People have an attention span of 9.3 minutes.

After that, you need to provide an “emotional anecdote to keep their attention.” So says John Medina, writing in Brain Rules. It’s a great book about how people learn.

So here’s emotion: How are we going to get to and from the airport?

Pay attention now, or get very emotional sitting on a jammed Deerfoot while your flight departs without you.

First, we mourn the loss of the airport’s road to the south Airport Trail, via Barlow Trail.
It’s closing soon. For a new runway.

Yet, most visitors from the airport go south – into our downtown, the commercial centre of the oil patch. Or for tourism to our luxury hotels, shopping, and top-notch restaurants. To the closest LRT link: Whitehorn.

It’s the price to pay for a new runway.

Rick Erickson, a consultant who does the airport’s economic impact study, says the new runway is needed. It’s always been part of the plan. No secret.

The airport is over capacity, and two planes can’t land at the same time. The airport generates one in 10 dollars in Calgary.

As well, he says, the airport gets a bad rap because southern access roads are on airport land, and the airport maintains them. “They don’t need anyone’s permission to open and close Barlow Trail,” says Erickson.

Maybe not, but closing Barlow also destroys the east-west traffic link. The traffic battle shifts north.

That’s where Mayor Naheed Nenshi wants an east-west link, or tunnel, ringing up preliminary costs of $300 million. He needs councillors to vote in support.

They should. Or we’re headed for a traffic mess and symbolic disenfranchisement. The airport runway will force citizens in its own northeast quadrant to battle to work.

Some call Nenshi’s quest for the east-west “a political decision.” This was a campaign promise. So he’s building an economic case, and it’s stronger than any economic reasons for the current southwest LRT line.

Emotion? Sadness. Disdain. This current project goes to some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the city (including our former mayor’s own residential area), and still strands Mount Royal University without a link.

We look at demographics: The northeast quadrant is the fastest growing in Calgary, followed by the southeast. A good traffic link between all our quadrants matters.

Councillors should give Nenshi their support for the airport tunnel, or get ready for an emotional toxic mess of northeast disenfranchisement and traffic gnarl.

And one final note, the Calgary airport authority wisely set aside land for an LRT link to the airport.If the airport tunnel dies on the table, the focus should shift to this fact.