Bob Hope Airport launches public input initiative online

Bob Hope Airport launched an online questionnaire on Monday asking for input on various issues — including the possible construction of a new terminal — in order to expand on the information collected from a round of telephone surveys earlier this year.

Residents in the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena area can log onto www.bobhopeairportsurvey.com and complete the questionnaire, which contains fewer questions than the telephone survey, and which have room for more open-ended answers.

The site also contains results from the telephone surveys.

By a roughly 2-to-1 margin, phone-survey respondents favored a replacement terminal at the airport after they were told that the existing building is 80 years old and portions of it do not meet current seismic standards.

The telephone survey results were based on 1,111 interviews in February, with more than half of the respondents — 598 — living in Burbank, where the airport is located.

The most common concerns raised by residents surveyed were the cost of a new terminal, how it would be funded and whether it would be paid for using taxpayer dollars.

Airport officials said all of the funding for a replacement terminal would come from the airfield, which is self-sustaining through parking revenues, rental fees and passenger-related charges.

The funding questions were not answered during the telephone surveys because they were not part of the list of questions drawn up from interviews with focus groups and community leaders.

If the survey respondent had known that financial information, the number of those who favored a replacement terminal might have been even higher, according to organizers.

-- Mark Kellam, Times Community News

Twitter: @LAMarkKellam