Why is it so hard to build an airport? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#101

Post by ghaff » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 2:06 PM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #74

perlgeek wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the interesting ideas [...] is to run high-speed rail to Moses Lake Airport in Central Washington and just expand there. While reading this article, I thought about something like that too. Build an airport quite a while away from the big city, and provide a high-speed, maybe even maglev train there. Make it free for customers. Also, make it very inconvenient for passengers and staff to approach the airport…

The aforementioned setup nearly always means the closer airport ends up getting upgraded later to meet convenience demands, leaving the newer-but-inconvenient airport out to dry. See: Haneda (HND) vs. Narita (NRT) in Tokyo, Itami (ITM) vs. Kansai (KIX) in Osaka, etc.

Didn't happen with Denver or Hong Kong.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#102

Post by ghaff » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 2:08 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #87

subzidion wrote: post #52

There's been discussions where the "next" airport should go in the Seattle region, and the consensus is that nobody wants it. The State Legislature created a commission to try and identify some potential sites, but the public backlash was so great that they ended up submitting it's final report with no actual recommendation. One of the interesting ideas (that was proposed even back when SEA was adding it's third runw…

Wasn’t that the idea behind Denver? It’s outside the city by a decent amount (or was when started). I assume proximity to the mountains was also a consideration.

The newer airport is really less convenient to the mountains than Stapleton was. (At least in terms of distance. Not sure about driving time.)

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#103

Post by Gare » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 2:13 PM UTC

freeopinion wrote: post #94

O'Hare airport sits some 40km outside Chicago. It seems like a long way away from the city. Narita airport is about 80km east of Tokyo. Osaka is about 500km west of Tokyo. Osaka's airport is just 15km outside of Osaka. To travel from downtown Osaka to downtown Tokyo would involve 95km of ground transport in addition to the flight. Or you could take the train, which would involve about 20km of transport besides the hi…

> You might think that nobody wants to live next to a train station, either.

Huh? Properties next to train stations usually have higher prices. Electric trains are clean and quiet.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#104

Post by Al-Khwarizmi » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 2:14 PM UTC

dividefuel wrote: post #85

rockostrich wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of it is our definition of cities versus metro areas. Boston's population is technically only 650k but Boston proper doesn't even include Cambridge which is like not including one of the boroughs when talking about NYC's population. Granted, we still have a lot less metro areas with over 1 million people but there are still ~50 of them.

Is this something fairly unique to the US or do other countries do this too? that is, having a city boundary that's relatively small compared to the metro area.

In Spain it happens as well. The official city population numbers quoted by most sources are actually the population of the city's municipality. Sometimes municipalities are large, including rural areas and small towns close to the city, while other times they are smaller and leave outside areas that are effectively boroughs of the city (you walk down a street and are in a different municipality, without even going through any non-urban area). Some years ago there was a project to merge municipalities, focusing especially on cases like that, but it failed spectacularly because it required consent from all municipalities involved and the smaller ones never wanted to merge (partly because it's advantageous for them to not pay big city taxes but still use their services, but I suspect mainly because mayors don't want to just give up their position and go find another job).

This makes rankings by population rather biased and spawns many endless discussions on whether city X is bigger than its rival city Y (and sometimes it might actually have real-life consequences, say, when the central government comes up with some funds for cities of size greater than some threshold).

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#105

Post by jimberlage » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #97

Kon-Peki wrote: post #79

As the article points out, expanding the two airports in Chicago are out of the question. And because it is more or less impossible to build a new airport, they are planning to build a "new" airport. Which means that this tiny little thing [1][2], which handles a dozen or two Cessna flights per day, is intended to "grow" into a 4000 acre major international airport. When it grows to its full footprint, the western ed…

Airport expansion is almost as difficult as building new. In my neck of the woods, some have suggested that the (primarily general aviation) Livermore airport would make a great “reliever” airport for the Bay Area jets, but this is constantly being fought by residents, mostly people in posh Pleasanton, which is on the flight path. It’s understandable that people don’t want more jets flying above their homes, yet, Eas…

"...yet, East Bay travelers would benefit the most from such development."

True, but who do you personally know who would trade a small benefit every time they fly for a moderate nuisance at their house? I'm not sure even pilots would ask for the flight benefit.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#106

Post by joncrocks » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

bradley13 wrote: post #59

bell-cot wrote: post #2

Long & interesting...but a pretty good tl;dr; is: "NIMBY's are why we can't build any major infrastructure any more".

Sure, this is classic NIMBYism. I understand: we live in a very quiet area, and would certainly oppose something that would dramatically change that. However, what I do not understand are the people who move next to an existing airport, and then complain about the noise. We used to live near a major, international airport. Planes flew overhead. That noise was implicitly factored into the price we paid, and we certain…

Playing Devil's advocate, air travel is a much larger business than it used to be.

Over time the number of flights, size of aircraft and time of flights can change. This can lead to increased disruption over time. It's not unreasonable to complain about an unexpected increase in disruption.

You can factor some of this into the price, but you can't factor in unknown-unknowns.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#107

Post by vemv » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

> In the early 1980s, Dallas Fort-Worth Airport covered as much land as the city of Dallas did, and Denver International Airport is as large as the city of San Francisco.

This... doesn't fit into my head.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#108

Post by ghaff » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 2:16 PM UTC

dividefuel wrote: post #85

rockostrich wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of it is our definition of cities versus metro areas. Boston's population is technically only 650k but Boston proper doesn't even include Cambridge which is like not including one of the boroughs when talking about NYC's population. Granted, we still have a lot less metro areas with over 1 million people but there are still ~50 of them.

Is this something fairly unique to the US or do other countries do this too? that is, having a city boundary that's relatively small compared to the metro area.

Well, Paris is either very dense or not very depending on what arrondissements you're counting. London has The City, that doesn't even have many residents and then there's really the city core and greater London.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#109

Post by ZanyProgrammer » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 2:18 PM UTC

class3shock wrote: post #56

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #4

General aviation is in decline, so really there's no need to build new airports.

Based on what? It got hammered in covid but is back in a big way now.

general aviation, small airports have been closing down for years. It’s not a growing hobby.

Re: Why is it so hard to build an airport?

#110

Post by humansareok1 » Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 2:19 PM UTC

vemv wrote: post #107

> In the early 1980s, Dallas Fort-Worth Airport covered as much land as the city of Dallas did, and Denver International Airport is as large as the city of San Francisco. This... doesn't fit into my head.

Cities are smaller than you think and Airports are larger.