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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?

#41

Post by skeeter2020 »

showerst wrote: post #15
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #12

The new Nancy Bird Walton airport in western Sydney is interesting. The existing airport is very close to the CBD and residential areas, and completely hemmed in by those and the bay it sits next to, so has little room to expand. It's also subject to a strict curfew being so close to residential areas. The new airport is huge, being built at an impressive speed, and is going to be on a new metro line (which strangely…

Sounds very similar to Dulles in Washington DC. We eventually ran a rail line to it, and it eventually wasn’t the middle of nowhere any more. Hopefully the rail link takes less than 60 years in your case =)

Similar to our Airport in Calgary, AB. They built a tunnel under a new runway as part of their expansion, including specific right-of-way for rail extension from the downtown, and still there's nothing connecting it. Meanwhile they're going to drive a train right through the downtown core, connecting a light industrial area to the south with a ritzy residential area to the north, rather than the relatively easy and inexpensive line extension to the airport. I think a requirement of being a world-class city is you can take direct mass transit from the airport to the downtown core, but not here.

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

#42

Post by Solvency »

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…

[flagged]

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

#43

Post by revlolz »

II2II wrote: post #29
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".

The term NIMBY is thrown around too much. Yes, there are far too many cases where NIMBYism is taken too far. On the other hand, there are legitimate cases. I lived in a small, fly-in community for a while. I was very close to the airport, and some people had houses within a few hundred meters of the runway. There was noise, but it was managable because there were only a handful of flights per day (none at night) and…

In my experience as soon as the airport grew to the next stage. Local enforcement agencies begin staging out of the airport and then everyone gets to hear when the sheriff deputy's are getting their night flight hours in. I'm in agreement with you, calling someone a nimby for not wanting an airport near them is unreasonable.

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

#44

Post by sidewndr46 »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #12

The new Nancy Bird Walton airport in western Sydney is interesting. The existing airport is very close to the CBD and residential areas, and completely hemmed in by those and the bay it sits next to, so has little room to expand. It's also subject to a strict curfew being so close to residential areas. The new airport is huge, being built at an impressive speed, and is going to be on a new metro line (which strangely…

This sounds like Australia hired some consultants from the US for the design. In particular the metro to nowhere part.

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

#45

Post by seper8 »

rikafurude21 wrote: post #23
xrd wrote: post #7

Very interesting to see how the noise of jet engines declined significantly. While reading the article I kept thinking, it feels like investing in noise reduction would really pay off, and then a few paragraphs later, there it was. I'm also intrigued by small airports, like the one in Rio, Santos Dumont. The shortest runways in the world. If you could reduce noise and control pollution, it is very nice to have an air…

Going from 120-110 down to 100-90 isnt really a significant decline, it went from unbearably torturous to really annoying. Airports nowadays still create significant noise pollution in their surroundings.

You are aware that DB is a logarithmic scale?

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

#46

Post by anonzzzies »

codeulike wrote: post #21
arrowsmith wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think they meant: For any given site, theres proportionally 'few' people that would be disadvantaged

Yep. You cannot just put them just anywhere, so if a location has been found and some people don’t like it, well, that happens. Like others said; everyone wants to fly but they don’t want the bad side. Fine but it happens.

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

#47

Post by Beijinger »

soared wrote: post #5

Very interesting read - would love to see something similar on why Denver’s airport rebuild/expansion has been such a disaster. 2 years after the start, a 34 year $650MM+ contract was ended - https://denverite.com/2023/04/21/dia-great-hall-audit/

2 years? Let the guys in Berlin handle it for 10 years and then you dream of Denver guys.

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

#48

Post by Cheer2171 »

showerst wrote: post #15
dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #12

The new Nancy Bird Walton airport in western Sydney is interesting. The existing airport is very close to the CBD and residential areas, and completely hemmed in by those and the bay it sits next to, so has little room to expand. It's also subject to a strict curfew being so close to residential areas. The new airport is huge, being built at an impressive speed, and is going to be on a new metro line (which strangely…

Sounds very similar to Dulles in Washington DC. We eventually ran a rail line to it, and it eventually wasn’t the middle of nowhere any more. Hopefully the rail link takes less than 60 years in your case =)

Dulles is very much still in the middle of nowhere for me. It takes an hour to go from Capitol Hill to Dulles on the Silver Line, usually longer or about the same time than driving in rush hour. It is 11 minutes to DCA on the Yellow Line. What has made Dulles not the middle of nowhere is the growth in the Northwest VA suburbs, Reston, Ashburn, all those server farms and defense contractors shifting the center of gravity in the DC region.

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

#49

Post by potsandpans »

Solvency wrote: post #42
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…

[flagged]

What's your point?

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

#50

Post by tzs »

My understanding is that electric airplanes are much quieter but batteries do not have a high enough energy density to make an electric airliner with more than very short range.

I wonder if it would be feasible to make some kind of hybrid that uses electric engines for takeoff and landing and regular jet engines for the rest of the flight?

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