Give It Up, Bob

West Virginia Governor Bob Wise, apparently in an attempt to have his name linked to something other than an embarrassing sex scandal that will drive him from office after one term, refuses to let the regional airport concept die the death it so richly deserves. A new bill introduced in the Legislature, and backed by Wise, would give the state Port Authority the power to jam the regional airport concept down the throats of West Virginians who neither want it or need it.

A little background: West Virginia's two largest cities (stop smirking, there are two cities in WV), Charleston and Huntington, are separated by less than an hour of Interstate 64. Back in the years after WWII, each city built an airport, neither of which is exactly "large." Charleston's Yeager airport suffers particularly from it's less-than-stellar location (straddling the top of several mountains). Nevertheless, both airports continue to serve the area well enough. In the era of hub-centric air travel, the possibility of flights from Charleston to about anywhere other than Pittsburgh, Charlotte, or Atlanta is a pipe dream.

In spite of that, years ago the idea was proposed to build a "regional" airport somewhere between Charleston and Huntington to serve all of southern West Virginia. Lincoln County, which is several hours from nowhere, was selected as the location for this "transpark." Since then, the idea has undergone countless studies and reviews. The ones commissioned by the Port Authority have been consistently positive about the need and benefits of a regional airport. Once those studies are reviewed by the FAA, however, they are carefully ripped apart and most of those glowing conclusions shown to be hollow.

One would think that with the FAA casting doubt on the benefit of building the new airport that the idea would simply go away. Oh, if only it would. Apparently unhappy that the only politician to have his name attached to anything in the state in the past three decades was Robert Byrd, Wise came out in favor of the regional airport before he ran for governor in 2000. He's been quite about it recently as the Port Authority's justifications for the project continually unraveled. Now that he has one last chance to establish some kind of a legacy, Cloggin' Bob is trying to slip the Port Authority the power to do the deed in his absence.

Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail in the Legislature. I kind of doubt it.