[HN Gopher] Why is it so hard to build an airport?
___________________________________________________________________
Why is it so hard to build an airport?
Author : gmays
Score : 208 points
Date : 2024-03-22 12:18 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.construction-physics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.construction-physics.com)
| bell-cot wrote:
| Long & interesting...but a pretty good tl;dr; is: "NIMBY's are
| why we can't build any major infrastructure any more".
| polycaster wrote:
| For every other non-native speaker like me, lmgtfu: NIMBY
| (/'nImbi/, 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.
| crazypyro wrote:
| In simple terms, people want airports, but nobody wants an
| airport near their house.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| And the state really shouldn't care about these few.
| Probably rich enough to move but don't want because blah
| blah.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| "Few"? Almost no-one wants to live next door to an
| airport.
| codeulike wrote:
| I think they meant: For any given site, theres
| proportionally 'few' people that would be disadvantaged
| anonzzzies wrote:
| 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.
| egeozcan wrote:
| 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 would be frustrating.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk_Airport -
| used to be a very busy airport.
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| jojobas wrote:
| If this was true, areas around airports would have been
| non-residential or at least stupidly penalized in land
| value. They don't seem to be.
|
| In fact when you live close to an airport you stop
| caring, perhaps not unlike smoke alarm chirps but without
| danger to your life.
| theultdev wrote:
| The people who work at them do.
| rob74 wrote:
| ...same as with major roads, train lines, power lines,
| power plants (including but not limited to nuclear and
| wind), affordable (i.e. high density) housing etc. etc.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Not all of that. Railways are relatively quiet and very
| useful, someone living near one will might well use it
| very frequently.
| monknomo wrote:
| I have lived near a freight railway, and I assure you
| they are not quiet
| Symbiote wrote:
| I lived near several 80%-passenger railways in England,
| and they are not silent but they are quieter and less
| annoying than roads.
|
| Most of the trains were electric, including the freight
| trains.
| monknomo wrote:
| US experience is different, with big diesels and
| primarily freight. I'd rate them as similarly annoying to
| a divided highway, but I suppose it depends on the region
| and the specifics
| Symbiote wrote:
| There are a million train spotter videos on YouTube, and
| given the audience I'm unlikely to find one filmed in
| someone's back garden.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-wyR316550
|
| (The navy blue trains with yellow 'noses' are high-speed
| commuter trains, the dark blue, gold and white ones are
| the high-speed trains to France, the plain white ones are
| normal-speed commuter trains to London.)
|
| I think the continuously welded rails are the biggest
| improvement, as they remove most of the "clackety-clack".
| Instead you get the "hiss", but that's only noticeable
| from really close.
| jojobas wrote:
| People buy homes near existing airports with very small
| discounts for the inconvenience.
| codeulike wrote:
| what does lmgtfu mean?
| magnio wrote:
| For every other non-native speaker like me, ttbomk: lmgtfu,
| let me Google that for you.
| codeulike wrote:
| Can you do an eli5 of what ttbomk means?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "To The Best Of My Knowledge". (I had to Google it, too.)
|
| Or was that an ironic reply?
| polycaster wrote:
| afaict that was serious
| richardwhiuk wrote:
| Let Me Google That For U (usually LMGTFY)
| bradley13 wrote:
| Your definition is accurate, but I think it is incomplete.
| The stereotypical NIMBY doesn't want something in _their_
| backyard, but they still want the advantages of it existing.
| They want it to be place in someone _else 's_ backyard.
|
| People opposing airport construction still want to fly. They
| just want someone else to have the noise.
| Gare wrote:
| > People opposing airport construction still want to fly.
|
| Maybe they do in America. But in Europe there's not much
| need/want of frequent flying for the average citizen.
| bradley13 wrote:
| In 2022 (according to Statista) there were around 500
| million passenger-flights, compared to the 800 million in
| the US. Accounting for population differences, that means
| that Europeans fly around half as often as USAians. Yes,
| that is less, but it is still a lot.
| floxy wrote:
| >People opposing airport construction still want to fly.
|
| In this age of big data, is there a way to quantify this?
| My gut feeling is that this is a very heavily Pareto-like
| distribution, with maybe say 5% of the population
| accounting for 90% of the passenger miles or flight
| segments. With the majority of the people flying a handful
| of times (or less) in their life. And even then, "want" is
| probably a strong qualifier, since I'd also think the
| majority of the flight miles are for business travel. You
| may "want" to keep your job, so you have to fly sometimes.
| If we had to drastically curtail flying in the future, I'm
| guessing that not too many people are going to regret
| missing out on the business meetings to Detroit in January,
| compared to say, vacations in Florida.
| deathanatos wrote:
| > _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.)
| II2II wrote:
| 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 there were no jets (the airport could
| handle them, but it was only intended for emergencies). But
| that is not the type of airport people are talking about here.
| They are talking about large airports with constant traffic
| during most hours of the day and night, with the planes
| typically being larger and much louder. These are the sort of
| airports that people can expect a significant loss in the
| quality of life from. I would expect people to be vocal about
| it.
| revlolz wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, NIMBY gets used way too much for I want something and
| screw anyone who has negative externalities as a result.
| revlolz wrote:
| The data the author presents spells out that aircraft are still
| twice as loud as passenger cars at their quietest. The majority
| of traffic through smaller municipal airports is very loud
| propeller aircraft. I don't believe it makes anyone a nimby to
| not want a freaking airport nearby. I don't think anyone should
| have to live with such disturbances without voting and ample
| regulations. It should be incredibly difficult to get airports
| built. The commerce benefits to the town/city come at the
| direct expense of health and quality living of residents. The
| article fixates on noise pollution, but what about exposure to
| cancerous chemicals? Actual pollution from emissions? Traffic
| consequences?
|
| It's not just some affluent boomer's view or lawn getting
| impacted. Personally, I never want to live in vicinity of an
| airport ever again in my life.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| It's a strange piece. Most of the obstacles to airport
| construction that it describes are nullified by the other
| obstacles that it also describes.
|
| Airports can't handle the liability they incur because imposing
| airport noise on housing is a regulatory taking. But also, if
| you build an airport at such a remove from the city that no
| housing suffers, housing gets built out toward the airport.
|
| Except of course, it's not a taking if you were there first. If
| the housing comes to the airport, there's no liability.
|
| Also, airports don't work without being close to their city.
| When they tried to build Mirabel airport 35 miles from
| Montreal, it withered and died from being too far away.
|
| This is transparent nonsense; 35 miles is not even a long
| distance. The airport you use if you live in Santa Cruz is SFO,
| more than 60 miles away. (There is a closer airport in San
| Jose, which doesn't go to convenient locations.) It takes a
| long time to travel between any major airport and its city. HKG
| is separated from Hong Kong _by the ocean_. A 40 minute drive
| to the airport is considerably better than is typical now!
|
| If Mirabel withered and died from being 35 miles outside
| Montreal, that can only be because Montreal's air transport
| needs were already met.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Agree. 35 miles was a reasonable buffer for anticipated
| growth. Mirabel died because immigration patterns shifted
| from Montreal to Toronto as a result of the FLQ and the 1980
| secession referendum.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > HKG is separated from Hong Kong by the ocean.
|
| Most would say the Victoria Harbour. Do you say that
| Manhattan is separated from Brooklyn by the ocean? No.
| bradley13 wrote:
| 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 certainly had zero room to complain. But
| lots of people did anyway, soaking up lots of time and money
| that would have been better spent elsewhere.
| acdha wrote:
| When I lived in San Diego, I worked near the military airport
| now known as MCAS Miramar. My coworkers and I were honestly
| stunned by the people who sued after moving in nearby
| claiming that they had no idea the place they filmed Top Gun
| would be that noisy.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| A better idea: Tear down the old MCAS Miramar and build
| housing and parks. Rebuild the airbase in Nevada or the
| California desert. Yes, it was bad planning to allow so
| many residences to be built near an airbase, but too late
| to undo it now.
| acdha wrote:
| You're welcome to lobby your congress members for that
| but until the military says they're moving it's a mistake
| to buy a house there if you can't live with the noise.
| ryandrake wrote:
| This is called "coming to the nuisance"[1] and in most
| jurisdictions the complainers have no case.
|
| I'm sure it doesn't stop them from trying though. Reid-
| Hillview airport[2] in San Jose has been there since the
| 1930's, long before anyone who currently lives there, yet is
| constantly under attack by residents and threatened with
| closing.
|
| 1: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/coming_to_the_nuisance
|
| 2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid-Hillview_Airport
| joncrocks wrote:
| How many planes were taking off in 1930 vs. today?
|
| If you bought a residence in 1930, are you never allowed to
| complain?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog#As_metaphor
| ryandrake wrote:
| I think if you bought a residence near the existing
| airport, any time after said airport was built, knowing
| full well there is an airport there, you should not be
| able to complain that there is an airport there.
| joncrocks wrote:
| 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.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Sadly, that sort of entitled idiocy (move next to an
| existing, then complain) is definitely not limited to
| airports. It doesn't matter if it's other nearby
| infrastructure (major roads, railroads, power lines,
| whatever), or lack of infrastructure (water, sewer, flood
| control, etc.), or the nicely-maintained vacant lot next
| door, or what.
| ejb999 wrote:
| people will complain about anything - in my very little town,
| about 25% of the roads are not paved. People would move into
| town, buy a house on a dirt road and then come to the town
| council to complain that their road was not paved.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| General aviation is in decline, so really there's no need to
| build new airports.
| class3shock wrote:
| Based on what? It got hammered in covid but is back in a big
| way now.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| _general_ aviation, small airports have been closing down for
| years. It's not a growing hobby.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| I mean, in that case the original point doesn't quite make
| any sense. The article is very clearly discussing the
| larger airports associated with commercial aviation.
| alt227 wrote:
| So by general aviation, you mean flying lessons?
| class3shock wrote:
| TIL general aviation = non-commercial civilian aviation
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_aviation
| cse463 wrote:
| I think air travel is becoming more popular actually.
| soared wrote:
| 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/
| Beijinger wrote:
| 2 years? Let the guys in Berlin handle it for 10 years and then
| you dream of Denver guys.
| xrd wrote:
| 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 airport accessible by mass transit, like in Portland,
| Oregon. Feels like a sweet spot for government intervention.
| eitally wrote:
| Some small airports made sense at the time they were built, but
| no more (either because planes are bigger now or because
| construction around the airport was not adequately restricted
| in ensuing decades. Congonhas in Sao Paulo is an example of
| this, where it can only handle smaller domestic flights now
| because of the way the city has grown around it.
|
| Here's a satellite photo:
| https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a27d24_a65c83caab794facb0...
|
| (it would be like when you're landing at Reagan airport in DC
| and descending over the water... except that it's skyscrapers)
| rob74 wrote:
| ...and here's a story about Congonhas airport:
|
| https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/culture-of-chaos-the-
| cra...
|
| which reminds me: maybe people don't oppose airports just
| because of the noise, maybe they're also worried about plane
| crashes (I know the chance is low, but probably much higher
| for those living near an airport than for the average
| passenger).
| eitally wrote:
| I have several Brazilian friends (mostly in/around
| Campinas) in SP state who refuse to fly in/out of Congonhas
| because of that risk. Thankfully now Viracopa is even more
| convenient and nicer.
|
| Honestly, the irritating thing for Americans flying to
| Brazil is the frequent need to fly into either Rio or SP
| and then domestically transfer to the other, due to paucity
| of flight options [at reasonable prices].
