Theoretically related to the Essential Air Service, but really about IH-222
Subsidies
Keep Airlines Flying to Small Towns (NYTimes).
PUEBLO, Colo. -- Hoping for an empty seat beside you on your next flight?
No problem -- just schedule a trip to someplace like Kingman, Ariz.;
Brookings, S.D.; or Pueblo.
They are among more than 100 locales around the country that receive
federally subsidized airline service, and the average number of passengers
on each flight is about three.
Now you all might be thinking I'm posting this article because it's about
an airline subsidy program; if so, you'd be accurate about what sparked my
initial interest; that's not why I'm posting this, though. I'm posting this
because of a quote by Senator Arlen Specter, R-PA, regarding the Lancaster,
PA subsidy:
"Lancaster is 66 miles from the Philadelphia International Airport if you
travel along Route 30, which is the old Lincoln Highway, where there is a
traffic light every other block," Senator Specter said in introducing the
legislation in June 2003. He added that "any rational person" would take
Interstate 222 to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a faster route, at about 80
miles. Similar arguments were made for Alamogordo and for Brookings.
Interstate WHAT? Come, how could a member of Congress not know
the intricate and sometimes incomprehensible details of the transportation
network in his own state? Any fool knows that the Eisenhower Interstate
System follows a well-established ordering for the primary grid [1];
auxiliary routes (most of the 3-digit interstates) are always associated
with their parent interstate (latter 2 digits), which necessarily restricts
where they may be [2]. The east-west interstates in PA are around the 70's
(Pennsylvania Turnpike is IH-76, though best of luck finding such signs on
the road itself); 22 is down in the south, and has no auxiliary routes [3].
Not knowing the interstates in his own state, sigh...
Now, if he's thinking about US-222, we can talk. Personally, I
think the drive along US-30 is rather pretty (on both coasts, actually),
though I'm becoming more inclined to jump over to US-202 near Phila.
Footnotes:
[1] Blatant lie. See IH-99, IH-69 for examples. By the way, IH-99 is
in PA, and is one of the aforementioned "incomprehensible details".
[2] Blatant lie. See IH-238.
[3] Actually true. In part because the interstate is still being
built...