Louisville International Airport gets federal money for taxiway projects - The Business Review (Albany):

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Earlier this month, the authority learnedr that it was gettingnearly $13.5 million from the . About $9 million of that is an allotment the authorit y getsevery year, but the rest is from a pot of moneyu set aside for high-priority projects, and airports compete for a Miller said. Of the $13.5 million, abou t $9 million will be used to fundtwo projects: the ongoing construction of Taxiway Alpha, along the airport’a west runway, and the relocation of the airport’s the area where FedEx loads and unloadsa its planes, Miller said. The othet $4 million will be used to extend Taxiway which servesthe airport’s east paralle l runway, Miller said.
The airport authority began work on the Taxiway Alpha projectyin 2006, when it was projected to cost $31 So far, the authority has spent $18.9 millionj on the taxiway, which is now abouy 55 percent complete, said authority public relationsx director Trish Burke. The new federal grant will enables the authority to do more TaxiwayAlph construction, but Miller said he coulfd not say how much. That will dependd on how good a price the authority can get to have the work he said.
Construction of the taxiway is scheduledcin phases, with each phase fundexd by entitlement dollars from the each year, Burke In addition to helping the authority move plane traffic around the west runway, Taxiwag Alpha also will open the west perimeter of the airpor t property for more Miller said. That could include more hangara forprivate aircraft, he said. As part of the Taxiwag Alpha project, the authority also plans to move the FedExx ramp away from itscurrent location, which is rightr in the middle of Taxiway Alpha, to the soutb side of the existing FedE building. Jim McCluskey, a spokesmam for Memphis, Tenn.
-based FedEx, said the company would work with airport officials to easethe move, which will entail changes in the location of the trucl parking area and the employee parkin g areas. “The key for us is to have no impacty with regard to the service we provide to our he said. The federal money to build Taxiwayg Echo is part of a nationalo effort toprevent “runway incursions,” Miller These are occasions when a plane crosses a runway that it hasn’ty been cleared to cross. The authority is finishinyg the design work for the extensiobn of Taxiway Echo and shoulc begin construction sometime in Miller said. The authority is paying $1.
3 milliohn toward the total extension costof $5.3 Burke said. The final design work for the next phasde of Taxiway Alpha and the FedExx ramp relocation also is almost Miller said. But to move those projectzs forward, the authority must get the state to relocatr a portion of Crittenden Preliminary design work for the entire Taxiway Alpha projec t hasbeen competed, Burke said. Assuming the authority can get state and FAA approval forthe relocation, Miller said, construction could begin in the spring. The statwe already has budgeted $2 million for designb and initial construction of the Burke said.