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yet, airlines fight deary for slots at Congonhas, because
| lots of people want really badly to land there.
|
| The same can be said for Santos Dumont, that requires
| specially adapted planes, with reduced capacity to fly there.
| Or Pampulha that is more extreme, and airlines keep entire
| models of planes on their fleet just so they can fly there.
| rikafurude21 wrote:
| 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.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, from the graph it seems we've almost reached the
| asymptote and noise isn't going down much from here.
| marcinzm wrote:
| >it went from unbearably torturous to really annoying
|
| That's like saying the difference between getting stabbed and
| pushed isn't big since both are physical assaults. It is. 120
| is at the level of ear injury and pain even in the short
| duration of a takeoff. 90 isn't.
| seper8 wrote:
| You are aware that DB is a logarithmic scale?
| class3shock wrote:
| I'm not going to say 100db isn't loud but db is a logarithmic
| scale, so even 110 down to 100 isn't a 9% reduction but an
| order of magnitude drop. Literally the difference between a
| jackhammer and a nail gun.
|
| Sound drops 4x for each 2x increase in distance from the
| source. So another way to put it is, if you cut sound by 10x,
| you are cutting the distance of severely noise polluted area
| around by more than 4x.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Very interesting to see how the noise of jet engines declined
| significantly.
|
| I know people who used to live under the flightpath of Concorde
| arrivals/departures.
|
| Lets just say they were very happy when Concorde was retired
| from service. ;-)
| silvestrov wrote:
| Obligatory YouTube movie from 2007:
| https://youtu.be/i1ShTUVIzCI?t=41
| pfdietz wrote:
| I wonder if open (unducted) fans (if they catch on) like the
| CFM RISE will reverse this trend.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojVNOj-q3SQ
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkHKet7rp4o
| throwaway4good wrote:
| I don't have the numbers but I bet if you picked examples from
| China instead the story would be different: It is much easier to
| build today than it was in the past in terms of the actual
| building work.
|
| What is getting harder and more time consuming in certain places
| is the regulation and the processes around building a large piece
| of infrastructure.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| 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 doesn't link
| up to the existing metro lines in Sydney, and won't have a direct
| non-stop rail link). It's being built in a location that's
| currently "the middle of nowhere" so that it has scope to expand
| (they're currently building about half of what's already been
| planned for).
| showerst wrote:
| 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
| =)
| rmccue wrote:
| Sydney Metro is being expanded out to it; construction's
| already underway, and is targeted at opening at the same time
| as the airport:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Sydney_Airport_line
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| Yeah, but it doesn't link up with the M1 line so there's no
| interchange. Also the rolling stock isn't compatible as it
| uses a different power system to the other lines, and the
| trains are a slightly different size making them
| incompatible with the M1/2 lines
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| 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.
| Cheer2171 wrote:
| 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.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| This sounds like Australia hired some consultants from the US
| for the design. In particular the metro to nowhere part.
| uncertainrhymes wrote:
| Several times my flight from LA to Sydney would get a good
| tailwind, arrive early, then just circle out in the ocean so
| they could land after 6:30 am and avoid a giant fine.
| badgersnake wrote:
| It's nice that they've improved the noise issue, but there are a
| bunch of other environmental problems with airport construction
| and aviation generally which have not been solved and there
| doesn't seem much interest in solving.
|
| It's probably for the best it's hard to build airports whilst
| that remains the case.
| Cheer2171 wrote:
| > As air travel greatly expanded in the 1960s and 70s, there were
| "no more virulent domestic conflicts... in the advanced
| industrial world than those over airport construction."
|
| I can't keep reading this article seriously. Civil rights
| movements are the obvious domestic conflict at the time, but even
| in transportation this is wrong. There were huge conflicts in
| "highway revolts" [1] or conflicts over suburbanization, urban
| renewal, and how much of the city to turn over to cars. The kind
| of thing Robert Moses started but governments around the
| developed world were doing in these decades. Governments siezed
| entire neighborhoods deemed to be "slums" to build a highway so
| suburban commuters could have an easier commute downtown.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_revolt
| jorisboris wrote:
| When building https://randomairport.onrender.com/ I noticed that
| US and Euro airports always look very different
|
| Somehow US airports always seem to be surrounded by densely
| populated residential areas, even in the direction of the
| runways, while Euro airports don't seem to have this problem. And
| secondly Us airports always seem to take huge plots of land
| compared to Euro airports.
|
| My assumption is that Us cities are just bigger, both in
| population and in the amount of surface they claim (lower
| population density)
| mc32 wrote:
| Most US airports were built early before we had the current
| population. When they began as airports, they were mostly on
| the periphery, with exceptions.
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| 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.
| mc32 wrote:
| That's only if you count within strict city limits. Metro
| areas, not to mention MSAs consists of larger pops.
| alephxyz wrote:
| Right. That factoid is only true because cities in the US
| tend to avoid mergers.
|
| The US had 62 statistical areas with a pop. over a million
| in 2020 (plus San Juan, PR).
| Beijinger wrote:
| "The US doesn't even have 10 cities which are above 1 million
| people. reply"
|
| I did not believe this and googled it. It is true.
|
| 1 Million would be tiny in China. Province.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| There is no significance in counting only the people within
| an arbitrary geographic boundary that is a city's legal
| jurisdiction.
|
| An airport serves a metropolitan region, composed of many
| cities, and there are at least 50 with 1M+ people.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Counting "city population" is nearly a pointless exercise.
| What matters is the metro area, otherwise you get some
| pretty useless results. Austin, TX is tenth by city size in
| the US, with just under a million people, while San
| Francisco is 17th, with about 800k. But Austin is a much
| bigger percentage of the total Austin metro area, while the
| Bay area is ~8-10 million people total. As such, SF feels
| like a much bigger city in nearly every capacity.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| Yeah, it is basically always is a bit pointless without
| context. Same with e.g. Paris. Paris itself is "tiny".
| But Ile-de-France (the Paris region) has over 12 million
| people.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Another one: just 7000 people live in the City of London
| Ekaros wrote:
| And Vatican has population of 524... With Rome's
| metropolitan area being 4,3 million... But maybe that is
| stupid comparison.
| kirubakaran wrote:
| Vatican also has 5.9 Popes per square mile, highest in
| the world
| myrmidon wrote:
| This is disingenuous; "City of London" is a tiny, central
| district of London.
|
| It is most emphatically NOT "London, the city", in
| exactly the same way that Civic center is not the city of
| San Francisco.
|
| It's just confusingly named.
| walthamstow wrote:
| There is no other definition of London, the city. There's
| the Greater London region, which is 9m people, but that's
| it.
|
| Parliament, for example, is in the City of Westminster,
| one of 32 boroughs which (+ the City) make up Greater
| London.
| notatoad wrote:
| When normal people talk about a city, they're talking
| about an urban area under the jurisdiction of a mayor and
| city council. that's exactly what "greater london" is, so
| when people talk about a city called London it's safe to
| assume they mean the 32 boroughs.
|
| "the city of london" is just a confusingly named area
| inside a city called "London", it's not a city.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Sure, but Paris is also one of the most densely populated
| cities in the world, so Paris proper feels large even
| though it's only, what, 2 million people or so?
| mtalantikite wrote:
| I'm not sure I'm following, are you saying that SF feels
| bigger than Austin because of the surrounding metro area?
| I guess I'd assume that feeling is from population
| density (SF being 18.5k/sq mi vs 3k/sq mi in Austin),
| rather than the metro area. But maybe that's because I'm
| a new yorker that doesn't have a license, so cities to me
| are what I can get to on foot, which means the denser
| they are the more like a real city it feels to me.
| rockostrich wrote:
| 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.
| dividefuel wrote:
| 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.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I don't know if it's common to other countries, but a big
| factor in the US is race and class. There was a ton of
| "white flight" in the US starting in the 60s with white
| middle class and above fleeing cities to the suburbs. As
| such, they specifically _did not want_ their adjacent
| town to be annexed by the major city.
|
| In plays out pretty comically in Austin TX in my opinion.
| You have these teeny affluent enclaves (search for
| "Sunset Valley", "Rollingwood" and "Westlake Hills"
| near/inside Austin) that anyone else would consider "part
| of Austin", but they don't vote in city elections or pay
| city taxes (but they certainly take advantage of all the
| benefits of being close to Austin...)
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| 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).
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| That's fairly common in France. Most "big cities" aren't
| _that_ populous by themselves, but the metro area has
| much more people.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| The US went really hard on cars and single family
| housing. Without a lot of older cities in many places the
| surrounding land was cheap so people spread out (also due
| to racist zoning laws, "stimulating the economy", general
| greed, etc it's kinda hard to point to a single reason).
|
| https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/4/27/this-is-
| the-en...
| bombcar wrote:
| It really depends on a number of factors:
|
| * Age of the city
|
| * Natural boundaries (rivers, mountains)
|
| * How government is setup, in some countries (and in some
| areas of countries) many things are done at the city
| level, others bump a lot up to county, state, or even
| country government. The USA manages schools at the city
| or below, and so city boundaries become well-fought over.
|
| Whenever you see "Unified" you're seeing something built
| out of smaller, usually city-related, parts.
| throwup238 wrote:
| That's because Chinese cities are bigger than US counties
| let alone individual cities.
|
| If you look at the list of most dense "cities proper" [1]
| China doesn't even make the list because all of their
| cities include huge swathes of rural land. Beijing for
| example is over 6,000 square miles while NYC is only 300 sq
| mi and the city of LA is only 470 sq mi.
|
| The US has dozens of counties with more than a million
| people [2] and most are much smaller than Beijing or other
| Chinese cities. The only city that is comparable to an
| American one is Hong Kong, the rest are _much_ bigger.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_b
| y_pop...
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_populo
| us_co...
| sremani wrote:
| 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.
| werdnapk wrote:
| That just goes to show you how sparse american cities are
| built... the sprawl just builds up outside of the city with
| low density.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Not that I disagree with the sprawl assessment, it's just
| that I think many cities have comically small boundaries
| on the map.
| bluGill wrote:
| The sprawl isn't always low density. Normally it is but
| some have dense areas.
| dotps1 wrote:
| 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.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > US airports always seem to be surrounded by densely populated
| residential areas
|
| The US in general is very densely built up. The distinct lack
| of green space in US cities is very noticeable to the non-US
| observer.
|
| So I think its more of a case that US airports are surrounded
| by "less" densely populated areas.
|
| > And secondly Us airports always seem to take huge plots of
| land compared to Euro airports.
|
| With the exception of the limited number of buildings of
| historical interest, In general the US doesn't do history in
| its buildings. They'll happily tear stuff down and build a
| shiny new thing in its place.
|
| As I understand it the whole concept of green belt / urban
| conservation is also fairly minimal in the US mentality, so
| large land grabs for building and expansion of airports are
| easier in the US.
|
| Meanwhile, in Europe, most airports have history and grew
| organically. And the whole green belt / urban conservation
| thing is much stronger in Europe. For example, London Heathrow
| started off life as a single grass runway with a few simple
| buildings and grew organically over time. Its growth ultimately
| limited by the city that grew around it, and so you end up with
| for example the present controversial discussion over the
| possibility of a third runway. I would hazard a guess that if
| Heathrow were in the US, the third runway would have been built
| and operational by now !
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > The distinct lack of green space in US cities is very
| noticeable to the non-US observer.
|
| Huh? I felt the exact opposite in France. Many French cities
| have a bunch of nice parks, but everything else is wall-to-
| wall pavement. I always felt the common refrain about there
| being dog shit all over Paris is because on many streets
| there is barely a patch of grass for a dog to even go, so if
| you have a rude person that doesn't clean up, the shit is
| going to be where you're much more likely to step on it.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I think it's less about the inner cities and more about the
| suburbs. In the US there are certainly lots of little bits
| of curb with plants on, but little in the way of large
| useful green space.
|
| Comparing the LA metro area to almost any European city,
| it's stark how much more unused or usable green space there
| is in Europe. The US seems much more binary - you're either
| in a city, or you're outside one, it's not like the US is
| lacking green space at a national level!
| throwup238 wrote:
| Yeah but compare the San Diego metro area just a little
| south and it's overwhelmingly full of green space. I live
| in SD proper and there's several open space parks within
| walking distance that are measured in the square miles
| with tens of miles of trails each, not to mention the
| recreational parks in every neighborhood and kids parks
| that are every few blocks. The suburb cities in the
| county have even more open space and the center of the
| city has a large central park as its primary feature.
|
| YMMV significantly depending on the specific metro area.
| The suburbs of Seattle like Bellevue and Richmond were
| like that too - full of large parks and natural reserves
| everywhere.
| tomcam wrote:
| > suburbs of Seattle like Bellevue and Richmond
|
| Redmond?
| bombcar wrote:
| Part of it is people not recognizing "San Diego
| greenspace" because it's mostly brownspace. San Diego is
| built on a huge sprawling system of canyons, many of
| which are parks and have trails, but they're brown and
| ignored.
|
| https://www.alltrails.com/lists/san-diego-canyons
|
| If San Diego was as wet as some European cities, those
| would all be amazingly green.
| throwup238 wrote:
| I think people's perception is colored by coming out of
| the decades long drought in the California megacycle.
| We're back into the wet part of the cycle and everything
| is vibrant green now!
| asdff wrote:
| Well, vibrant and green for another 2 months maybe.
| asdff wrote:
| European cities are nicer about having a manicured park
| but not an actually useful park beyond sitting with a
| book or a smoke perhaps. LA metro area (and a lot of
| american style in general) parks are chock full of
| amenities europeans would be lucky to have. For example
| look at Pan Pacific Park. Three baseball fields. A soccer
| field. A rec center. Playgrounds. A couple tennis courts.
| A public pool. A library branch. A post office. A
| holocaust museum. Bathrooms. Exercise equipment. Picnic
| tables and grills. And yes, plenty of grass for sitting
| with a book or a smoke too.
|
| Then there are also much bigger parks with some hiking
| trails through more natural/unmanaged areas like griffith
| park or the sepulveda dam area or the hansen dam area,
| that also have all of these amenities (save for the
| holocaust museum) and even more. Sepulveda dam has
| archery, a rocket launch pad, and a model aircraft field.
| Hansen dam also has the archery but also a lot of
| equestrian activity and people keep horses in the area.
|
| To act like the greenspace is not available or unusuable
| doesn't speak to what is actually there for use today.
| sofixa wrote:
| I live in Paris and was recently in the US, and I
| _strongly_ disagree - US cities have much less greenery, be
| it trees on the streets, mini parks or big parks. Most
| French cities have parks all over the place, and in general
| lots of squares with trees, random trees on the streets,
| etc.
| drstewart wrote:
| I live in the US and was recently and Paris and I
| strongly much more disagree. Paris was claustrophobic it
| was such an urban hellscape. There's a reason Haussmann
| wanted to raze it to the ground.
| sofixa wrote:
| He did raze much of it to the ground, and created a
| number of parks and two forests in the process, as well
| as trees on pretty much any new street. Even the very old
| (medieval) parts like the Latin Quarter and Marais have
| mini parks all around.
| bombcar wrote:
| Cities in the USA do not have many things like big parks
| (Central Park in NY, Balboa Park in SD) but what they _do_
| have is a lot more grass next to the sidewalk type of
| greenery, except areas that are dense enough that they 've
| all died (like LA near the airport).
