Opinion: Fix U.S. infrastructure by starting with airports
By Erik Hansen, U.S. Travel Association
Does Washington know where to start on an infrastructure overhaul?
Fixing America’s infrastructure is an oft-repeated goal of the Trump administration, and an element of his agenda with the potential to rally bipartisan cooperation. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has said an outline of the administration’s infrastructure plan is coming “in the next several weeks.” While we hope for a balanced approach that achieves many necessary fixes to our country’s transportation framework, there’s one place we believe the administration should start to achieve broader momentum: airports.
Over 900 million passengers passed through American airports in 2016, according to the Bureau of Transportation statistics. That number will soon swell to over one billion per year, which could be an economic boon nationwide, if our airports were able to accommodate that kind of increase.
