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Originally Posted by Nashe
Not trying to be a jerk but, how's that route 7 twinning coming? That (and the "on again, off again" Route 11 twinning project) tells me a lot about the NB government's interest in big projects. When I say "market", I mean "business case" because I don't see the provincial government having deep enough pockets for this in my lifetime.
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It would surely be a lot more than just the provincial government… the federal government would be equal investors at least.
As for the business case, I think the idea speaks for itself that both cargo and passenger traffic would increase greatly. The Higgs government absolutely won’t be for such a massive project, but don’t count out Susan Holt. She’ll very likely be the first Premier representing Moncton in the history of NB, and Saint John voters may very well be the difference makers that elect her.
There’s a demographic case for it too… a better airport for Fredericton and Saint John facilitates immigration as well. Two million plus passenger airports should be the goal. YSJ and YFC will likely never crack 1 million yearly passengers on their own.
As for the deep pockets, do we really want to get into billions left one the table or wasted on inefficient tax systems or even subsidies to industry? A billion dollar project isn’t that hard to finance for a province of soon to be one million people, especially not if we enacted comprehensive tax reforms and stopped being so generous with subsidies to industries that don’t need the subsidies.
It would be better to start the groundwork now, waiting around to hit a million people or another milestone is just arbitrary. Saint John and Fredericton aren’t ever going to stop being two of the three biggest cities in NB that could share an airport roughly 30 mins away from each other.
Why wait around for more population growth to invest in an idea that makes sense now? And will only continue to make more and more sense into the future.
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