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Haven't spent a lot of time on the US east coast but on the
| US west coast we have low density sprawl with also not that
| many parks.
| asdff wrote:
| Western US generally has a huge edge on the east in terms
| of parkland. Both in terms of urban parks that can be quite
| substantial in size and amenities offered (e.g. golden gate
| park in SF or griffith park in LA, about 2x and 5x larger
| than central park in nyc, respectively), but also the vast
| amount of acreage that is either nature preserves or
| publicly owned state or federal land. 80% of nevada is
| federal land. In Las Vegas, you can go from gambling at
| caesars palace to hiking in red rock canyon in about a half
| hour maybe even less. Also in California at least, the
| coast is public land, you can sunbath on the sand in front
| of multimilliondollar malibu estates just fine. In the east
| many beaches are actually private property, and depending
| on the state this could even be most of them.
| Jensson wrote:
| What you want are local parks you can walk to, so you can
| go out for a walk in the park. I don't see much of that
| in San Francisco, there are some parks but they haven't
| put local parks in every neighborhood as you would need.
|
| The cities I am used to have parks at most 100 meters
| away from any home and a pretty large park 200 meters
| away, then anyone can go out and enjoy the park. San
| Francisco on the other hand seems to require driving to
| the park, but there isn't enough parking for everyone to
| enjoy the park anyway so most people don't have
| reasonable access, not comparable at all, the parks are
| giant though but they don't do anything for local
| neighborhoods. New York is kinda bad at local parks as
| well, but much better than San Francisco.
| asdff wrote:
| SF is one of the best ones in fact. In SF in particular,
| every resident lives a 10 minute walk to a park. They
| have 220 of them.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I was thinking more about how it's not very easy to walk
| to many parks. Most of the park area I'm aware of is more
| of a "you have to drive X miles" instead of being able to
| walk by or through a park on my way somewhere.
| hn72774 wrote:
| > The US in general is very densely built up
|
| Sprawl might be the word you are looking for. US is only #186
| in population density by country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/
| wiki/List_of_countries_and_depend...
| bombcar wrote:
| Comparing the US to countries is very misleading, because
| there are huge areas with no people which should be
| ignored. The density of Wyoming pulls down California, and
| California itself is so large that the central section
| pulls down the coasts.
|
| For example, density of Southern California is 420.39/sq
| mi, but the density of the LA Metro area is 541.1/sq mi.
| Density of California is 253.52/sq mi, and the USA is 87/sq
| mi.
|
| Southern California is roughly the size of Greece, with a
| population double of it.
|
| When comparing the USA to Europe, it's better to compare
| states. The US is less dense, but you can ignore huge
| swaths of "flyover country".
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > The US in general is very densely built up.
|
| This is the opposite of reality. The US is sprawly and low
| density.
|
| Of course, that's exactly the problem: sprawling over more
| space means that it's harder to get to open space for an
| airport.
| busterarm wrote:
| The US has 14 of the 35 busiest airports in the world. Europe
| has 6, if you count the UK/Heathrow.
|
| If you discount Heathrow, Europe doesn't even have one in the
| top 10, whereas the US has 5 in the top 10.
|
| The airports are different because the traffic volume is
| different.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > If you discount Heathrow, Europe doesn't even have one in
| the top 10, whereas the US has 5 in the top 10.
|
| What a silly statement. "Europe doesn't have one in the top
| 10 if you remove its one entry in the top 10."
| busterarm wrote:
| The UK has a long history of trying to distinguish itself
| from Europe. Even before Brexit.
|
| Had I not said what I said, I would have just as likely
| have had angry Brits in my comments.
|
| You're also really missing the forest for the trees here.
| bluGill wrote:
| Considering population and size I'd expect more. It would
| be interesting to see what is different that they don't
| have more.
| ulucs wrote:
| Trains take a lot of passengers away from air travel
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > Considering population and size I'd expect more.
|
| London has like four major airports:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airports_of_London
| drstewart wrote:
| So does New York and LA. Not special.
| ulucs wrote:
| Not even that, Istanbul airport is in the top 10 too. Maybe
| he meant EU? But that's not really Europe as a whole
| busterarm wrote:
| Only half of Istanbul is in Europe (yes, the side with
| the Airport) and the other half and the rest of the
| country is Anatolia/Asia Minor.
|
| Turkey has many of the political markers of being in
| Europe but is really a unique situation and its leaders
| like to take the best of being European and not-European
| where it suits them.
|
| Do most people consider it a European country? Doubtful.
| I've never known any Turks who considered themselves
| European...even the super cosmopolitain globe-trotting
| kids of Turkish diplomats that I grew up around.
| ulucs wrote:
| What political markers? IST is in Europe, and SAW is not.
| We are talking about airports in continents.
| arnon wrote:
| The US has no alternative forms of transport. Taking an
| airplane is the most convenient way.
|
| In Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, and the UK taking a
| train is faster and more convenient (even if more expensive
| often)
| vel0city wrote:
| The distances involved often lend themselves to air travel
| being more convenient even if there are trains. There's a
| sweet spot for distance where trains make the most sense, but
| after that a plane will end up being faster even with all the
| dead time at the airport.
|
| I live in Dallas. Door to door, a train would be faster and
| more convenient than a plane for me to go to Houston or
| Austin. A direct flight will _always_ be faster and more
| convenient for me to go to Denver, San Francisco, Chicago,
| New York, Orlando, Seattle, etc.
|
| Dallas to New York is ~1,400mi. That's like Madrid to Warsaw.
| It'll take me ~6 hours everything included to go that
| distance by plane. What's the travel itinerary for Madrid to
| Warsaw? Is it direct (same level of convenience)? Is it
| faster?
| jon_richards wrote:
| Some context, the Beijing-Kunming high-speed train takes 10
| hours 43 minutes (including 6 intermediate stops) to travel
| 1,710 mi.
| pchristensen wrote:
| The US is also much, much bigger. Germany is about the size
| of Nevada. France is about the size of the entire Eastern
| seaboard.
|
| The US would definitely be better served with better rail
| infrastructure, but there's no getting around the fact that
| Seattle to Boston is 200 miles longer than Lisbon to Moscow,
| and slightly longer than Edinburgh to Aleppo.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| If you look east of the Mississippi, the overall population
| densities aren't really that bad, and should be able to
| support high speed rail easily.
|
| ...except for the fact that _within_ metro areas, US cities
| are designed in a very sprawly way that 's hostile to
| public transit. This is an entirely unforced error that has
| nothing to do with geography and everything to do with
| culture. We deliberately chose to make our cities sprawly
| as fuck through various regulations.
| asdff wrote:
| A park and ride high speed rail system in those cities
| would probably stand on its own if it actually does save
| you time and cost.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Park and rides are somewhat of a stopgap measure. You
| really need walking/biking/bussing to rail to be
| effective last/first-mile options, in order for rail to
| be effective and popular too.
| asdff wrote:
| 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.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| 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.
| asdff wrote:
| 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.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| You might be surprised. High speed rail isn't always
| about trips where you need a lot of luggage, and cargo
| bikes are popular in places with good bike
| infrastructure.
|
| Of course, the number of places with actually "good" bike
| infrastructure isn't very high. There's the
| Netherlands...and that's about it. And even the
| Netherlands doesn't really have "great" bike
| infrastructure as a standard (though it does have it in
| some places).
| philwelch wrote:
| The Acela corridor is well suited for HSR. A few years
| ago Amtrak was trying to divest its long haul routes that
| lose money and reinvest in upgrading Acela, which would
| make it profitable. Unfortunately the plan fell through
| for political reasons.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > Somehow US airports always seem to be surrounded by densely
| populated residential areas, even in the direction of the
| runways, while Euro airports don't seem to have this problem
|
| London Heathrow is entirely hemmed in by surrounding urban
| areas. Flights landing at Heathrow fly directly over central
| London (with great views of iconic buildings).
|
| It is technically possible to extend the runways somewhat but
| actually doing so is a planning / political nightmare. Heathrow
| is located just inside the M25 (the main London orbital
| motorway) immediately adjacent to the junction of the M25 and
| the M4 (the busy motorway that goes West from London). So not
| only is Heathrow virtually impossible to expand, it's in an
| area known for its horrendous rush-hour traffic. It does have a
| railway connection to central London, but this is a partially
| underground line with multiple stops (every few minutes in
| practice). Journeys to Heathrow from most places in the UK can
| be horrendous.
|
| Gatwick, London's second airport, is ~30 miles South of the
| city, and does have reasonably fast rail connections. Gatwick
| does have space for a new runway, but lots of factors have
| prevented this.
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| Heathrow has had the Heathrow express train for years and
| years, and now also has the Elizabeth line; both very quick
| to get into C London.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > Heathrow express train for years and years, and now also
| has the Elizabeth line; both very quick to get into C
| London.
|
| Yes, my mistake. Haven't tried the Elizabeth line. These
| _do_ help if you are travelling to / from London but
| getting to Heathrow from the South West remains
| challenging. My nearest station is Brockenhurst (which
| although small is on a London mainline). It's 80 miles by
| road, or by rail, a 2h 10 minute journey (with typically 2
| to 4 changes, longest is 2 hrs 40 mins) that would cost
| PS87 (!) travelling tomorrow off-peak. Not fun with
| suitcase.
| bombcar wrote:
| Making a runway longer only lets bigger planes land.
|
| To really expand an airport, you need to _add_ parallel
| runways, and that is a ton of land.
|
| And if you have too many parallel runways, you end up with
| too much time spent taxiing around.
| 7952 wrote:
| A lot of British airports emerged out of WWII air bases. I am
| not sure how they were chosen exactly. But they probably wanted
| places that were flat, dry and grassy with lots of space. They
| could have considered proximity to places that needed to be
| defended or suitability for launching attacks. And they knew
| that airfields were likely to be bombed.
| po wrote:
| 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 over the years, even into recent times.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanrizuka_Struggle
| blamazon wrote:
| The next couple airports in Japan to be built were built over
| water on artificial islands:
|
| Kansai International:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansai_International_Airport
|
| Kobe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_Airport
|
| Kitakyushu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitakyushu_Airport
|
| Chubu International:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chubu_Centrair_International_A...
| pbsladek wrote:
| If flying into NRT and on the way to Tokyo, ~$200ish for the
| taxi ride. Ooops.
| busterarm wrote:
| Keisei Skyliner and Narita Express are 1/10th of the cost and
| twice as fast.
| ghaff wrote:
| There is a train though which even people on expense accounts
| usually take.
| pbsladek wrote:
| I expensed the taxi. It was 1am. Train another 2-2.5
| hours..
|
| It's Japan. Obviously I knew about the train lol. Their
| trains are awesome!
| Symbiote wrote:
| That must have been an unusual situation, as Narita
| closes at 23.00.
| pbsladek wrote:
| It was. Been back other times in the morning and
| afternoon and took the train. Easy peasy.
| ruszki wrote:
| Taxi is not the main way to leave airports in large part of
| the world.
| masklinn wrote:
| It definitely is not for narita, NEX brings you to Tokyo in
| an hour.
| eloisant wrote:
| And that's the most confortable way, there are even
| cheaper alternatives like the Keisei line.
| dboreham wrote:
| For anyone doing travel planning based on reading here:
| often your best option is actually a bus (coach). This is
| because although they're slow, they go straight to many
| major hotels in the city. This removes the need to
| negotiate the subway with luggage or deal with Tokyo's
| idiosyncratic taxis while jetlagged.
| adhvaryu wrote:
| I went digging out of curiosity, and it seems you are
| correct. According to this article [1], around 80 of the
| top 100 airports have rapid transit connections.
|
| [1] https://www.ptua.org.au/2015/10/29/busiest-airports-
| rail/
| ghaff wrote:
| Even in the US, there are increasingly transit options.
| Oddly enough, there are sorta options in NYC but they
| aren't the greatest.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| What do you mean, you don't love taking the airtrain to
| the bus to the subway to your destination?
| wodenokoto wrote:
| It's still a long time to get into Tokyo and even then you
| might be far from where you want to go. As far as I
| remember the rapid line from Marita only stops at shinjuku
| and Tokyo station.
| backpackviolet wrote:
| In addition to the fantastic trains the other commenters
| mentioned, you could also take a bus for $20 to any major hub
| or hotel.
| pbsladek wrote:
| Depends what time you get there and what you are willing to
| put up with especially when it isn't on your dime.
|
| Took the bus back from the hotel.
| rayiner wrote:
| I had a cab driver refuse to take me to NRT because it would
| be too expensive. He told me to take the train from Ueno.
| cbhl wrote:
| If you want to pay ~$200 and get to Tokyo faster, you should
| fly into HND instead of NRT, full stop.
| dawnerd wrote:
| And from Hnd either the monorail or the airport limousine
| are very cheap ways into the city. I use the airport
| limousine to get to Disney and it's really convenient. WAY
| cheaper than a taxi
| seatac76 wrote:
| 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.
| tanjtanjtanj wrote:
| There are also fare adjustment machines, you put your
| ticket in and it tells you what difference to pay to
| "upgrade" your ticket.
|
| Many travelers will just grab a ticket that sounds vaguely
| correct and then fare adjust at the end. Grabbing an IC
| card or one of the apps is the easiest course for virtually
| everyone though.
