| Jaime Castillo: Car rental industry backs off promise to try to ...
After previously threatening to spend $1 million to fight the upcoming venue-tax election, the car rental industry has decided to sit it out after all. "We're not going to fight, in any kind of public sense, the referendum," said Patrick Farrell, a St. Louis-based Enterprise Rent-A-Car spokesman who commented Monday on behalf of a coalition of national rental car tax opponents. The news is a major boost to the efforts of Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, who is leading an establishment push to extend the tax on hotel rooms and car rentals that was used to build the AT&T Center. If approved by voters on May 10, the $415 million package of four referendums would pay for various public projects. They would include amateur sports fields, a performing arts center, river enhancements and future improvements at the AT&T Center.
'Waiting lot' opens at Lihue Airport
A free "waiting lot" opened Friday at Lihue Airport on Kauai for motorists to park and wait for passengers on arriving flights. The lot, which is located along Hoolimalima Place next to the car rental facilities, will be open from 5 a.m. to close of business day. Airport officials believe the waiting lot will make it convenient for those picking up arriving passengers and reduce traffic congestion near the baggage claim area. Modeled after similar waiting lots at Honolulu International Airport and Mainland airports, motorists can use the lot to wait until they're called on their cell phones by the passengers they're picking up, no longer having to drive in circles around the airport. Users can wait up to an hour on the lot. Commercial vehicles are not allowed.
Yeager runway to close to make room for hangars
Officials at Yeager Airport plan to close a runway to make more room for general aviation hangars and potential new aviation-related businesses. The airport's governing board voted Wednesday to shut down the 4,750-foot crosswind runway, used mainly by smaller private aircraft. The closure would also help the 130th Airlift Wing proceed with development plans that include building two new hangars and adding ramp space to allow four additional C-130s to be based at Air National Guard facility. The idea of closing Runway 15-33 to create additional development space for the mountaintop airport is a key component in Yeager's master plan update, now in its draft stage. "We are now parking as many commercial airplanes as we can at the terminal area, although the new rental car facility, when complete, will give us one more space," Yeager Airport Director Rick Atkinson said.
Fast rail offering hip personalised travel
E-TICKETS, on-board DVD rentals, events, and even new encounters French rail's new iDTGV trains are testing a new way of travel. Music blares from a speaker in a bustling bar and conversations get louder as customers just out of Paris meetings trickle in, settle down and order drinks. The barman hands over a beer, spilling a little as the brightly-coloured buffet car on the top deck of a customised high-speed TGV train rolls into its three-hour journey to the Mediterranean port city of Marseille. Joined to a regular TGV train, this iDTGV, playing on the French word "idee" or "idea", is operated privately, but owned by the national SNCF rail company and designed as a laboratory for future rail travel. Planned party train on the way The iDTGV was launched in December 2004 and offers cheaper tickets, internet reservations, and services aimed at pleasing passengers, including a soon-to-be launched party train, to help the SNCF better compete with low cost airlines.
D.M. airport plans good show amid post-caucus surge
Des Moines International Airport officials plan no circus acts Friday, but a roving magician will entertain journalists and political organizers as they leave Iowa and its 2008 caucuses in a vapor trail.
Airport and Transportation Security Administration officials say it will be all hands on deck on Friday and Saturday to handle a probably 50 percent surge in passengers leaving the state's largest airport. They're keen to put on a good show because 2004's departures were marred by long lines at the security-screening area, frayed nerves all around and rental cars that went missing for days. .
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