NewHavenBIZ

New Haven BIZ-June:July 2020, Book of Lists

Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/1261820

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 6 of 59

n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m | J u n e / J u l y 2 0 2 0 | n e w h a v e n B I Z 7 T R E N D I N G Q&A Last November Sean Scanlon, a Democratic state rep. from Guilford, was named executive director of Tweed New Haven Airport, which straddles the New Haven-East Haven line and has been trying to expand service in the face of neighborhood opposition since airplanes had two wings. e U.S. Supreme Court indicated in March that it would not take up the state's request to review a federal appeals court ruling that Tweed could proceed in efforts to lengthen its main runway to accommodate larger commercial aircra and enhanced passenger jet service.. Now that you've won the court challenge allowing you to expand the runway safety zones, what's next? In March we won a major victory ten years in the making. By not taking the state's case [restricting runway length, the principal barrier to expanding passenger service], the Supreme Court effectively ended the legal opposition to expanding the runway. What's the next step to expand service? In September 2019 we began a master plan process with the FAA, which funds most major airport projects, to be completed and submitted to the FAA by March 2021. To complete that plan we will continue to solicit feedback from the neighborhood and other stakeholders about our shared priorities for the neighborhood, the airport and the region. We were scheduled to begin a new round of public meetings in June, but that was put on hold due to the coronavirus. Part of those discussions will involve the creation of a community benefits package that would benefit the neighbors. What is in the master plan? Three things: 1) The length of the main runway. 2) Where is the new terminal — will it reside where it is now, on the New Haven side, or is it better to be moved to the East Haven side, which is a commercial neighborhood. And 3) the future of the [secondary] runway, which has been shut down for years because it needs repaving and we haven't had the money to do it. As part of his campaign to improve the state's transportation infrastructure, Gov. Lamont said he wanted to have a functioning southern Connecticut airport, and that would be either Tweed or Sikorsky Airport in Stratford. Sikorsky is not licensed for commercial flights, they do not have a terminal. We have commercial flights every day; we have a terminal, and are interested in building a new terminal. And we have a lot of interest from many different airlines, especially since the [uncertainty] of the court case has been lifted. So there really is no competition. n Tweed: Finally ready for takeoff? Epidemics & Society, by Frank M. Snowden. Yale University Press, 582 pps. $22. Yale emeritus history professor Frank Snowden didn't even know about the coronavirus epidemic when his newest book, Epidemics & Society, was published late last year. Propitious timing. "Like all pandemics, COVID-19 is not an accidental or random event," Snowden writes. "Epidemics afflict societies through the specific vulnerabilities people have created by their relationships with the en- vironment, other species and each other." e study of epidemics, Snowden argues, is not an esoteric pursuit for the scientific specialist, but a major element in the "big picture" of historical change. Few if any cataclysms before the world wars of the 20th century exerted a more dramatic influence on the development of the Western world than the three major MAKING BOOK ON BUSINESS Enough To Make You Sick WHAT'S YOUR SIGN? Walk is Way — Not! Has any traffic signal ever been paid less heed than this one? Technically it's a pedestrian signal, whose purpose is to help those on foot avoid being killed by traffic. Like so much in life, the signals offer the viewer a stark, binary choice; a white silhouette of an ambling human figure means Walk; the red palm of an outstretched hand means Don't Walk! There are no written words — the viewer needn't read English, or read at all, to get the message. Even given that, virtually no one pays them mind. Some of New Haven's most overeducated denizens are often seen staring blankly at the signs while idling at a down- town intersection, frozen with indecision about what the sign means and what they should do: Walk? Or Don't Walk! Then they invariably step out in the path of oncoming traffic. If you are a New Haven taxpayer, you will not be comforted to learn that the Walk/Don't Walk! signs cost $800 each (just to buy, not to install) — and that the city has some 1,000 of them in service (eight units per four-way intersection), according to the city's director of traffic and parking, Douglas Hausladen. Complete traffic signage and infrastructure (stop- lights, poles, wires) for a single city intersection runs about $440,000, he said. n bubonic plague epidemics that terrorized entire populations and transformed the demography of Europe from the 6th cen- tury into the middle of the 20th. In recurring cycles, Snowden explains, the plague exerted a major brake on pop- ulation growth between the 14th and 18th centuries, substantially infusing both reli- gion and popular culture, "giving rise to a new piety, to cults of plague saints and to passion plays." In doing so it changed "the relationship of people to their mortality, and indeed to God." Yikes. In the 20th century, the scourges of smallpox, cholera and tuberculosis gave way to HIV/AIDS, SARS, and Ebola. But most of the public-health tools governments employ against little-under- stood scourges are little changed from six centuries ago. During plague outbreaks Venetian authorities held crews of trading ships in isolation for 40 days. Snowden concludes that for societies confronted with deadly pandemics, "pub- lic health...must override the laws of the marketplace." e current COVID crisis puts that prescription to the test. n Sean Scanlon

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of NewHavenBIZ - New Haven BIZ-June:July 2020, Book of Lists