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| You use an airport bus or a train to get to and from Narita.
|
| You'd be an idiot to use a taxi.
|
| Or it's some exceptional situation (flight super delayed?)
| com2kid wrote:
| An uber from Sea-Tac airport into Seattle can easily reach
| $80, and almost $100 with tip.
|
| Given how far NRT is from Tokyo, $200 doesn't seem too bad...
| johndunne wrote:
| My wife and I landed in NRT a couple months ago and had a
| taxi leave us high and dry. We had to book a taxi there and
| then and it cost $450 to Tokyo in a standard taxi. The pre
| booked taxi that left us H&M was $200.
| treflop wrote:
| Japan is well known for violent political clashes.
|
| There is still a very obvious house in the middle of Narita
| Airport that you can see when flying in or out. There are roads
| to it underneath the airport.
| acchow wrote:
| This is shocking to me
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/narita-airport-farm-takao-
| shito...
|
| "The best outcome would be for the airport to shut down," he
| said. "But what's important is to keep farming my ancestral
| land."
|
| I imagine most countries would just use eminent domain?
| fsckboy wrote:
| that article says that what he refers to as his ancestral
| lands have been farmed by his family for only a 100 years.
| hard for me to get worked up about such a short time
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It doesn't matter if you or I get worked up about their
| land, it matters if they get worked up about their land
| and their heritage.
| pests wrote:
| Gotta start somewhere, and I'm sure it means way more to
| him that it does to you. 100 years is a lifetime, do you
| never get worked up at all? Why bother, such a short
| lifespan we all live.
| paulddraper wrote:
| What would you consider a medium amount of time?
|
| Also https://getyarn.io/yarn-
| clip/cf343b06-f4a8-46fc-b124-1c61392...
| dylan604 wrote:
| I wonder if all of the airport pollution and particulates
| adds any flavor to what is grown there
| lukan wrote:
| "I imagine most countries would just use eminent domain"
|
| Japan also did it in this case in general, but not
| everywhere. Because having a law and enforcing a law is not
| the same - because there was determined resistance of all
| kinds. And by law they could have also expropriated that
| land, but that would have sparked more violent opposition.
| Apparently letting this farm as it is, was one of the
| compromises to have the airport at all, without riot police
| guarding it 24/7.
| tzs wrote:
| 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?
| ijustlovemath wrote:
| That would add massive complexity and excess weight (lugging
| around the battery and all the fuel), which makes it a
| nonstarter
| alephxyz wrote:
| A 3m wide fan spinning at 3000RPM for takeoff will be loud
| wether it's being driven by a gas turbine or an electrical
| motor.
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| Largescale use of electric planes still seem like sci-fi for
| the time being, but you did get me thinking that airships would
| likely produce a lot less noise pollution than planes.
| subzidion wrote:
| 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 runway) is to run high-speed rail to
| Moses Lake Airport in Central Washington and just expand there.
| I'm doubtful it happens, since that means building a major
| airport _and_ a new train.
| perlgeek wrote:
| > 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 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.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| Didn't happen with Denver or Hong Kong.
| masklinn wrote:
| Or Paris.
| dwater wrote:
| 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.
| massysett wrote:
| This is wrong. Reagan National is DCA, not WAS. Also, DCA
| handles more passengers than IAD.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/02/18/
| nat...
| dwater wrote:
| Sorry, I take the train 10x more than I fly, I mixed up
| the airport with Union Station.
| tyoma wrote:
| Flights to/from WAS are artificially restricted by
| congress: https://www.mwaa.com/protecting-dca-perimeter
| jaimie wrote:
| 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 SS
| 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...
| sofixa wrote:
| Not if the old airport gets closed - like Tegel and
| Tempelhof were in Berlin, even though the new one next to
| Schonefeld wasn't ready yet due to it being a fiasco of
| colossal proportions.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Sure, like in the case of Hiroshima Airport (HIJ) and its
| predecessor (HIW), but even then most people (not
| necessarily including the politicians) end up longing for
| the one that was more convenient.
| vel0city wrote:
| When DFW was built Congress passed the Wright Amendment
| which kneecapped Dallas Love Field (DAL) to only serve
| domestic and immediately adjacent state travel. Personally
| I prefer DAL but I can see how DFW would have potentially
| withered on the vine if it hadn't been passed. I'm happy
| its finally expired though and now DAL can offer
| international flights.
|
| Although now that there's a Whataburger at DFW one big
| argument for me for DAL is a bit less strong. When the
| Silver Line finally gets built, I imagine almost all my air
| travel will go to DFW.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Amendment
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Line_(Dallas_Area_Rapi
| d...
| avarun wrote:
| Jesus. I just read the Wright Amendment article and it's
| absolutely disgusting the level of regulatory capture and
| corporate cronyism enmeshed in our government in this
| country. There is no reason the _federal government_
| should be involving itself in these petty airline
| disputes, and certainly shouldn't be helping maintain
| monopolies for reasons as bad as "American Airlines is
| the largest employer in North Texas".
| vel0city wrote:
| I largely agree with these opinions and dislike the
| cronyism that is a part of this deal. Looking at it a bit
| more holistically and seeing the growth of the DFW
| metroplex from 1980-now though, I think it makes sense
| for DFW airport to have succeeded. Having the very
| centralized airport with (theoretically) good rail
| service to both major cities makes a heck of a lot of
| sense and have been a good thing for the DFW economy. It
| would be nearly impossible to build the airport as it is
| now post that growth, but there's a good chance it
| wouldn't have survived in the early days given how far
| out there it was in 1979.
|
| So short answer, I hate the cronyism, but many of the
| positive end goals marketed here ultimately _did_ come
| true here. And it didn 't fully kill DAL or Southwest in
| the end.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| The issue for Seatac is that it's on a relatively small
| piece of land and can't really expand. They would
| definitely just go that route if they could.
| lobochrome wrote:
| I live in Tokyo where we have both Narita, far out but well-
| ish connected by train with NEX and Haneda, with direct
| access to the city.
|
| Haneda is vastly more convenient.
| rayiner wrote:
| I fly into Haneda whenever I can, because even though the
| train is super convenient, for a train, it's nicer to just
| throw your bags in a taxi and head straight to your hotel
| after 13 hours on a plane.
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| 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.
| _delirium wrote:
| Hong Kong recently added this, called In-town Check-in
| [1]. You can check in and drop your bags at the MTR Hong
| Kong station when taking the Airport Express. Can even
| drop off the bags up to a day in advance. Currently only
| open to Cathay Pacific customers though.
|
| [1] https://www.mtr.com.hk/en/customer/services/complom_c
| heckin....
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, any airline could set something like this up.
| Cathay has always had pretty primo service though.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Luggage tags can take a rail stop as a final destination.
| Integrate further! Have a person load the bags onto the
| train for you!
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'd add that I've always been pretty religious about
| taking all my vacation and I've seen a lot of people
| shocked that I just took off for a month. But I've done
| so deliberately and with an eye to future commitments and
| it's never been an issue.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > Haneda is vastly more convenient.
|
| Many (millions) would disagree. After the opening of the
| Keisei Skyliner[1], a very fast train from north Tokyo to
| Narita, from Shinjuku station (west side, busiest train
| station in the world), it is the same time to either Haneda
| ("Tokyo Int'l") or Narita.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyliner
| kiba wrote:
| Only allow cargo delivery via rail as well. This way this
| deincentivize road traffic as much as possible.
| Bene592 wrote:
| Allow only short distance deliveries by truck
| bombcar wrote:
| This guy simcities. Original game you could build rail
| everywhere instead of roads at all :)
| pif wrote:
| > make it very inconvenient for passengers and staff to
| approach the airport by other means
|
| Absolutely not! High-speed train have many advantages, but
| serving stations with large, long-term parking lots is not
| one of them.
|
| After all, you don't need to disincentivize the approach: you
| just need to make it clear that the airport is there to stay,
| and maybe to grow three-fold, and that noise complaints will
| never be receivable.
| kaashif wrote:
| > noise complaints will never be receivable.
|
| But they are always receivable. Complainers will vote, will
| take control of local government, will lobby state and
| national government...
|
| "Complaints aren't receivable" policies never last.
| lukan wrote:
| '"Complaints aren't receivable" policies never last.'
|
| Oh depends, you can always build some gulags and get rid
| of those annoying elections. It's crazy how quick you are
| into dictatorship realm, with some harmles sounding ideas
| taken one step further.
| newhotelowner wrote:
| I don't think you ever traveled international or your plane
| got delayed or cancelled.
|
| I don't want to carry 4 big bags in the train when I travel
| international
|
| I don't want to travel 30 miles if my plane get cancelled.
| dynm wrote:
| One option would be to have people check in, drop off their
| luggage, and even go through security in some convenient
| location in the city center and then take a high-speed
| train "inside security" to the gate. (Maybe you could even
| have trains to two different fields.)
| eitally wrote:
| That would be fantastic. I'm almost salivating thinking
| about how appealing that would be in Manhattan (or DC, or
| even SF).
| colatkinson wrote:
| God yeah it's like a hypothetical version of the AirTrain
| that isn't a huge pain. Last time I flew out of JFK from
| Manhattan IIRC the easiest way was to do the E or LIRR
| from Penn to the AirTrain _anyway_ , so might as well
| streamline the whole shebang.
| ihaveajob wrote:
| The Madrid airport offered this service, but it wasn't
| very popular, nor widely known. You checked in your
| luggage downtown and hopped on the subway to get to the
| airport with just your carry-on. I can't find any
| reference now, so it must have been discontinued.
| avidiax wrote:
| You can do something fairly similar in Japan. They have
| luggage shipping services that are quite cheap and
| reliable, and have some days of storage built in. So you
| can take a train between cities without carrying
| everything, or maybe skip your big luggage at one city in
| your itinerary and have it at your hotel in the next
| city. You could also deliver it to the airport, but you
| have to build in some hours of lead time.
| jon_richards wrote:
| This just makes me wonder about a purpose-built train that
| allows airport luggage carts.
| mdasen wrote:
| I certainly understand that sentiment, but a ton of people
| commute 30 miles daily (or more). Even if you live "near an
| airport", you probably live 15+ miles from an airport.
| Tottenham London to Heathrow is 24 miles by car. The
| British Museum to Heathrow is 19 miles. Columbia University
| on the Upper West Side to JFK is 17 miles. DC to Dulles is
| 26 miles. Downtown Denver is 25 miles to the airport. SF to
| SFO is 14 miles. LA to LAX is 20 miles. The Loop in Chicago
| to O'Hare is 17 miles. Dallas to DFW is 21 miles. Houston
| is 22 miles. Seattle to SeaTac is 15 miles.
|
| Most cities don't have airports that close to the city.
| Maybe you live in San Diego and the airport is right there
| downtown, but most people are traveling to get to their
| airport. Ok, maybe you don't want to take a train and can
| hire an airport van or whatever, but you're likely
| traveling a distance to get to an airport.
|
| I'm not saying that it isn't nice to have a more convenient
| airport, but if we're being realistic about climate change
| air travel is going to have to be something we do sparingly
| rather than often. People in the US, UK, Germany, and
| France currently emit an average of 15t, 5t, 8t, and 5t of
| CO2 respectively. A trip from NYC to London will be 2t of
| CO2 - which probably needs to be around 40% of your annual
| CO2 budget. That is to say, an inconvenient airport should
| be an inconvenience very few times per year.
|
| Making other things in your life more conveniently located
| should be a much higher priority - the things you'll use
| daily, weekly, or monthly. An airport is something you'll
| use infrequently - or will have to use infrequently if
| we're going to be realistic about climate change. Plus, as
| I noted, 30 miles isn't really that inconvenient compared
| to current situations in most cities. Even the "close"
| airport in London is 20+ miles away from most of London. Is
| there a huge difference between 20 miles and 30 miles?
| That's less than a 10 minute difference by car. With a
| high-speed train it could be a lot less. Paris to Lyon on
| the TGV averages 167 MPH. At that speed, 30 miles is
| covered in 11 minutes.
|
| I certainly understand the desire for convenience, but
| airports are something individual people use infrequently
| (or will have to use infrequently given the reality of
| climate change). If getting to the airport is annoying,
| it's probably not an annoyance in your life frequently.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| And yet all aviation combined is responsible for less
| than 3% of total carbon emissions. Permanently grounding
| all aircraft will make no appreciable difference. All the
| major manufacturers are currently sold out for the next
| decade; even if there were an additional major surge in
| demand for air travel enough to impact this number, it
| would be impossible to fulfill it.
| rangestransform wrote:
| I will vote against whoever tried to make my flights less
| convenient
| com2kid wrote:
| So demand rail service that drops you off inside the
| airport right at the security line.
|
| Demand baggage pick-up and delivery services be offered.
|
| Having someone pick up your checked luggage the day
| before you fly out, walking off a train right into the
| airport, and then getting on the plane w/o any fuss, is
| amazing.
|
| VS the American Standard of waiting in a huge line to
| weigh your checked luggage, that you just paid an Uber
| 60-80 to carry for you.
| dml2135 wrote:
| I realize not everyone can just pack a carry-on, but as one
| of those types, traveling with "4 big bags" anywhere just
| seems insane to me. What do you bring that takes up so much
| space?
| lukan wrote:
| Things for the family maybe?
