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maximum development alterna~tives .shou. ldbe considered uncertain. The potential exisi~s fo~ public pressure to prevent these improvements, and meeting necessary federal approvals/criteria for other improvements should not be considered as ~oregone conclusions. Alternative 3 Adding a Search Area A airp~ort while making no improvements to other airports Wou'ld only create '1'/2 of th~ regional capacity needed to 's'erve' expected g'ro'wth'. As with 'Alternativ~ 1, mos't of the new demand would be forced to locate at a_irports outside it.he region, causing a 20 percent drop in reqional accessibility) with the average new aircraft owner requiring a 45 minute drive to find storage f6F his'/he'r plane. Alternative 3 is the6efore inadequate. Alternative 4 Alternative 4 provides adequate regional capacity. A slight .surplus of capacity exists in the west metro area~ while substantial capacity is available ih the ea's{. Accessi'b'~lit~ i.s approlximately the same as is experienced today. As discussed under Alterga~iv9 2 abRve~, many of the conditions necessary _to achieve the maximum capacity at other airports in the system should not be taken for 9ranted. Subalternatives considerinq variations of Alternative 4 are discussed below. · DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS AND SUBALTERNATIVES Of all the alternatives considered only maximum - development of the existing system, plus a new minor airport in Search Area (A) provides sufficient capacity to meet forecasted demand. However, on examining this alternative on an east and west subregional basis, it is apparent that the original'system imbalance, identified in ~he Aviation Guide Chapter, is satisfied. On the West Side there is a surplus of some 13 aircraft storage units while on the East Side there is an apparent excess of 248 storage units. Several options for balancing the demand and capacity for Alternative 4 were assessed. One, was to add more capacity at the new Search Area (A) Airport. This approach was rejected, since 350 storage units was considered the upper limit possible without parallel runways and a tower. A second option was to consider the use of "demand management" techniques to absorb the ~unmet West Side demand with the unused East Side capacity primarily at Anoka Co,-Blaine and Airlake Airports. This approach is also notconsidered plausible s~nce it rests on the assumption that all elements of maximum development capacities are probably overstated in that future aircraft operations are expected to remain relatively low, thus criteria established for obtaining an F/kA control tower may not be met. This results in a reduction in an airports capacity, since parallel runways require a tower. Without additional runways, building areas cannot be built since it would create an imbalance between an airports landside and airside capacity. This would appear to be especially true at Lake Elmo Airport where most of the East Side "unused" capacity occurs. This problem also applies to the Anoka and Airlake Airports.