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Remove fines but add red zone at airport

I feel the proposed $15 fine at Durango-La Plata County Airport to park in the drop-off lane is unnecessary and should not be adopted. I go out to the airport two or three times per month. I have never noticed a problem with the parking in the drop-off zone. Two reasons have been given for enforcing the no-parking rule.

First, it is dangerous to pedestrians. Parking and walking in parking lots is dangerous. Cars park around schools all the time for parents to pick up their children; but no one considers that dangerous and bans cars from parking around schools. I think the parking lot is far more dangerous to pedestrians.

The second reason is the TSA says we are the only one in the country who allows this. (Note: Moab, Utah, also allows parking at the drop-off zone.) Nowhere does it say they are demanding we make this change. This argument reminds me of a teenager who comes to his parents asking to go to a party “because everyone else is going.” Just because most others do it a different way doesn’t mean we have to change our methods. We aren’t a big airport and don’t need to try to be one or act like one.

Also, when the mad bombers park in the parking areas, no one is going to search them there anyway. They will be searched as they go through security, just like everyone else. Finally, it has been mentioned emergency vehicles need to reach the front doors. I would like to propose, in light of that concern, that a 20-25 foot long strip in front of the doors be painted red for emergency vehicles only and the fines be assessed within that area but not outside it. That would keep it free for all the fire trucks and ambulances that pull up so regularly in front of the airport, without basically changing it for all the rest of us.

Caroni Adams

Durango



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