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Hiking gear.
| avidiax wrote:
| I do this all the time, but the bags start mostly empty
| and get filled up with purchases over time.
| ttymck wrote:
| Then you would fly via SEA?
| com2kid wrote:
| > I don't want to carry 4 big bags in the train when I
| travel international
|
| Japan has this really cool service where you can get your
| bags picked up from your hotel room and taken to the
| airport or from the airport to your hotel room. It costs
| max around $20 USD.
|
| > I don't want to travel 30 miles if my plane get
| cancelled.
|
| My local airport (Sea-tac) is almost 30 miles from Seattle.
| It can easily take an hour driving to get there. I do agree
| that taking lots of luggage onto the light rail (WHICH
| DOESN'T DROP YOU OFF IN THE AIRPORT!!) is a bad idea.
|
| But I am one of those people who despises checked luggage,
| since it can add another 30+ minutes to checking in.
| Compared to carry-on and TSA pre-check, where I can walk
| into the airport, through security, and be at my boarding
| gate in under 10 minutes.
|
| But hey, Seattle is, as much as I love it, not a world
| class American city. Let's try NYC.
|
| It can take over an hour to get from midtown Manhattan to
| JFK driving.
|
| It also takes over an hour on the subway.
|
| Oops, another bad example.
|
| You know what, I am starting to think flying out of Boston
| Logan[1] is pretty nice.
|
| But seriously, if you want a huge international airport,
| you need a lot of land, and you don't want to put that
| smack dab in the middle of a city, unless the land got paid
| for long ago, and even then, you'll be stuck with an
| airport that you cannot expand.
|
| Meanwhile a train from Tokyo to Narita Airport is under 20
| minutes.
|
| [1] I legit like flying out of Boston Logan, the big dig
| was expensive but wow was it effective. Also shout out to
| Bogota Colombia for having super clean streets around its
| airport. It was an amazing second impression flying in (the
| first impression being how beautiful the city is from the
| sky!)
| throwway120385 wrote:
| My understanding is that in Japan you can have your luggage
| portered to your hotel separately.
| mst wrote:
| -I- would be entirely fine with an airport with those transit
| restrictions.
|
| mdk (Shadowcat's resident responsible adult / business
| person) however has three kids, and two adults trying to
| wrangle three children as well as luggage makes trains much,
| much less attractive as an option.
|
| So I think "fantastic to imagine, DOA as an idea in practice"
| applies, I'm afraid.
| egorfine wrote:
| Taxi infrastructure is entirely plausible in a project with
| heavy restriction for private cars.
|
| I.e. build all the roads you want but don't make long-term
| parkings available.
| mst wrote:
| Fair point, I was thinking about "cargo traffic only" as
| in the original though experiment.
|
| Coaches with a dedicated luggage section would quite
| possibly help as well, and it occurs to me that you could
| have a train with baggage cars ... but having never had
| to travel with more than one small child I can't say how
| acceptable those options would be to parents in general.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> 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.
| Arrath wrote:
| > run high-speed rail to Moses Lake Airport
|
| Woah, that's a good ways out there
| 7952 wrote:
| That is often the experience already when using a big hub
| airport. Because by their very nature they draw people in
| from across a region. And that naturally leeds to congestion
| and inconvenience. Rail is a help but may not be fast if you
| don't live close to the right stations.
|
| I think hubs are often setup to serve airlines running lots
| of connecting flight rather than the regional population.
| They would be happier flying out of a small local airport on
| a narrowbody and flying direct or connecting elsewhere.
| dboreham wrote:
| See: DIA
| tallanvor wrote:
| It's been 35 years they've discussed that possibility. It's
| never going to happen. The costs of high speed rail across the
| mountain are simply too high.
| bombcar wrote:
| It'd be easier and cheaper to landfill the sound - or do what
| is slowly happening and start using Paine Field.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Paine field is the new seattle area airport.
| subzidion wrote:
| I don't think they believe Paine Field on its own is going to
| be able to accommodate the expected air travel growth. Yes,
| it's serving some commercial air travel now, but the
| consensus was there needs to be a new airport for all this
| growth.
| arccy wrote:
| it barely has any flights anywhere this now
| dmazzoni wrote:
| Is there a reason for that? Can it handle more?
| brewdad wrote:
| Paine Field would seem to make the most sense but there
| really isn't much room to expand it. It can probably help in
| the short/medium term while a new, from scratch airport is
| built elsewhere.
| RaftPeople wrote:
| Paine field can't support what is needed and can't be
| expanded. But it will continue to service a small percent of
| the overall need.
|
| The state has created a new commission to start the new
| airport site selection process over again, but this time it
| will just be a recommendation.
|
| The previous project that had been going on for many years
| was site selection and not just recommendation, but their
| selection(s) pissed off the people and so the whole thing got
| just got killed recently.
| bombcar wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| The newer airport is really less convenient to the mountains
| than Stapleton was. (At least in terms of distance. Not sure
| about driving time.)
| bombcar wrote:
| Ah, I meant that putting the airport _farther_ from the
| mountains means the planes can take off heading west
| without circling around.
|
| I don't know if it's that far, however.
| ghaff wrote:
| Stapleton was still east of Denver. I think the siting of
| DIA was probably more that there was a bunch of flat
| relatively empty land even further east. It's been a
| while since I flew into Denver but my recollection is the
| airport is pretty hell and gone from the city.
| bombcar wrote:
| It is, but in the last 20 years of visiting now and then,
| it is _much_ more built up on the way "into town" - it
| used to be that you'd pass that hellhorse and see nothing
| for 40 minutes but a sign telling you not to stop for
| prison hitchhikers.
|
| Now there's tons of developments - which is always a
| problem for these airports. I remember when SEATAC was
| far outside the city and everyone hated it, now it's
| crammed in the middle of the Seattle/Tacoma metro area,
| which is all one big blob city.
| rconti wrote:
| Stapleton is now "in Denver". I had never been to Denver
| until a few years ago, and was out for a run with a
| running club based out of a sports store in a strip mall
| in Denver proper. I asked what the control tower was for,
| and someone said they used it for training, which made
| sense. It wasn't until later on that I realized it was
| the OLD Stapleton control tower! Right in town!
| Surrounded by stores and condos and a park.
| asdff wrote:
| What is a bit interesting to think about Denver was that
| rocky mountain arsenal closed in 1992 about the same time as
| stapleton in 1995. They ended up spending about 2 billion to
| clean up the rocky mountain arsenal to make it a wildlife
| refuge and meet all those standards, and spent five billion
| on Denver international airport. I'd imagine the
| environmental cleanup would have been substantially cheaper
| if they just devoted that swath of land (much nearer to
| downtown Denver actually) for the airport and devoted the
| swath of unpolluted land Denver airport presently sits on for
| a wildlife area, maybe one that won't end up being hemmed on
| all sides by Denver suburbia in time like the present rocky
| mountain arsenal. There is nothing but empty fields east of
| dia until you hit Omaha or Kansas City, so wild populations
| wouldn't be trapped in the preserve so much like they are in
| these nature preserves surrounded by urban areas and busy
| roads.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| The other problem was that the legislature restricted the
| commission of where they could look for a new place, it had to
| be less than X amount of people and other restrictions.
|
| In theory there was a good place for an airport if those
| restrictions were removed
| yadaeno wrote:
| Paine Field is about 35 mins away from Seattle and serves
| airline traffic as of a few years ago.
| patch_cable wrote:
| And it is so much better I routinely pay hundreds more to fly
| out of Paine Field.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| Its hit or miss if you can get the flight you need or of
| there and it always costs more from what I can see.
| bombcar wrote:
| Paine Field is also unnaturally large for a "little suburban
| airport" because it's the site of the largest building in the
| world, because it's a Boeing assembly plant.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| Are you thinking of Boeing Field? Paine is a tiny little
| luxury airport with 4 gates.
| mikestew wrote:
| 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
| bombcar wrote:
| 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).
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| I've been to Paine, and apparently I just ignored
| everything outside of the passenger facility. Oops!
| mikestew wrote:
| _One of the interesting ideas (that was proposed even back when
| SEA was adding it 's third runway) is to run high-speed rail to
| Moses Lake Airport in Central Washington and just expand
| there._
|
| That would have been an interesting idea _before_ the railroad
| right-of-way was turned into a multi-use trail. There 's
| another rail corridor that goes through Stampede Pass, but I
| don't know that it would be usable for "high-speed rail" (nor
| do I know that it even goes anywhere useful).
| balderdash wrote:
| What's comical is how hard it is to get to many urban US
| airports - why their isn't the equivalent of the Heathrow
| express to serve New York city's three airports is absurd
| jamwil wrote:
| Sure would be nice to just pop out to the Gorge for an
| afternoon of music though!
| resonantjacket5 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| The commission was hampered by rules that stated they couldn't
| look into increasing the existing airports capacity.
|
| "Survey responses also conveyed members' views on what kind of
| options the Legislature permitted them to consider -- the 2019
| legislation prohibited considering sites in King County, or
| those near military bases. Some members noted that those
| constraints hindered their search efforts, with some doubting
| whether it's possible to have a new airport operational by
| 2040." https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-
| aerospace/state...
|
| The "next" airport is basically just expanding SeaTac. There's
| plans to add a second terminal in SAMP
| https://www.portseattle.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/1805...
| And then even WSDOT's project for the new 509 extension is to
| allow freight traffic to reach the seatac airport.
|
| Outside of that the other regional airport to be used is king
| county international airport -- even back in 2005 southwest
| looked into using it.
|
| Paine field, while it has the capacity is not where the demand
| is for passengers. Secondly, I don't think many people realize
| the bottleneck for SeaTac airport is not just passenger traffic
| but freight traffic. It's why the airport commission keeps
| choosing sites south of Seattle aka Pierce County or Thurston
| County because it's close to the port of tacoma. They aren't
| going to choose Paine field.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Paine field is already loud as hell all the time so I'm glad
| it's a non-starter.
| nojvek wrote:
| Make Paine field airport bigger and accept international
| flights.
|
| I love that airport. It should be bigger and is north enough
| that it has its own population.
|
| Also US needs to build more high speed rail. We are over-
| reliant on airports.
| crazymoka wrote:
| I liked the design of the circular run way airport.
| rokhayakebe wrote:
| How about more night take offs? Many US airports "close" at 12AM.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| Somehow I doubt that the solution to "airports cause too much
| noise pollution" is "let's stage more of the noisiest aircraft
| operations right when people are sleeping".
| rob74 wrote:
| > _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 part because of its
| long distance from the city, this never happened, and Mirabel
| stopped serving passenger traffic in 2004._
|
| Another relatively new airport built far from the city it serves
| is Munich airport, located around 33 km (20 miles) from the city
| center, opened in 1992. The two major candidates for "relatively
| sparsely populated area" when the airport was planned (back in
| the 1960s) were a swampy area north of Munich (Erdinger Moos) and
| a forest to the south (Hofoldinger Forst). They picked the swamp,
| which leads to frequent fog problems. And they solved the problem
| of the old airport competing against the new one by simply
| closing the old airport (the company operating the new one is the
| same as for the old one, so no protests there). Some equipment
| was even moved from the old airport to the new one in an
| overnight relocation. But, as the 30 years from planning to
| opening show, even this remote location was not without
| conflicts. And, more than 30 years after the opening, there is
| still no fast train to the airport. The Munich-Nuremberg high
| speed railway line could have been routed by the airport, but
| (according to rumors) this wasn't done to protect the Nuremberg
| airport. Then there were plans for a maglev train (Transrapid)
| which were cancelled in the early 2000s. Currently the plan is
| for an Express S-Bahn line, but since the S-Bahn tunnel in the
| city center can't accommodate any more trains, this will only be
| possible when the second S-Bahn tunnel is completed (the date for
| that keeps getting pushed back, currently it's 2035).
