$3.15M grant to help airport
The Trenton-Mercer Airport in Ewing is receiving another $3.15 million from a federal Department of Transportation grant to continue an ongoing project to rehabilitate three of its taxiways, Rep. Rush Holt announced yesterday.
"This grant will go a long way toward improving services at the airport while providing jobs for community residents," Holt, D-Hopewell Township, said in a press release. "Funding for the airport is a wise investment that will lead to future economic growth," he said.
Mercer County has been doing work on three failing taxiways -- A, C, and J -- for several years, county officials said. The first phase of the project cost about $5 million and was 95 percent federally funded, county spokesman Pete Daly said.
The second phase of work will include repair of pavement cracks, reconstruction of deteriorating portions of the taxiway, milling and repaving of other portions, and the removal of excessive pavement that is no longer useful in the circulation of aircraft.
Workers will alter taxiway fillets to enable aircraft to maneuver important taxiway intersections more safely, and they will realign a poorly conceived taxiway intersection to improve overall airfield safety.
Other planned improvements include the replacement of an obsolete taxiway lighting system with energy-efficient wiring and LED lighting, the completion of new pavement marking and better drainage.
Mercer County Executive Brian M. Hughes said in the press release that he was grateful for the injection of federal transportation dollars.
"The Trenton-Mercer Airport is a significant economic engine in the area," Hughes said.
"It has generated more than 2,000 jobs in the region and generates millions of dollars in local property taxes."
County freeholders voted last week to ratify the grant agreement.
The 81-year-old airfield continues to host more than 80,000 flights a year but has seen a steady decline in traffic over the years.
It has been without commercial service since February 2008, when Boston-Maine Airways experienced financial problems and was ordered to discontinue its Pan Am Clipper Connection.
Flights at the airport peaked at nearly 177,000 in 1992, but by last year had fallen to 80,211, according to a Federal Aviation Administration database.
But a number of pharmaceutical companies and other corporations maintain aviation operations at the airfield, and flight schools and the aircraft servicing outfit Ronson Aviation continue to use the facility.
