One approach to Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport could soon be changing.

In Other Action
On Tuesday, the Amarillo City Commission:

Accepted a 35-foot-wide portion of Mark Davis Drive as a public street. The street had been developed privately to serve the Tealwood neighborhood, but residents in recent years had asked for the city to take over its maintenance. A core sample made before the acceptance vote determined the street's construction actually exceeds city specifications, City Manager Alan Taylor said. Tealwood is located north of Northwest Ninth Avenue between Avondale Street and West Amarillo Boulevard.

Approved an $84,244 contract for Palo Duro Diversified Utilities Inc. to remove abandoned railroad crossings on Southwest Fifth Avenue between Tyler and Harrison streets and on Southeast Fifth Avenue between Johnson and Grant streets. The city sets aside some money each year to eliminate the unused tracks in downtown streets, which can become a problem to vehicle traffic, Taylor said.

Approved a $205,010 contract engaging Amarillo Utility Contractors to install water main extensions and new fire hydrants in the vicinity of Northeast 20th Avenue and Evergreen Boulevard; Channing Street and Sanborn Avenue; and Western Street and Northwest 12th Avenue.

The aging bridge that allows car traffic to pick up or drop off passengers at the airport's second-floor ticket lobby needs an overhaul.

KSA Engineers Inc. will design plans for the project and associated improvements under a $222,285 contract approved Tuesday by the Amarillo City Commission.

"It's no different than any of the other bridge rehabilitation that we do," Deputy City Manager Jarrett Atkinson said, ticking off a list of older roadway bridges the city has reconstructed in recent years. "That (airport) bridge deck is almost 40 years old."

Preliminary estimates show the bridge project could cost $1.8 million, he said.

"A lot of the expense will be keeping it open while we're doing the project," Atkinson told commissioners during their Tuesday afternoon work session.

The bridge should remain open to continuous traffic serving departing and arriving passengers, he said.

But because the three lanes will be reduced to one, or one lane and a partial lane, during the repairs, drivers will no longer be able to park for 10 minutes and leave vehicles unattended during the reconstruction, Atkinson said.

"If we allowed the parking, we would have no traffic flow," he said.

KSA also will design a "cell-phone parking lot," where drivers can wait for passengers to call and say they've arrived and are ready to be picked up, city Aviation Director Scott Carr said.

Preliminary estimates place the lot cost in the neighborhood of $230,000, Carr said, adding that money for both projects is available from annual capital improvement funds the airport receives from the Federal Aviation Administration.

A location for the cell-phone lot is still to be decided.

"We'd like to put a monitor out there, where people could check flights," Atkinson said.

Airport users may need to get used to the traffic flow changes eventually.

City officials are considering requiring all traffic on the bridge and the lane below it to be "active loading and unloading" traffic. That means no vehicles could be parked and left unattended, Carr said.

Security measures at most airports have eliminated the unattended parking option entirely, Atkinson said.

But the city retained the option by establishing the vehicle security check, he said.

If parking is eliminated, the vehicle security check would be discontinued, Atkinson said.

The city budgets about $250,000 annually to pay for the vehicle security check. Those funds could be reallocated for other needs, Carr said.

Reconstruction of the bridge and construction of the parking lot should begin this fall, he said.