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > Then there were plans for a maglev train (Transrapid) which
| were cancelled in the early 2000s.
|
| Edmund Stoiber explained these plans in a legendary speech:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7TboWvVERU
| ofrzeta wrote:
| In Munich/Germany plans for a new airport (as a successor to
| Munchen/Riem) started in the 60s. Construction started in 1980.
| The airport went into operation in 1992.
|
| Obviously the people in the Erdinger Moos didn't like the
| decision to build the airport there and many lawsuits ensued that
| lead to a stop of the construction for three years. In the end
| and the last lawsuit I think there was no option of another
| appeal so that was that.
|
| In the end I think it just came down to a question of national
| interest where you can't have some individuals stop a project
| like this because an airport is needed in the area and it has to
| be built somewhere.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> you can 't have some individuals stop a project like this
| because an airport is needed in the area and it has to be built
| somewhere._
|
| Environmentalist opponents of airport construction will often
| disagree with that premise - for example, pointing to the rise
| of videoconferencing and remote working.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| 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 edge will be the railroad right of way
| that carries one of the Chicago commuter rail lines _and_ the
| Amtrak route that serves the Chicago-UIUC-Memphis-New Orleans
| line. Plus an existing Interstate with existing interchanges a
| mile west of that. Very little infrastructure is needed outside
| of the airport boundaries. Still a lot of opposition though, and
| years behind schedule.
|
| [1]
| https://www.google.com/maps/@41.3774859,-87.676198,14.2z?ent...
|
| [2] https://www.bultfield.com
| ryandrake wrote:
| 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,
| East Bay travelers would benefit the most from such
| development.
| jimberlage wrote:
| "...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.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| Good point. The Livermore airport is pretty hemmed in
| already; it looks like it would be pretty difficult to do
| much expansion and you have all those houses that are already
| under the runway approaches. I'm guessing that when you say
| "Bay Area jets", you are talking private jets, not 737s,
| right?
|
| In the case of the South Suburban Chicago Airport, noise is
| less of an issue. People don't want traffic and they don't
| want farms turned into warehouses and light industrial. And
| then the housing built for the thousands of jobs created.
|
| It's essentially opposition to sprawl, which I think is a
| pretty legitimate concern. I think the state could try to do
| things to help prevent it from being as bad as it could be
| (forest preserves, open space, minimum zoning, etc). Though I
| don't think they want to, because the alternative to this
| airport is that the one just across the border in Indiana
| would get enlarged, leading to all that economic development
| going to a different state.
| DrBazza wrote:
| Unfamiliar with this, but are you suggesting that the airport
| would cover the railroad, or simply just finish before it?
|
| If it covers it, then from the satellite pictures it would be
| trivial to bury the line in a cut-n-cover tunnel for little
| expense.
|
| The fact that a rail line runs there already seems ideal for a
| modern airport.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| The property line would end at the railroad right of way. A
| passenger station would be built to provide service to the
| airport.
|
| The current talk is to build it as a cargo airport, but the
| original concept was a passenger airport to serve the growing
| population in Illinois and Indiana that find access to the
| existing airports inconvenient. There is every reason to
| believe that if it is built it will start serving passengers
| just as soon as they can get airlines to agree to use it for
| passenger flights. As you can see from the recent law, they
| are _adding_ cargo to the list of reasons for building the
| airport; they are not replacing passenger service ;)
|
| https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=2531&.
| ..
| bombcar wrote:
| _Cargo_ airports should be built even further out, because
| cargo doesn 't care about waiting around.
|
| Of course, there's also the factor that cargo flights are
| insane to begin with, if you take a bit to think about it.
| duped wrote:
| That project is a cargo airport, not passengers. At least
| initially.
| selectodude wrote:
| South suburban airport is dead as dirt. Rockford and Gary have
| more than picked up the slack.
| bambax wrote:
| There's this classic French movie from the 70s, "Nous irons tous
| au paradis", where a group of friends buy a house really cheap.
| They can't believe their luck until they realize the house is
| next to an international airport (they visited the house when the
| air traffic controllers were on strike).
|
| Here's the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2aFksnIghQ
|
| It's a little bit absurd of course that they didn't bother to
| check first, but it kind of works.
| patwolf wrote:
| I live about 5 miles from an airport. It never occurred to me
| when I bought the house that there'd be airplane noise, but we
| happen to be right in the flight path. They're infrequent
| enough that I didn't hear any while touring the house. The
| house is well-insulated, so the noise isn't bad while inside.
| But while outside, it's loud enough that you have to pause a
| conversation when a plane goes by.
| jdnenid wrote:
| How did it not occur to you that there would be noise from
| airplanes if you live that close?
|
| Or is it more of an airstrip where only ultra light aircraft
| depart?
| patwolf wrote:
| Half the city is within 5 miles of the airport. I've lived
| in places much closer and never experienced the noise
| before. The difference was being in the flight path.
|
| I'll also add that my perception of the distance to the
| airport was skewed by the fact that it's a 15 mile drive to
| the terminal entrance, but only 5 miles as the crow flies.
| ghaff wrote:
| At least large parts of Boston are within 5 miles of
| Logan Airport. But I can say from personal experience
| that there are specific locations that are stop-
| conversation levels of aircraft noise which is not true
| of the city as a whole.
| bombcar wrote:
| That's the real difference, you really have to be in an
| area for awhile to get a feel for it.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/60wejw/noise_po
| llu... is San Diego, and you can clearly see the airport
| and even the flight path for landing planes - but which
| parts are actually affected and which are nearly
| unnoticeable requires boots on the ground.
|
| And also, landing planes are quieter than ones taking
| off, and some airports face one direction most of the
| time.
|
| https://balboapark.org/arts-culture/starlight-bowl-
| balboa-pa... - The Starlight Bowl is right under the
| flightpath and the actors would pause when a plane
| appeared.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's a nice marsh I've sea kayaked to from Winthrop
| which is a community in greater Boston right across from
| Logan airport. (You could have easily landed your boat
| there at the end of the runway--presumably if you didn't
| mind serious people with automatic weapons paying you a
| quick visit.) I remember being there once with a friend
| and we got to talking with a local for some reason. HE
| TALKED REALLY LOUDLY. You understood why when a jet took
| off over the parking lot every few minutes.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I lived under the London Heathrow flight path. There are so
| many flights that the conversation would be paused for 25% or
| more of the total time.
|
| Somehow, expanding this airport is politically desirable. 3
| million people live under the flight path, and they are
| dismissed as rich or poor people who should have known
| better. They are rich and poor, there is plenty of range, and
| there certainly aren't a million spare houses they could
| choose to move to.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| My father-in-law used to live in Federal Way, Washington,
| directly south of SeaTac. He swore you got used to it. The
| noise was amazing -- two parallel runways, his house just
| about smack in the middle between the two approach paths.
| Airliners would go over the house every minute (or less!)
| alternating between the runways. Flaps down all the way, gear
| down, making incredible amounts of noise. Inside the house
| you could tolerate it, but it was still noisy. Outside, you
| had to pause your conversation constantly as a plane went
| overhead.
|
| SeaTac is well known, and the air traffic never really stops,
| so there is no way he did not know about it when he bought. I
| assume it made the house a lot cheaper than it would
| otherwise be. I guess it is the ultimate demonstration of a
| free market. For the right price, people will put up with
| _anything_.
| bn-usd-mistake wrote:
| It was the same for me in my previous apartment. I remember
| we were even amazed on how closely a plane was flying above
| the highway shortly before we took the exit towards the
| apartment when initially visiting, but didn't make the
| connection to how that would affect the apartment.
|
| In the end, it wasn't a big problem, we got used to it
| quickly.
| eitally wrote:
| I assume you're in the US? If so, a noise disclosure was one
| of the required seller disclosures when transacting a house.
| We received this in both NC & CA when purchasing (and took it
| seriously).
| switch007 wrote:
| If one film about people living near an airport isn't enough, I
| can recommend an Australian film The Castle (1997). It's a
| comedy, total classic.
| space_oddity wrote:
| I seems for me that for most airports its hard to build logistics
| withing...
| JCM9 wrote:
| Technology has come a very long way in reducing noise exposure
| and noise levels over communities by dramatic levels.
|
| The core problem now is not one of airport traffic but local
| communities near airports that allow residential development in
| places they really shouldn't. These days it's less the airport
| trying to move into someone's backyard but someone building their
| backyard next to an airport then complaining about the airport.
| sesuximo wrote:
| why not put the terminal in the urban area and have a fast
| train/ferry/whatever to the runways
| freeopinion wrote:
| 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 high speed rail.
|
| You might think that nobody wants to live next to a train
| station, either. Or even next to a rail line. But I wonder what
| difference there would be in resistance to a new airport vs a
| major train station within 5km of a neighborhood.
| Gare wrote:
| > 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.
| colingoodman wrote:
| I understand that suburban communities sometimes fight public
| transit stops in attempt to preserve "neighborhood character"
| and whatnot. That could be what the other user is referring
| to.
| ourmandave wrote:
| _Or even next to a rail line._
|
| Not a commuter train, but here's a neighborhood where the rail
| goes right down the street. Literally freight trains driving
| past your front yard.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odWcZagJlAs
| duped wrote:
| > 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.
| vemv wrote:
| > 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.
| humansareok1 wrote:
| Cities are smaller than you think and Airports are larger.
| bombcar wrote:
| Remember the famous "freeway interchange the size of
| Florence" image. It takes the small size of "old Florence"
| and compares it to a modern cloverleaf. Area goes up real
| fast because it's the square.
|
| Central Park in NY is about seven times the size of Vatican
| City.
| jonasdegendt wrote:
| They're probably referring to the official city limits, which
| can be tiny, as opposed to the total Dallas metro area. The
| latter is what people actually tend to think of when mentioning
| a city.
|
| I might be wrong though as I know nothing about Dallas, in
| which case it also doesn't fit into my head.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| The two runways in my city's fairly small, low traffic airport
| are roughly 1.7 and 2.42 _miles_ long (2.745 and 3.9 kilometres
| to be precise).
|
| It doesn't help that the city of San Francisco is quite tiny,
| only 7 by 7 miles. When you consider that Denver International
| has to fit _six_ runways as well as its apron, terminals,
| hangars, various facilities, and the transit space needed to
| link all these plus an acceptable amount of buffer space for
| safety and noise reduction...yeah.
| sofixa wrote:
| > 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 part because of its
| long distance from the city, this never happened, and Mirabel
| stopped serving passenger traffic in 2004.
|
| It was because of very stupid mismanagement and lack of
| connections, not the distance.
|
| The old airport remained opened and continued serving domestic
| flights, while international ones were moved to Mirabel... which
| was extremely dumb because Montreal was the major interchange
| point between international arrivals and smaller locations not
| served directly by international flights in Canada. So most of
| the utility of Montreal airport was killed, and airlines started
| serving other airports in Canada to do the same thing.
|
| Also, there was no good link to the airport - it shouldn't have
| opened without a direct at least somewhat fast rail link, but it
| had no good road nor rail connection.
|
| Also, it was put in the wrong place - one of the potential
| locations was midway between Ottawa and Montreal and could have
| served both cities, but politicians decided they don't want that.
| vel0city wrote:
| 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.
| TRDRVR wrote:
| 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.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I thought the main counterexample to that argument was the
| fact that it has never worked anywhere.
|
| From what I've heard, the Olympics have failed to benefit
| every city that's hosted them except LA, and the reason
| they were good for LA was specifically that no new
| infrastructure was built to accommodate them.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| I think Munich did well in 1972. They got a lot of public
| transport and most of the sports facilities are used a
| lot.
| Andrex wrote:
| Shame about the security, though.
| mdtusz wrote:
| Many will disagree with me, but the Vancouver Olympics
| prompted construction of some things that I would
| consider vital to the Sea to Sky region - the highway
| upgrade being the biggest.
| mdtusz wrote:
| Many will disagree with me, but the Vancouver Olympics
| prompted construction of some things that I would
| consider vital to the Sea to Sky region - the highway
| upgrade being the biggest.
| Mvandenbergh wrote:
| London as well, or at least broke even. (Although of
| course this is complicated to assess and contested).
|
| Same reason, all infrastructure was either already there
| or usable after (the Olympic stadium was sold to a
| football team).
|
| Generally the larger a city is, the better able it is to
| host an event like this for obvious reasons.
| sofixa wrote:
| > 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.'
|
| That's just poor and short sighted planning, nothing
| specific for the Olympics. Paris for instance isn't making
| any such short term infrastructure decisions, only rushing
| to finish some stuff before the Olympics (e.g. line 14 to
| Orly, while failing others like line 15 South which was
| supposed to be ready but won't).
| bluGill wrote:
| It is a common enough thing with the olympics to consider
| it specific to the olympics even though it hapbens
| elsewhere.
| londons_explore wrote:
| "exceptionally poor planning" is common in big projects like
| this.
|
| As soon as the design/planning teams gets big enough that
| there are many people who barely know eachother, they start
| competing to the detriment of the whole...
|
| Nobody wants their part late/over budget, so they do things
| to screw other parts of the project just so their part isn't
| late or over budget.
| bombcar wrote:
| You also have large groups of various entities brawling
| over it, and you end up with compromises - where compromise
| means _nobody_ is happy about _anything_.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Just to confirm, the new airport served pretty much only
| international flights
|
| Yes, they decided they'll try to do it like Paris with CDG
| and Orly, but fundamentally misunderstood the differences the
| traffic - Orly mostly serves tourist destinations or places
| where lots of people living and working in France have
| origins in such as Portugal and the Maghreb from where there
| will be limited amounts of changes to international flights;
| and Air France is abandoning Orly and focusing entirely on
| CDG because even the small opportunity misses aren't worth
| the extra costs. And both are well connected to the city
| they're serving, including to each other with the RER B (okay
| it takes 1h30m, but at least it's a mostly direct
| connection). And CDG even has high speed rail to other
| cities.
