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Why is it so hard to build an airport?

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

#421

Post by xattt »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #385
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!"

There is also contemporary research, i.e. chronic noise exposure having subtle effects on health, that are accepted as true that would have been laughed at 2-3 decades ago.

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

#422

Post by dotps1 »

sremani wrote: post #67
DarkNova6 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, apart from the largest US cities your average european city is larger. The US doesn't even have 10 cities which are above 1 million people.

You are missing the forest for the trees. US cities are smaller in a pedantic sense. That is why planners and intelligent people use Metro area statistics for population, traffic, infrastructure planning etc. Dallas population about 1 million. Dallas metro - 7.7 million. This is an important distinction missed out.

European airports have train service to most destinations.

Nobody cares if the airport is 45 minutes away because going back and forth is made seamlessly easy, and you can eat or read the news during the trip.

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

#423

Post by athenot »

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…

That's similar to people who move to the countryside then complain that the farms nearby stink.

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

#424

Post by hervature »

renewiltord wrote: post #363
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…

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…

I would say it is short sighted land arb. Density and land prices go hand-in-hand [1]. The causality is less clear. Higher land prices necessitates more units and being able to build more units increases land prices. Cities build airports because the expected economic impacts and increased tax revenue growth justifies the large expense. That's the long view. Your same reasoning should mean some entity is willing to lobby to open up construction and reduce height limits so they can build more. The reason this does not happen is because it is easier to block things than it is to change things. I'd say this is some type of societal second law of thermodynamics.

[1] - https://marroninstitute.nyu.edu/uploads/content/Bertaud_-_Th...

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

#425

Post by jenny91 »

renewiltord wrote: post #363
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…

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 is not "arbitrage" though. It's not risk free, etc.

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

#426

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

bombcar wrote: post #351
mikestew wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you've got them reversed? I've never been to Boeing Field, but I've been to Paine, and... "Paine Field is home to the Boeing Everett Factory, the world's largest building by volume..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paine_Field

Exactly. Paine Field is tiny as a commuter airport, but it's got huge tracks of land (it's more than half the size of SEATAC and has a 9000 ft runway).

I've been to Paine, and apparently I just ignored everything outside of the passenger facility. Oops!

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

#427

Post by n_plus_1_acc »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #385
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!"

Who expects a city and its economy to shrink though?

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

#428

Post by giantrobot »

bombcar wrote: post #210
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…

Exactly - it has to be holistic and actually planned out. If you want to run two airports in the same city, there really should be some form of quick connection between them, or each has to be so big as to be self-sufficient. Moving an airport is even harder than just building one, because the airport often doesn't own all the businesses and land around said airport, and so is negotiation making those less valuable.…

> You're more likely to repurpose Ontario or even a military base instead.

Ontario was repurposed, at least expanded greatly in scope. It used to be basically a UPS and FedEx airstrip with very limited passenger flights. But LAX was so overloaded and out of the way (for a lot of the IE and LA county) Ontario's passenger terminals were significantly expanded. Unless your destination is in the LA metro area Ontario (or John Wayne) is way more convenient than LAX.

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

#429

Post by masklinn »

vel0city wrote: post #236
reaperducer wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

LUV is an airport in Indonesia, Dallas Love Field is DAL. DAL was forced to be a domestic-only airport from the Wright amendment as DFW was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere in '79, nobody would have bothered going out there if they weren't forced to by federal law. American Airlines wanted an airport, and the federal government gave it to them. And sure, IAH is the bigger international airport in Houston, bu…

> DAL was forced to be a domestic-only airport from the Wright amendment as DFW was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere in '79, nobody would have bothered going out there if they weren't forced to by federal law. American Airlines wanted an airport, and the federal government gave it to them.

That's more than a little revisionist: following the CAB's demand for a joint international-class airport (Dallas refused to use GSW, and DAL had gotten way too small for the traffic, and its runways too small for international jets), Dallas, Fort Worth, and the existing airlines signed an agreement to phase out cross-state operations at local airports and move them all to DFW. When DFW opened, all the airlines moved their non-local operations there per the agreement.

Except Southwest, who'd been created after the agreement, decided they were not bound by it, and enjoyed a now empty and easily accessible airport. And since Southwest's operations were initially intrastate, they didn't fall under CAB jurisdiction, which was the reason for DFW existing in the first place.

The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 then meant Southwest was able to expand to interstate traffic without being restrictible by a dying CAB.

Wright was passed to protect an airport which CAB had all but forced on the area (though to be fair CAB was paying for airports, which was why they wanted them regrouped). Plus bankrupting DFW would have completely broken DAL and aviation to the region.

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

#430

Post by sofixa »

benjymo wrote: post #218
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…

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.

Yep, Paris CDG has a small version of this (high speed trains only, but this allows for connections between planes and rail to be made) which is getting expanded with a link to the regional network of the region right to the north of the airport.
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