North Bay airport gets $5M upgrade: Crosswind runway updated to meet modern standards.

• Date: 01 October 2019
• Author: Kelly, Lindsay

The secondary runway at Jack Garland Airport in North Bay has received a $5-million upgrade.

At 5,000 feet, the crosswind runway is half the size of the facility's 10,000-foot main runway, but it had deteriorated to a point that renovations could no longer be deferred.

"It has not received anything other than repair and overhaul for 30 years," said Kelly Hewitt, the airport's commercial development manager. "So it was at the point where something needed to be done or we were going to have to look at limiting its operation."

Pilots use a crosswind runway when winds are high and using the main runway would jeopardize a safe landing. Smaller aircraft are particularly impacted by crosswinds.

In North Bay, renovations consisted of removing all the asphalt from the crosswind runway and performing some maintenance work on the substrate, Hewitt said.

Since many of the industry regulations have changed over the last three decades, the runway had to be brought up to contemporary standards, he noted.

That included lighting and the landscaping of the runway end safety areas (RESAS), areas surrounding the runway serving as a sort of safety net that helps reduce potential damage to a plane that overshoots the runway.

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