9.3. Questioning airport expansion
increasingly emphasises that the rapidly growing demand for mobility cannot be met in a sustainable way. As Graham and Guyer (1999, p. 179) have summarised the matter, air transport policy generally fails to address both the integrated nature of transport itself and the broader concerns of society. Some community groups in the ACT region are also proposing broader frameworks for considering aviation and airports than mere demand driven ones, and support the need for a broad-based evaluative research study of Canberra airport taking into account economic, social, environmental and planning factors (May, 2002). This is in contrast to the narrowly deWned economic impact studies of the airport undertaken by ACIL Consulting (Canberra International Airport, 2001b, p. 10; 2003b). In addition, community groups, both in submissions to politicians and in newspaper articles (Willans, 2001, 2002) have questioned the range of subsidies that Canberra International Airport has received. As interviewee “K” stated: