Design & Construction
Runway Incursion Mitigation (RIM)
In 2014 FAA began a new nation-wide program of increasing runway safety by focusing on Runway Incursions. The FAA called this program Runway Incursion Mitigation or RIM. An incursion is defined as “Any occurrence at an aerodrome involving the incorrect presence of an aircraft vehicle or person on the protected area of a surface designated for the landing and take off of aircraft.” Paraphrased: a runway incursion is basically a pedestrian, vehicle, or aircraft on the runway or runway safety area when they shouldn’t be there.
In the first phase of the project airports were identified from across the country that had a number runway incursions. At Juneau International Airport the number of Runway Incursions were above FAAs threshold for inclusion in the program at the Taxiway D intersection with the Runway. In order to increase safety at Juneau the airport sought and received grant funding to investigate and provide solutions for Taxiway D.
At the same time, the airport began planning for reconstruction of Taxiway A (the main parallel taxiway to the runway). It only makes sense to include any possible change to Taxiway D along with the reconstruction of Taxiway A. In addition, the airport is taking proactive steps to develop long term plans for two additional intersections (Taxiway C and Taxiway E) that do not meet current FAA guidelines for taxiway geometry that could be included in the design for reconstruction of Taxiway A.
A series of stakeholder meetings were held to gather input from users for proposed changes to Taxiway geometry. The first meeting was held on January 25, 2017. The second meeting was held on April 10, 2017. The Airport Board reviewed the proposed solution at the April 10, 2017 board meeting. A Safety Risk Assessment workshop was held on April 11, 2017. Links to the meeting materials are below.