|
| Montreal isn't even close in terms of traffic patterns... and
| even if it was, the connectivity to Montreal (and ideally
| Ottawa) really wasn't there.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _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 international: IAH Dallas domestic: LUV
| Dallas international: DFW Paris international: CGD
| Paris international: ORY Washington domestic: DCA
| Washington international: IAD
|
| Notice how some airports (IAD, IAH) specifically have
| "International Airport" in their codes.
|
| It worked fine for a very long time until the airlines
| optimized into the hub-and-spoke system we have today, where
| connecting flights has become normalized.
|
| Because people think now it's normal to have connecting
| flights all the time, the domestic airports have added
| international flights, and vice-versa.
|
| What was once orderly and predictable has become very messy,
| and had a number of other side-effects.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I too thought 'international' in the name meant something.
| Until I worked with a guy who was into gliders. They named
| the large empty grass field that you had to drive for an
| hour to get to an 'international' airport. It was basically
| just enough to get a very small airplane aloft with a
| glider attached. They thought it was funny they pulled it
| off.
| reaperducer wrote:
| "International" in the name of an airport signifies that
| it is certified to receive international flights.
|
| I'm pointing out the use of "International" in airport
| codes, not names.
| bluGill wrote:
| International means customs is there when you land your
| plane. Tiny airports near borders tend to be
| international while larger ones far away are not as
| nobody flies the from elsewhere anyway. some airports you
| need to make an appointment or customes will not be
| there.
| vel0city wrote:
| 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, but it also carries an absolutely massive amount
| of domestic travel as well. My comment was about having an
| airport be almost _exclusively_ international travel with
| few domestic connections.
| masklinn wrote:
| > 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.
| vel0city wrote:
| Thanks for informing me to the history of the CAB
| decisions. In the end though, it still seems like
| American and Braniff weren't happy people were sticking
| it out with Love instead of their larger and fancier
| airport, and deregulation gave people the market to
| choose which airport they really wanted to go to until
| the Wright amendment forced people again. Even knowing
| this additional history of it being a joint decision pre-
| deregulation, I'd still argue my earlier viewpoint still
| has a good bit of truth to it. American Airlines (and a
| few others) wanted people to use the new airport instead
| of the airport the people wanted and got Congress to
| force people to go to DFW. GSW failed because people
| didn't really want it. DFW would have failed post
| deregulation as well if the federal government didn't
| force it to succeed.
|
| FWIW I do agree this was ultimately a good thing in the
| end though. It would not have been good for DFW airport
| to fail, and the region definitely did need a larger
| airport.
|
| It seems like we do agree with this line though:
|
| > nobody would have bothered going out there if they
| weren't forced to by federal law.
| chrisdhal wrote:
| > Notice how some airports (IAD, IAH) specifically have
| "International Airport" in their codes.
|
| Since this is HN, we'll get ultra-pedantic...
|
| IAH is technically "Intercontinental Airport of Houston",
| not "international" for some reason (full name is "George
| Bush Intercontinental Airport").
| sofixa wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Which, like urban highways, really doesn't make a sense in
| most cases if one spends a few minutes thinking about it.
| And especially doesn't make sense for an airport whose main
| traffic is connecting international and domestic flights.
|
| Urban planners in many places in the 1950-1990 time were...
| special. Blindly copying bullshit that didn't make sense
| originally and definitely didn't make sense in their city.
| jrockway wrote:
| Montreal isn't the only city that failed with a too-far-away
| airport. Tokyo built Narita against much local opposition (they
| still check your ID before you're allowed inside the airport,
| to make sure you're not an angry local resident), and the
| opposition resulted in not being able to build the transport
| link they wanted (the Narita Shinkansen). The result is a good
| hour wasted on conventional rail to get to Tokyo. (Sky Access
| kind of fixed this, but I think it's limited to 160km/h and
| still takes 40 minutes.)
|
| Meanwhile, in the 2010s they expanded Haneda and started
| accepting international flights, and you can get to Tokyo via a
| variety of normal trains (and buses if your destination is on
| the Shinjuku side of things) in 15 minutes.
|
| The whole thing is landfill, so no residents to be mad either.
|
| Last time I flew to Haneda they made all the flights from the
| US arrive and depart at times when public transportation wasn't
| running, to discourage those flights, but it seems like they
| stopped doing that. So now it's more convenient for everyone,
| and Narita is largely pointless for everyone that isn't an
| extreme budget traveler (but I think Haneda built Terminal 3
| for that use case... so... is there any reason for Narita to
| exist if you aren't visiting Chiba?)
| niklasrde wrote:
| Arlanda feels like another good example of a "far out" (23
| mi) airport that works pretty damn well. 18 minutes on the
| train.
| mayormcmatt wrote:
| Arlanda is my favorite major-city airport. I'm not as well-
| traveled as many, but I've been to dozens and it's my
| favorite. I've transited between Stockholm, Norrtalje, and
| the airport in bus, tax, and train, with each being the
| easiest experience I've had with that respective form of
| transit.
| Jensson wrote:
| Zurich Airport was much better for me, a few minutes to
| Zurich by train and they go every few minutes and tickets
| are cheap since those are the commuter trains. No need to
| plan, just go to the train station and hop on the first
| train and you are there in less than 10 minutes.
|
| It really blew my mind when I first visited, I never
| thought getting to a major international airport could be
| that convenient. Swiss transit is so well designed.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Copenhagen is as good if not better than both, at least
| accounting for the population being double that of
| Zurich.
|
| Metro _and_ commuter trains run all day and all night
| (the trains also go to Malmo in Sweden).
|
| Long distance trains go all the way across Denmark and as
| far as Gothenburg in Sweden, although there are very few
| been midnight at 4am.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Haneda is bigger, but not big enough to take on Narita's 2019
| 42 million additional pax.
|
| Most large cities have more than one airport anyways. London
| has like six, New York has three, Beijing has two, etc.
| proggy wrote:
| Eh, I get all that, but Narita is still quite useful as a
| transfer hub for passengers traveling between North America
| and East Asia. Haneda's gate capacity is also a limiting
| factor, Narita is a necessary companion airport to soak up
| excess passenger demand.
| thrawa8387336 wrote:
| I had to laugh out. The Japanese do not like the American
| tourists?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| more like, Narita cost a lot of money to build, and the
| smart money if allowed to would just flood Haneda with as
| many flights as possible and leave Narita an empty husk.
|
| Putting more restrictions on Haneda allows Narita to not be
| a totally useless airport.
| bombcar wrote:
| 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. And at some point, it's stuck - LAX is so
| enclosed in Los Angeles and LA is so big that you'd be quite
| far from it to add a new airport. You're more likely to
| repurpose Ontario or even a military base instead.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > 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.
| benjymo wrote:
| 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.
| sealeck wrote:
| Switzerland also has this, for example there is a direct
| train from Zurich Airport to Geneva Airport.
| 11101010001100 wrote:
| It is (in theory). There is a via rail track and stop < 1 km
| away.
| Symbiote wrote:
| That's inadequate. I don't want to drag my luggage around
| the front of the terminal looking for the shuttle bus to
| the station, wait for it to arrive, figure out paying for
| the bus (if it isn't free), then wait for a train.
|
| The railway line should go underneath the airport terminal
| building. If that's not possible, a covered walkway is OK.
| Many significant European airports are like this.
|
| If a connection on medium/long distance trains isn't
| realistic, at least there should be a metro (or whatever
| the 'best' transport the city has, e.g. light rail).
|
| Compare:
|
| Mirabelle: https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=45.679722&ml
| on=-74.03861...
|
| Vienna:
| https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/48.1155/16.5329
| bluGill wrote:
| Only if the airport is onithe way. Overall the city center is
| more important so don't slow down trains for people who don't
| want to be at the airport.
| sofixa wrote:
| 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.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| It sounds like basically all of the issues amount to "it was
| too far away to be convenient."
| sofixa wrote:
| No.
|
| They split the traffic between domestic and international
| making Montreal no longer useful as an interchange hub.
|
| They failed to implement any proper connections to the city
| itself, which is related to but not due to the distance.
|
| They also failed to place the airport in between two cities
| to have a bigger market for it.
| codexb wrote:
| Yeah, Denver Intl is out way outside of Denver and it's a major
| hub.
| duped wrote:
| 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 Chicago's city limits) to allow whatever
| expansion is necessary for American and United to make more money
| ferrying people over our homes is untenable.
| nradov wrote:
| 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.
| duped wrote:
| Tell that to the people who lived in the heart of Bensenville
| that's now a runway.
| nradov wrote:
| What's your point? You could say the same thing about
| almost any major infrastructure project. We can't allow a
| handful of residents somewhere to veto everything. This is
| exactly what eminent domain was intended for: as long as
| they received fair compensation then it's fine.
| duped wrote:
| You can't say "they know what they were getting into"
| when the state shows up and demolishes half a community
| that had been there for 130 years. I don't think anyone
| expects the state to force them off their land or their
| town demolished.
|
| > We can't allow a handful of residents somewhere to veto
| everything.
|
| We also shouldn't allow non-residents to profit off the
| pain of people who actually live where the infrastructure
| is.
|
| My point is that the surrounding suburbs are suffering
| the pain of being adjacent to an airport while deriving
| very little benefit, and those do benefit want to expand
| to increase traffic. Chicago gets quite a lot out of the
| increasing traffic through O'hare while the people that
| actually live nearby don't.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| _We also shouldn 't allow non-residents to profit off the
| pain of people who actually live where the infrastructure
| is._
|
| Sir, this is the entire _point_ of a suburb. Suburbs
| exist so their residents can take advantage of the
| infrastructural, entertainment and commercial benefits of
| a city without having to contribute to said municipality.
| Do you really lack that much self-awareness? By virtue of
| living in the suburb in the first place, you, yourself,
| are engaging in the very activity that you are decrying.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| I think you're being willfully argumentative.
|
| ORD is critical not only to travel and commercial interests
| in the region and nationally, but also to military and
| national interests globally. I'm not even going to sit here
| and try to explain to you the geographically strategic
| nature of Chicago's location to the US because you clearly
| aren't here to listen to reason. I'll just say that you
| asserting that suburbanites don't like ORD is not even
| close to a good enough reason for the rest of us to
| abrogate the societal contract with military and commercial
| sense.
|
| If you are displeased with the nature of Chicago's suburbs,
| perhaps you'd be more comfortable in another metro area?
| ORD is not going anywhere, but you can go elsewhere if it
| pleases you to do so.
| duped wrote:
| Your reply is quite rude. I didn't say we should tear up
| ORD, I was pointing out the flaws with expansion. And
| every government except Chicago seems to be in agreement
| with that, which is why the Peotene project exists.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| No, every suburban _politician_ is in agreement with it
| and have demanded a study for a boondoggle go forward to
| placate entitled suburbanites like yourself. This exact
| plan has been tried, and failed, in many cities around
| the world. The only places it worked are places with
| high-speed rail. Does Chicago have high-speed rail?
|
| The problem in this country is that we coddle lefties and
| righties even when they have ideas deleterious to our own
| good. But I get it, politicians have to play to their
| crowds. No matter how ill-informed and uneducated those
| crowds may be. So we spend billions on billions doing
| things like moving water from Colorado to the middle of
| the desert for Scottsdale Arizona. Building airports to
| nowhere like COU so people can attend college football
| games I guess? And replacing bridges in Minneapolis that
| never would have fallen if we had put the infrastructure
| dollars into maintenance where they belong in the first
| place, instead of pork barrel projects for entitled
| special interest groups demanding things that make
| literally no sense at all.
| samtho wrote:
| Why would an airline have any business in acquiring, getting
| approved/zoned, and constructing an bespoke airport close to a
| major metro that would presumably only benefit that airline?
| Airlines already operate at razor thin margins, specialize in
| only the transporting aspect, and would _not_ be the best party
| to oversee the development of airfields and airports.
| Additionally, companies other than the major airlines use an
| airport, from cargo carriers (large jetliners to "FedEx
| feeder"-type routes), private operations like NetJets, and even
| privately owned and operated aircraft all use it.
|
| This is solidly the domain of a local company, collective, or a
| local municipality that understands this business and every
| aspect of it. Airlines are happy to pay usage fees (landing
| fees, gate fees, leasing) to specifically not deal with airport
| operations unrelated to their own fleet and operations.
|
| We need to find ways to improve the process from initial
| concept, terminal layout, retail spaces, and public ground
| transport that connects to the city center.
|
| Also, usually the airport is there before homes were built so
| every owner in the flight path made the decision to live there.
| duped wrote:
| I think you misunderstand my comment.
|
| Airlines should _not_ be building a "bespoke airport close
| to a major metro" that only benefits that airline. They
| should be building their hubs in the middle of nowhere and
| serve only connecting flights out of them, because it's the
| fact that the hubs are in the metros that cause problems.
|
| When half of the traffic through the airport isn't destined
| for the metro, then half the traffic doesn't need to be going
| through it.
|
| > Also, usually the airport is there before homes were built
| so every owner in the flight path made the decision to live
| there.
|
| I don't want to respond to this because I think it misses
| that opposition to airport expansion isn't just "planes
| loud." There is not a place in west suburban Chicagoland
| unaffected by the expansion of O'hare. It is not just about
| the flight paths.
|
| The airlines don't even want it anymore.
