Earlier quoted context omitted.
I expensed the taxi. It was 1am. Train another 2-2.5 hours.. It’s Japan. Obviously I knew about the train lol. Their trains are awesome!
That must have been an unusual situation, as Narita closes at 23.00.
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Why is it so hard to build an airport?
221–230 of 574 posts
Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the main counterexample to 'The Olympics are good because they force the development of infrastructure that otherwise wouldn't get built' argument. Many of the weird choices about that airport was made so it would be open and useful for the 1976 Olympics. The location was closer to Montreal (but father from Ottawa) in part to make the international arrival experience better for the fans (not for the long-term us…
I thought the main counterexample to that argument was the fact that it has never worked anywhere. From what I've heard, the Olympics have failed to benefit every city that's hosted them except LA, and the reason they were good for LA was specifically that no new infrastructure was built to accommodate them.
I think Munich did well in 1972. They got a lot of public transport and most of the sports facilities are used a lot.
Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what you'd really gain. As it is, you can check-in online and I'm mostly just going straight to TSA Pre-check. It's all a trivial part of the airport infrastructure. And there are a bunch of reasons to have gates that you actually board the planes from.
Convenient drop off in town instead of having to drive 45 minutes, and then pay to park your car. By placing all the security stuff at the 'town end', that would also allow for things like lounges, etc. The actual terminals could be very compact since you wouldn't head out there until it's almost time. Could use a small-vehicle people mover type system... imagine scanning a boarding pass when you get on the vehicle,…
In town is only convenient if you live in town or are visiting there. Where's the parking? Where's the rental car service? The actual terminals are a pretty trivial part of the total airport area.
Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?
#224When building https://randomairport.onrender.com/ I noticed that US and Euro airports always look very different Somehow US airports always seem to be surrounded by densely populated residential areas, even in the direction of the runways, while Euro airports don’t seem to have this problem. And secondly Us airports always seem to take huge plots of land compared to Euro airports. My assumption is that Us cities are…
> US airports always seem to be surrounded by densely populated residential areas The US in general is very densely built up. The distinct lack of green space in US cities is very noticeable to the non-US observer. So I think its more of a case that US airports are surrounded by "less" densely populated areas. > And secondly Us airports always seem to take huge plots of land compared to Euro airports. With the except…
Haven’t spent a lot of time on the US east coast but on the US west coast we have low density sprawl with also not that many parks.
Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?
#225How much does Bent Flyvbjerg's work on megaprojects impact this?
Around 2000, he used to claim that either people didn't understand the scope of very large projects, or that there were shenanigans involved.
One of Flyvbjerg's more recent papers: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.0003
Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?
#226> And an airport can’t be too far from a city and remain useful, since travelers need to access the city, workers need to be within commuting distance, and so on. In Canada, Mirabel airport was built 35 miles from Montreal, surrounded by a 79,000 acre buffer zone to prevent any issues of incompatible land use. Mirabel was expected to replace Dorval (today Montreal-Trudeau) as Canada’s main eastern airport, but, in pa…
It also should be connected to the national rail network so long distance trains go there directly. It greatly reduces time to switch trains when you're not directly from the nearest city. Vienna did this with their airport.
Switzerland also has this, for example there is a direct train from Zurich Airport to Geneva Airport.
Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?
#227Has anyone ever tried to build an airport where the terminals and actual flight ops area was miles away (noise, etc). Basically I'm picturing something like an urban train station (plus TSA, and customs) that would be located downtown. This is where you'd have check-in, security, baggage claim, etc. After clearing security, you'd get on some sort of rail transit (monorail, maglev, subway, whatever, doesn't matter THA…
What's the benefit of having security outside the airport? There are tons of airports that connect to cities by rail transit. Within the recent past, I've been in three of them, PVG, HKG, and KHH. In no case do they put security outside the airport. For one thing, subway lines have multiple stops. In order to make sure that everyone who's going to the airport has to go through security, you'd want security to occur a…
The point of doing it this way is that the secure perimeter would extended all the way to the central station. That's the whole idea. Essentially, this urban hub is "the airport" in terms of traveling to it. Think of the actual hub -> board gates/runway connections as like a really long people mover, not just extending a subway line and drawing a new dot.
Trains could travel on a totally grade separated route with strict access controls. Having the last mile part of the train journey controlled by the airport instead of some civic transit authority would allow for a much more reliable system, since they would be insulated from disruption to the larger system, and could also make situation specific choices for optimization.
For instance: Compared to standard transit, many people will be bringing carry on luggage... so probably best to scale everything up maybe 25%...physically make the car wider. Wider doors, wider aisles. Luggage racks everywhere... maybe to a standard width but only have two seats on one side, and luggage rack on the other.
Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?
#228> And an airport can’t be too far from a city and remain useful, since travelers need to access the city, workers need to be within commuting distance, and so on. In Canada, Mirabel airport was built 35 miles from Montreal, surrounded by a 79,000 acre buffer zone to prevent any issues of incompatible land use. Mirabel was expected to replace Dorval (today Montreal-Trudeau) as Canada’s main eastern airport, but, in pa…
Montreal isn't the only city that failed with a too-far-away airport. Tokyo built Narita against much local opposition (they still check your ID before you're allowed inside the airport, to make sure you're not an angry local resident), and the opposition resulted in not being able to build the transport link they wanted (the Narita Shinkansen). The result is a good hour wasted on conventional rail to get to Tokyo. (…
Arlanda feels like another good example of a "far out" (23 mi) airport that works pretty damn well. 18 minutes on the train.
Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds like exceptionally poor planning. Just to confirm, the new airport served pretty much only international flights? It should have been the nexus for domestic travel to connect to the big hop to Europe, meaning it should have had a ton of domestic routes as well feeding it.
Just to confirm, the new airport served pretty much only international flights? It was a pretty common urban planning concept for a large city to have one airport devoted mostly or entirely to domestic flights, and one mostly or entirely for international flights. New York domestic: EWR New York international: JFK New York freight: LGA Chicago domestic: MDW Chicago international: ORD Houston domestic: HOU Houston int…
I too thought 'international' in the name meant something. Until I worked with a guy who was into gliders. They named the large empty grass field that you had to drive for an hour to get to an 'international' airport. It was basically just enough to get a very small airplane aloft with a glider attached. They thought it was funny they pulled it off.
Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the main counterexample to 'The Olympics are good because they force the development of infrastructure that otherwise wouldn't get built' argument. Many of the weird choices about that airport was made so it would be open and useful for the 1976 Olympics. The location was closer to Montreal (but father from Ottawa) in part to make the international arrival experience better for the fans (not for the long-term us…
I thought the main counterexample to that argument was the fact that it has never worked anywhere. From what I've heard, the Olympics have failed to benefit every city that's hosted them except LA, and the reason they were good for LA was specifically that no new infrastructure was built to accommodate them.
Many will disagree with me, but the Vancouver Olympics prompted construction of some things that I would consider vital to the Sea to Sky region - the highway upgrade being the biggest.