising parking rates from between 12% to nearly 30% in an effort to boost revenues by $4 million. The biggest percentage increase will be paid by those choosing the cheapest parking at the airport in the economy lot. The politicians, including city-county councilors, state lawmakers and other selected state and local officials, will continue to receive free parking privileges at the airport in the covered garage next to the terminal. I guess this is another one of those tax increases that will only be paid by outsiders. Right?
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11 comments:
Anyone else remember the good ol days where you could go to the airport, grab a bite to eat while visiting a friend on layover, and not feel like you were getting a completely raw deal?
Hell, if I remmeber, there used to be locally owned restaurants there. Now it's all chains.
Another reason to oppose government run healthcare. The politicians will get first-rate care. Your grandmother will be wheeled out into the south 40 to be eaten alive by vultures.
btw another cool thing about Weir Cook airport in the 1960's was paying a dime (unless you hopped the turnstyle) and going to the observation deck to watch the planes takeoff and land.
Indy Student, you should probably reserve such comments since you obviously haven't been to the Indy airport. A large portion of the restaurants in the terminal are branches of independent local restaurants. I would venture to say that they outnumber the chains.
Wait a minute. Didn't they just say a couple months back that they were reducing their lowest-price parking spaces by a dollar or two?
Strange that the rule of 'supply and demand' isn't working - they are seeing fewer cars parked, so they are raising the cost to park.
Speaking of politicians...does anyone know of a RELIABLE source to find out if the roof was open at the game last night? I can't find it in any printed news source.
I don't know if I'm a RELIABLE source, but I watched it on television and it appeared to be open.
D, that's probably true. The new airport though is a lot more inconvenient and the signage in the place is positively horrible. It appears that we've once again overbuilt a public project that may be destined to be a white elephant.
This site says they decided to open it.
They probably didn't have enough revenue to pay Clark's salary, his limousines, the suites he likes to stay in and the lavish parties he throws.
Indy Student...you are wrong about the chains...most of the places to eat are local establishements...I am actually pleased with the new airport.....we will quickly grow into it. It is much more convenient and easy to maneuver. Being able to go from one terminal to another without exiting and reentering through another security check is great.
The core of the matter is that Indy built an airport it didn't really need and that could not be paid for through increased traffic.
I say we didn't *need* the new airport because the old one was good enough.
Years ago on my old blog I noted that we would never see airline growth here - which we definitely haven't - because people travel by air for four reasons, which together will not lead to growth:
1) Visiting family, including funerals, weddings, etc. This only grows as population grows.
2) Conventions and trade shows - FFA, GenCon, Fire Fighters, etc. The convention business here is horrible, I just listed the only three big ones scheduled from July '09 to July '10.
3) Business trips...but as Mitch Daniels pointed out, business HQ's have been leaving Indiana in droves. And most businesses are looking to reduce travel thru virtual meetings of one kind or another.
4) Leisure travel - nobody's gonna come to Indy for the ocean or mountains. A very small number fly in for the races. Hardly anyone flies in for the Colts.
If the airport can't cover the cost of paying off its bonds, the Indiana taxpayer is on the hook for that debt. I am not making this up. So in a sense, the parking increases are a good idea, but a better idea would be to not waste money on things we don't need.
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