Business group proposes new revenue for RDU, including more local taxpayer support
Leaders of the Triangle’s business community are redoubling their efforts to find new sources of revenue for Raleigh-Durham International Airport, potentially to include larger contributions from local taxpayers.
The Regional Transportation Alliance, a program of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, has refined a list of ideas it first presented in January 2020 for how to help RDU come up with an additional $2 billion for construction projects. RDU says it needs as much as $4 billion by 2040 for additional gates, a new main runway, a new rental car facility and other projects, but has identified sources for only about half that much.
The transportation alliance agreed to help RDU come up with new revenue because the airport is so important to the region’s prosperity, said Mike Schoenfeld, director of communications and government relations for Duke University and head of the group’s board.
“The anticipated growth in passenger traffic will not create sufficient funding to cover all the operations and the infrastructure needs over the next 20 years,” Schoenfeld said Friday. “In other words, while RDU can keep the lights on, it will not be able to pay for its capital program without identifying substantial new revenue.”
RDU will rely on federal funding for much of its expansion, particularly the replacement of its main runway, something the airport hopes to finish by the end of 2025. But that federal money is not guaranteed, and members of the alliance’s RDU task force put lobbying federal officials at the top of their list.
“That to me is the top priority,” said John McGeary, a senior vice president at First National Bank. “That’s going to take a lot of support locally from the business community and the state and federal level, because we’re talking about a reallocation of federal dollars. That’s not easy, we all know that.”
The task force recommendations also include several local sources of revenue. Some, such as raising parking fees by $6 a day or establishing a new $2 “access fee” for cars and trucks visiting the RDU campus, would come from visitors to the airport.
But local taxpayers should also contribute more, members of the task force said Friday as they presented their ideas to a room full of alliance members.
The four local governments that own RDU — Raleigh, Durham and Durham and Wake counties — each contribute $12,500 a year to the airport, an amount that hasn’t changed since 1957. The task force recommends they each kick in at least $120,000 a year and maybe more.
“We think the time has come for a thoughtful look at the local funding from the municipal owners,” McGeary said.
Matt Calabria, who heads the Wake County Board of Commissioners, said Friday that the board hasn’t been asked to increase its support for RDU and couldn’t say how the request would be received.
“I think we’d all be open-minded. We’re very much committed to making sure RDU is successful,” Calabria said. “But anything related to budget questions is complicated, and there are always different things to weigh.”
The talk about RDU’s growth comes as the airport is still recovering from the steep drop in air travel during the coronavirus pandemic. The number of passengers passing through the airport remains about 40% below pre-pandemic levels, with business travel slow to come back.
But leisure travel has helped the airline business rebound faster than expected just a few months ago, and RDU will again set new passenger records in 2024, if not before, according to forecasts from RDU.
Joe Milazzo, the alliance’s executive director, said the task force hopes it can persuade Triangle residents to help pay more to accommodate that growth.
“There’s always something people don’t want to pay,” Milazzo said. “There’s something for everybody in this report not to like, quite frankly, but closing the $2 billion gap has to happen at some point. Because doing nothing seems unpalatable.”
The full task force recommendations can be found at www.letsgetmoving.org/priorities/rdu-funding/.
This story was originally published July 12, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Business group proposes new revenue for RDU, including more local taxpayer support."
