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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?

#381

Post by asdff »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #375
asdff wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not perfect but that doesn't mean its the enemy of good, it can do a lot to reduce trips. Its also a drop in replacement for how a lot of people presently use their airports with long term economy parking lots, and it makes it a lot easier to justify connecting that up with more substantial transport down the line once you have that initial park and ride station.

Yeah I'm not against them, but it's very much a modest, incremental measure, like going from no bike lanes to painted bike lanes in the door zone. You need much bigger changes to truly make HSR viable imo.

I imagine most anywhere that would get an hsr would also have a present day bus system that can have routing better oriented to serve the new infrastructure. Bike lanes are always nice but I imagine not very many people are going to want to start their inter city trip with luggage in tow trying to lug that around on a bike.

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

#382

Post by tomatocracy »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #273
Duhck wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this idea. Hong Kong has something kinda like this with bag check in town, and then a train to the airport. It's extremely convenient

Are there any other major international airports in the world that have the equivalent setup of Hongkong? For other readers: There is a fast-but-not-high-speed direct train from city centre to the airport. At the city terminal, there are tiny airline checkin booths where you can leave your bags. Magically, they are transported to the airport.

The Heathrow Express used to have this at Paddington station, though I think it closed a while ago.

A similar idea which is available in London though is Airportr - this is a company which will send someone to collect your bags from your home/hotel and then inject them directly into the airport baggage system for you (if you're flying with the right airlines and checked in online). I've used it a few times and it's very good.

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

#383

Post by ghaff »

freeone3000 wrote: post #368
bombcar wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a key if you want a "rail to plane" setup - if you do it right (read-nobody will do it) you check in for the train with your baggage and your flight at the same time, and give the bags over to a dedicated baggage car that handles everything for you.

Luggage tags can take a rail stop as a final destination. Integrate further! Have a person load the bags onto the train for you!

There are luggage services that will take your luggage from your home to a hotel. You pay for it obviously but it's not a bad option if you're looking to simplify things.

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

#384

Post by tomatocracy »

daveoc64 wrote: post #183
jgeada wrote: post #169

> 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…

>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. I've seen this proposed for various things like onshore win…

This actually isn't that uncommon for airports. The first example which comes to mind is London City Airport which pays for local homes to have noise insulation fitted[0]. I believe doing this has been a condition of them being granted planning approval to increase the number of flights they operate a number of times over the years.

0. https://www.londoncityairport.com/corporate/environment/nois...

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

#385

Post by emiliobumachar »

balderdash wrote: post #358

I would be pretty upset if all of a sudden my house was under the flight path of a new airport (and the associated economic consequences) but I always find it surprising how annoyed people get that put a house near an airport and then complain about it, where one of my parents lives there is a small but fairly busy private airport that has been there close to a hundred years, so almost no one that lives by it now can…

One can be surprised by the traffic increase. "When I moved here 25 years ago, there was one flight in the morning and one in the afternoon. Now it's every 5 minutes from 6 am to 10 pm and they're trying to extend it post 10 pm!"

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

#386

Post by seatac76 »

pbsladek wrote: post #113
po wrote: post #30

If you fly into Tokyo you might come in via Narita Airport (NRT) which is actually quite a distance out from tokyo. Violence is extremely uncommon in modern Japan but NRT was the site of violent resistance over several decades. Opposition forces killed several police officers, rioted on several occasions and constructed a giant 200 ft tower to interfere with test flights. Hundreds of acts of vandalism have occurred o…

If flying into NRT and on the way to Tokyo, ~$200ish for the taxi ride. Ooops.

Agree with others just take the train to Tokyo Station or Shinigawa station. If it’s your first time just remember to exit on the gate that is staffed because gate adjustments can get tricky. The ticket I selected at NRT was apparently not enough money, as expected they were super helpful and nice about it though.

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

#387

Post by holmesworcester »

loteck wrote: post #378
renewiltord wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn’t you? It’s a land arb. You get cheaper land then use political power to raise its desirability. Common trick. You can do it a few ways. Get a place near a nightclub then force the club to shut down. Almost certainly they have some regulation they’re not following. Same with schools etc. Or sometimes the city will be planning an affordable housing thing on a lot. No one likes that so you’ll get the homes n…

This shouldn't be down voted, this type of arbitrage is common and the parties engaging in it know the baked in risks. It is no different from the common gambit of buying land outside of cities zoned as industrial or agricultural and then waging politics to have it rezoned as residential to dramatically increase its value.

The cool solution I've seen to this problem is to have some process for identifying the class of people who are affected by [locally burdensome thing] and then allowing the proponents (a business, the government, etc.) to negotiate some settlement with that affected class directly, with a majority vote used to accept the settlement.

For example, everyone near the airport could get some property tax relief or share of an annual payment that would go away if the airport went away.

This way a small minority of vocal opponents cannot effectively oppose something that would be good for everyone, but if something is irredeemably terrible and unfair locally affected people can block it.

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

#388

Post by bell-cot »

loteck wrote: post #378
renewiltord wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn’t you? It’s a land arb. You get cheaper land then use political power to raise its desirability. Common trick. You can do it a few ways. Get a place near a nightclub then force the club to shut down. Almost certainly they have some regulation they’re not following. Same with schools etc. Or sometimes the city will be planning an affordable housing thing on a lot. No one likes that so you’ll get the homes n…

This shouldn't be down voted, this type of arbitrage is common and the parties engaging in it know the baked in risks. It is no different from the common gambit of buying land outside of cities zoned as industrial or agricultural and then waging politics to have it rezoned as residential to dramatically increase its value.

Yes and no. If someone buy land at scale, and tries waging zoning politics...yeah, okay, arbitrage.

Vs. if John Doe buys a house near a substantial airport, then claims he didn't know? No, sorry, nothing's gonna change in his favor. Maybe he imagined it would, and planned...but that's just the difference between ignoramus and fool.

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

#389

Post by sandworm101 »

perlgeek wrote: post #63
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…

> 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…

>> Also, make it very inconvenient for passengers and staff to approach the airport by other means, only allow cargo delivery there through the road network. This disincentives people from e.g. building hotels close to the airport, which would then attract further settlement, which would ultimately lead to noise complaints again.

Or go one step further and just put on barriers to block the trains too. Don't let anyone near the airport unless they walk/bike the few miles. That will drive up servicing costs but will dramatically lower congestion. If don't correctly, virtually nobody will ever get to the airport. It can then be closed altogether, thereby eliminating any and all future noise complaints.

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

#390

Post by ghaff »

dylan604 wrote: post #377
ghaff wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to travel pretty light but trains get inconvenient with any amount of luggage. I'm coming into NY by ship after a longish trip, continuing on home by train at the end of May. I came to the conclusion I should take advantage of a not too expensive luggage shipping service because dealing with the luggage was going to be just too big of a hassle.

How very 1800s of you. Curious minds wonder what you do to be able to have that kind of time for travel. The amount of time you require in just travel is more than most Americans receive in a year's vacation

Fairly routine tech jobs. In a prior long-term job I got up to about 4 weeks of vacation after a time and did some month-long vacations, especially Nepal treks. I was pretty careful to preserve time off for single vacations for the most part and had flexibility to take a few hours here and there without tapping into my pool.

I'm pretty close to that currently--although it's combined sick/personal/vacation. I've done a number of 3-week workcations in my current role and also had a few weeks of vacation banked from a prior paid time off scheme. I've long had a pretty generous amount of vacation time and I've always leveraged work travel (which I used to do a lot of) for sightseeing and related activities.

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