PBN Staff
The Rhode Island Airport Corporation is discussing three scenarios for extending the main runway at T.F. Green Airport with the state, local and community representatives after putting the master plan on hold for more than a year, according to airport spokesperson Patti Goldstein.
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“After 9-11 we put the plans on hold because the environment changed and we brought on a new chairman who wanted to review all the scenarios before moving forward. Now we feel it’s time to start looking at them,” Goldstein said.
Proposals for lengthening the 7,200-foot runway to 9,500 feet would require the relocation of Airport Road or Main Avenue, or both. The alternative plan extends the main runway a half mile to the south, across Main Avenue. Main Avenue, one of the three principal east-west traffic arteries in Warwick, would be tunneled under the runway. A historic cemetery on Main Avenue would be relocated, and as many as 359 houses would be condemned.
“In a March meeting we’ll pick which scenarios to put in the Environmental Impact report, and it will take one-and-a-half to two years before anything can happen, which is why we want to start looking at the scenarios now,” Goldstein said. “The runway extension has been part of our Master Plan all along, it was just a question of when we needed it. We feel now is the time. We have to remain competitive.”
All three proposals are expected to face opposition from Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, the city council, and the Warwick and Cranston residents who sit on the Study Resource Committee, which is working on the master plan, because about 350 homes will be condemned under the expansion.
