Many remote regions of the country are convinced that their economic salvation lies in having an airport. Last week I wrote about Johnstown, PA. and the subsidies we are giving them largely to transport Congressman Murtha to Washington and back. Today, it's Somerset, KY, hometown of Rep. Hal Rogers, and site of the Lake Cumberland Regional Airport, for which we paid $3,000,000 to have built and $1,000,000 to subsidize its operations while it attempts to demonstrate its viability.
The airport, which is a 45-minute drive from Louisville airport, is not yet very busy. It flies four times a week (not a day) to Nashville, a 45-minute flight. It will soon fly to DC every Monday morning and fly back on Friday night. Hmm, I wonder who will be on that flight?
The $1,000,000 operating subsidy is in the form of a grant from the Small Community Air Service Development Program, a government program which has distributed $110,000,000 of our money since 2002. Somerset could have also applied to the Essential Air Service program for a grant; this program gave away $1 billion of our money in the past ten years. Only 30% of the airports that have received these grants are still in business.
Is this a good use of our money when a major airport is less than an hour's drive away? Heck, it usually took me an hour to drive to Logan Airport in Boston from Wellesley.
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For more information on the economic development in Somerset, KY, visit the Somerset profile page on ZoomProspector:
http://zoomprospector.com/CommunityDetail.aspx?id=12093&f=1
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