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Why is it so hard to build an airport?

construction-physics.com

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

#161

Post by jaimie »

dwater wrote: post #115
Dalewyn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Washington DC, Washington National Airport (WAS) is just across a river from downtown and connected by subway, and Dulles International Airport (IAD) was way out past the exurbs when it was constructed and only just got a subway connection several decades later. IAD gets way more traffic and has as long as I can remember. I'd guess that's because it's not possible to add many more flights to WAS.

DCA and IAD have their work-load shared due to regulatory action:

> The Perimeter Rule is a federal regulation established in 1966 when jet aircraft began operating at Reagan National. The initial Perimeter Rule limited non-stop service to/from Reagan National to 650 statute miles, with some exceptions for previously existing service. By the mid-1980s, Congress had expanded Reagan National non-stop service to 1,250 statute miles (49 U.S. Code § 49109). Ultimately, Reagan National serves primarily as a "short-haul" airport while Washington Dulles International Airport serves as the region's "long-haul" growth airport.

> Congress must propose and approve federal legislation to allow the U.S. Department of Transportation to issue "beyond-perimeter" exemptions which allows an airline to operate non-stop service to cities outside the perimeter. As a result of recent federal exemptions, non-stop service is now offered between Reagan National and the following cities: Austin, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, San Juan, Seattle and Portland, Ore.

https://www.flyreagan.com/about-airport/aircraft-noise-infor...

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

#162

Post by AnimalMuppet »

codeulike wrote: post #25
magnio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every other non-native speaker like me, ttbomk: lmgtfu, let me Google that for you.

Can you do an eli5 of what ttbomk means?

"To The Best Of My Knowledge". (I had to Google it, too.)

Or was that an ironic reply?

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

#163

Post by ghaff »

egeozcan wrote: post #27
arrowsmith wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Few"? Almost no-one wants to live next door to an airport.

But almost everybody wants access to one. This is coming from someone who lived a a kilometer away from the main airport of Istanbul at the time[0], for a long time. I was really disappointed when it was closed as the benefit of access was 100x better than the noise cost. Of course, everybody has different priorities and getting a huge noise source in your backyard after you decide to call a piece of land your home w…

Eh. As someone who used to travel a lot living 50 miles from the airport was a bit of an inconvenience but certainly one I could live with. Just took a bit longer to get to the airport. I wouldn't have wanted to live next to it.

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

#164

Post by theultdev »

arrowsmith wrote: post #11
anonzzzies wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the state really shouldn’t care about these few. Probably rich enough to move but don’t want because blah blah.

"Few"? Almost no-one wants to live next door to an airport.

The people who work at them do.

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

#165

Post by arccy »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #84
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…

Paine field is the new seattle area airport.

it barely has any flights anywhere this now

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

#166

Post by deathanatos »

polycaster wrote: post #3
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".

For every other non-native speaker like me, lmgtfu: NIMBY (/ˈnɪmbi/, or nimby), an acronym for the phrase "not in my back yard", is a characterization of opposition by residents to proposed infrastructure developments in their local area, as well as support for strict land use regulations.

> as well as support for strict land use regulations.

Perhaps superficially, but no, not necessarily. A large part of the NIMBYism seen in places like SF is opposition to projects that do conform to land use regulation. The entire "by-right" movement is that, if the proposed project is legal (it meets zoning, codes, etc.), then it should be permitted to build. NIMBYs opposed that.

YIMBYs mostly aren't opposed to land use regulations, either. (Wanting to change the zoning of an area, or changes the specifics of the regulations is not "against land use regulations", or treating them any less strictly.)

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

#167

Post by nradov »

duped wrote: post #145

Airlines should go build their hubs in a better geographical location than major cities, like O'hare. And pay for it with their own money. At ORD for example, something like half of all the air traffic are connecting flights. There's a bit of money to be made by gate fees, but the pressure on the surrounding suburbs (I don't even know if the neighbors even get those fees, since the airport is technically within Chica…

What's untenable about it? The busy airport has been there longer than most people have been alive. People who live in the suburbs knew what they were getting into.

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

#168

Post by duped »

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…

> O'Hare airport sits some 40km outside Chicago.

It's more like 25km (15 miles) to the city center and 4km (2.5 miles) to the city limits, although technically O'hare is within the City of Chicago. There's a strip of City land between the eastern edge of the airport that cuts through the suburb of Rosemont to connect to the Oriole Park neighborhood (although that might be Edison Park), on the far Northwestern edge of the city.

40km will get you to the far south side of the city, for which there's Midway.

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

#169

Post by jgeada »

> Most NIMBY difficulties stem from the asymmetric nature of the costs and benefits of a new project: a new apartment building, for instance, will benefit a city overall (slightly lowering housing costs and slightly increasing the size of the city’s labor market), but those benefits are diffuse. The costs, on the other hand – traffic, parking, construction disruption – will be borne almost entirely by the surrounding residents, who will thus rationally oppose it.

I have always wondered why we don't structure payments of some form to balance out the local costs of infrastructure etc. NIMBY is rational with the economics as they are; but would you really be as opposed to a local power plant if energy costs for the area near the plant were subsidized by some percentage? Balance out the local costs with a local benefit.

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

#170

Post by TRDRVR »

vel0city wrote: post #148
sofixa wrote: post #126

> 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…

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.

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 users of the airport). The plan was 'International flights in time for the Olympics and Domestic flights a couple of years later' as a way to 'show off to the world.'

All this rushing and purpose-building led to suboptimal decision making that ultimately made it a completely wasted investment.

A similar story can be told about Olympic stadium in Montreal.

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