With Congestion Looming, San Diego Plans Expansion
San Diego International Airport is running out of room, but for now it has nowhere else to go. A November ballot proposing Miramar Marine Corps Air Station as a site for a future commercial airport failed, ending three years and $13 million in site selection efforts. Now, officials must build out the existing 661-acre, one-runway facility as quickly as possible to handle 32 million annual passengers by 2030.
The ballot measure proposed that 3,000 acres of the 23,000-acre Marine base, 10 miles north, be converted into a commercial airport. "We put together the most comprehensive study ever done," says Angela Shafer-Payne, vice president of strategic planning for the San Diego Regional Airport Authority. "We looked at 30 site options. Although not successful, we feel that long-term we conducted a study that [the board] will be able to use." The failed measure echoes a similar bid by adjacent Orange County to convert a closed Marine base at El Toro into a new airport.