| mst wrote:
| I quite like the idea of dedicated hubs a decent distance
| away from anything else, but you'd still need to staff and
| supply it so "the middle of nowhere" probably isn't
| feasible.
| bombcar wrote:
| Airlines make an airport a hub because half the people
| _are_ going there, not because of the half that aren 't.
|
| If they could sell their gate slots and use another hub at
| a reasonable profit, they would.
|
| Of course, we're past when everyone wanted 747s and giant
| Airbuses so perhaps the hub and spoke system will slowly
| melt away into smaller more direct flights.
| m0llusk wrote:
| This way the airline can be nearly certain of getting plenty
| of gate space. Delta played a strong role in building Atlanta
| Hartsfield.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| Airports are one thing that the government has to be involved
| in either way.
|
| You can't just tell airlines to pay for things themselves but
| then also give every suburb the ability to veto construction on
| land in _other_ cities.
| meerita wrote:
| I had a private flight two years ago. The place was close to a
| garage. People who are ultra rich visit those places. Airports
| are just like prisions for common people, because they need to
| spend hours in it.
| jgeada wrote:
| > 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.
| spacecadet wrote:
| NIMBY is not rational! Its a biased selfish decision that
| protects ones own, shrouded in "community" -- Except I'm
| directly involved with my community and none of the loud
| talking NIMBY's ever show up... GET LOST.
| stdbrouw wrote:
| Or the other way around: as a tax with a Georgist flavor. If
| your land has a value of $x/m^2 when free of zoning
| restrictions, but your neighborhood really wants to keep it
| free of noise / traffic / high buildings or high density, and
| as a consequence land value drops to $y/m^2, that is perfectly
| fine but it will cost you $x - $y each year.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| >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 wind
| farms (e.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60864097),
| but there usually has to be a limit to the
| subsidy/discount/bribe - otherwise it wouldn't be viable for
| the company that wants the infrastructure.
|
| I saw something suggested in the region of 25% discount on
| electricity bill for people near such a site, for up to 10
| years. I don't think that such a temporary benefit would be
| enough to convince me of having something nearby if I thought
| it was permanently detrimental to the neighbourhood or my
| property. (Not that I'm claiming to be a NIMBY).
| eastbound wrote:
| > otherwise it wouldn't be viable for the company that wants
| the infrastructure.
|
| Well, isn't that a proof that the benefit doesn't balance the
| downsides? What if the answer were really "We shouldn't build
| more infrastructure, we shouldn't overpopulate this city
| anymore" ?
| tomatocracy wrote:
| 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/no
| is...
| bombcar wrote:
| This has been done in various ways, I seem to remember a
| nuclear power plant that just took over property tax for
| everyone around it.
|
| The problem with these kinds of "structured bribes" is that
| they're made with the people living there at the time, but
| those people move or die, and the newcomers grumble.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Good article but it's many thousands of words with one simple
| answer: noise pollution.
|
| I lived directly under the path of an airport's takeoff vector.
| Planes would frequently take off just a few hundred feet above my
| house. You actually get used to it, but as I've gotten older my
| hearing loss is more than it should be and I suspect that was a
| major reason.
| spdustin wrote:
| Sounds like Midway (MDW). Even with noise abatement procedures,
| planes take off and land "hot and heavy" which is louder than
| usual nearest to the airport.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Noise pollution _and_ air pollution. I love the pretty browns
| and purples of my sunset over YYZ, but it's filthy. Every time
| I come home, the smell is disgusting.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Mirabel was well planned, but was undone by events.
|
| Montreal in the 19060s was the undisputed centre of Canada for
| business, culture, population, sport, politics, and international
| relations. Canada expected to grow by millions of people, and we
| expected a large number of them to settle in Montreal. 35 miles
| was a modest buffer zone anticipating enormous suburban sprawl.
|
| The whole project was derailed in the 70s by the terrorism of the
| FLQ, and then the 1980 secession referendum. Suddenly, banks,
| insurance companies, and foreign offices took flight and moved on
| down the road to Toronto. Montreal _lost_ hundreds of thousands
| of high-paying jobs, and hundreds of thousands people as anglos
| and jews fled. Montreal sunk into a 15 year depression. Toronto
| became the new centre of Canadian business, culture, and sport.
| Toronto became a major Jewish city, and immigration shifted for
| good. The influx triggered a property bubble (and then the condo-
| crash of 1989).
|
| The growth of Toronto of the last 40 years was planned for
| Montreal, and had it happened there, Mirabel would be a thriving
| international airpot. Toronto was unprepared, but Montreal had
| been planning for decades. To this day, Montreal _still_ has more
| subway track than TO.
| lainga wrote:
| And who knows -- maybe they wouldn't have all left if you
| didn't regard them as "anglos and jews"
| karmoka wrote:
| mtl was absolutely not the indisputed business center of Canada
| in the 1960s.
|
| Headquarters and capital were already moving towards Toronto by
| the 60s, following the opening of the St-Lawrence Seaway, the
| growing importance of the american economy for Canada and the
| progression of the quiet revolution which saw the province
| become way less interesting for the old money from the Golden
| Square Mile.
|
| The FLQ was also most active in the 60s, culminating in 1970
| with the October Crisis and then nearly seized to exist in the
| 70s/80s bar the occasional bombing by the RCMP (see the Keable,
| Mcdonald commissions and Robert Samson)
|
| The 1980 referendum did lead to what a few economists dubbed
| the "Montreal Effect", and there's certainly some factual basis
| to it in the form of the flight of many anglophones from the
| province, but arguing that the sovereignty movement was mostly
| if not solely responsible for this trend we were seeing before
| it was on the radar instead of precipitating the ongoing
| changes is overstating the case.
|
| That said, Mirabel was a disaster regardless of the following
| growth of mtl. It was rushed for the Olympics, the plans to
| properly connect it fell before it became clear that mtl's
| population wouldn't grow as fast as predicted and airlines
| absolutely loathed it from day one.
| michael1999 wrote:
| I'm not sure we disagree. I consider the quiet revolution,
| the FQL, the nationalist movement, and the PQ to be all of a
| piece -- the same thing in different generational clothing.
| I'll agree that far-sighted foreign money saw the writing on
| the wall as early as the 60s and started making new
| investments outside of Quebec But actually moving running
| businesses is much more disruptive, and only happened later.
| The whole process took decades, and culturally, Montreal was
| the capital well into the early 80s. Toronto didn't even have
| a baseball team until 77.
|
| I probably underweight the impact of the seaway. Me
| experience is in office work. And there, Hogtown was
| decidedly a solid second city -- like Chicago, or Lyon.
| Commercial banking was booming. But RBC, BMO, and many
| insurance companies still had their head-quarters in Montreal
| in the 1960s. RBC moved their headquarters in 1976, and BMO
| moved in 1977. Sun Life moved in 1978.
|
| It think it is obvious that the condo boom/crash of the 1980s
| was a direct consequence of 400k wealthy people moving en
| mass over a decade. Just an enormous bolus of money.
|
| The discussions of the day make are explicit that the PQ, the
| nationalist movement, and bill 101 in particular were driving
| the exodus.
|
| https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/history-
| through-...
|
| As for Mirabel - agree. The plans made sense in the 1960s
| when the planning started, but the shift to Toronto was
| underway before they broke ground in the mid 70s. But
| politics is run by older people, and their imaginations are
| rooted in the past, not the future. Toronto has the mirror
| problem -- run by Orange-order children who long for the days
| of zipping down the Kingsway to downtown in 15 minutes. We're
| only now moving into a generation of leaders who grew up with
| Toronto as the centre of Canada, and realizing we need
| infrastructure to match. We spent 40 years without building a
| thing while millions moved here.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > Toronto became a major Jewish city
|
| I am confused by this part. Can you please explain? On the
| surface, it doesn't read well. Maybe my English isn't so good.
| mst wrote:
| It means there are lots more Jews living in Toronto now.
|
| 'major' is in terms of its relevance to the wider Jewish
| community, which is inevitably going to be affected by how
| many members live there.
|
| None of the various sorts of people being stupid about Jews
| are involved :)
| TylerE wrote:
| Has anyone ever tried to build an airport where the terminals and
| actual flight ops area was miles away (noise, etc).
|
| Basically I'm picturing something like an urban train station
| (plus TSA, and customs) that would be located downtown. This is
| where you'd have check-in, security, baggage claim, etc. After
| clearing security, you'd get on some sort of rail transit
| (monorail, maglev, subway, whatever, doesn't matter THAT much as
| long as it can get out to the flight area in 10-15 minutes.
|
| Basically put the people bits where it's convenient, and the
| noisy stuff where it isn't.
| Duhck wrote:
| 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
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| 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.
| mst wrote:
| I remember flying into Germany once, my ticket including
| the train, and my luggage having been sent on ahead to the
| Lufthansa terminal at the other end.
|
| (I forget which city now, maybe Frankfurt?)
|
| It was very cool except for the part where it was
| apparently so normal that they'd keep responsibility for
| your luggage that there wasn't (that I noticed, at least)
| any warning that was going to happen. I spent a while at
| baggage claim going wtf and eventually found a desk with
| somebody who took pity on me and explained.
|
| A+ would use service again now I know how it works.
| galvan wrote:
| Yes, TPE in Taiwan has the same setup. At Taipei Main
| Station in the city center, there are airline checkin
| kiosks and bag drops. You take the train to the airport,
| and your bags are ingested into the baggage system for you.
|
| https://www.tymetro.com.tw/tymetro-
| new/en/_pages/checkin/ind...
| bombcar wrote:
| There are companies selling it:
| https://amadeus.com/en/portfolio/airports/off-airport-
| check-... but I've not seen anything as remote as Hong
| Kong.
|
| I seem to remember Japan would let you check your luggage
| at the hotel and they'd handle a freight forwarder to your
| next hotel, which is not quite the same thing but related.
| tomatocracy wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not sure what you'd really gain. As it is, you can check-in
| online and I'm mostly just going straight to TSA Pre-check.
| It's all a trivial part of the airport infrastructure. And
| there are a bunch of reasons to have gates that you actually
| board the planes from.
| TylerE wrote:
| Convenient drop off in town instead of having to drive 45
| minutes, and then pay to park your car. By placing all the
| security stuff at the 'town end', that would also allow for
| things like lounges, etc. The actual terminals could be very
| compact since you wouldn't head out there until it's almost
| time. Could use a small-vehicle people mover type system...
| imagine scanning a boarding pass when you get on the vehicle,
| and instead of dropping you at a central station, it dropped
| you right at your gate?
| ghaff wrote:
| In town is only convenient if you live in town or are
| visiting there. Where's the parking? Where's the rental car
| service? The actual terminals are a pretty trivial part of
| the total airport area.
| TylerE wrote:
| Not to be trite, but "people who live here, or people who
| are traveling here" is sort of their target market.
| ghaff wrote:
| So now you'll have the in-city checkin version and the
| in-airport checkin version? Because you definitely need
| parking and rental cars somewhere convenient. "Here"
| means a greater area serviced by a large airport which is
| a lot more than a city.
|
| There probably would even be a market for an in-city bag
| drop service. But it wouldn't replace people driving to
| the airport.
| TylerE wrote:
| If the airport wasn't way outside town, many of those
| people wouldn't need to park, as they could just take
| public transit or an Uber, and the same would also mean
| that many people traveling in won't need to rent a car.
| bluGill wrote:
| In the us transit isn't normally good enough. most people
| rent a car. I wish that would change.
| ghaff wrote:
| I pretty much never rent a car if I'm going into a city.
| But I'm often not actually going into the city that an
| airport services.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| What's the benefit of having security outside the airport?
|
| There are tons of airports that connect to cities by rail
| transit. Within the recent past, I've been in three of them,
| PVG, HKG, and KHH. In no case do they put security outside the
| airport.
|
| For one thing, subway lines have multiple stops. In order to
| make sure that everyone who's going to the airport has to go
| through security, you'd want security to occur after the last
| stop before the airport... and the site after the last stop
| before the airport is the airport.
|
| For another thing, why would you want to subject people who
| _aren 't_ going to the airport to airport security?
|
| When was the last time you thought "this check-in process would
| be better if it took up a lot of space in the city center, even
| though the time requirements wouldn't change"?
|
| Now, rail transit to PVG takes multiple hours. But if you
| replaced the subway connection with a dedicated rail line with
| one stop in the city center and one at the airport, that
| wouldn't help much - that just means that people living nearer
| to the airport have to travel backwards to the city center,
| subject to the speed of the subway, so they can take the
| dedicated airport express to the airport.
| TylerE wrote:
| The point of doing it this way is that the secure perimeter
| would extended all the way to the central station. That's the
| whole idea. Essentially, this urban hub is "the airport" in
| terms of traveling to it. Think of the actual hub -> board
| gates/runway connections as like a really long people mover,
| not just extending a subway line and drawing a new dot.
|
| Trains could travel on a totally grade separated route with
| strict access controls. Having the last mile part of the
| train journey controlled by the airport instead of some civic
| transit authority would allow for a much more reliable
| system, since they would be insulated from disruption to the
| larger system, and could also make situation specific choices
| for optimization.
|
| For instance: Compared to standard transit, many people will
| be bringing carry on luggage... so probably best to scale
| everything up maybe 25%...physically make the car wider.
| Wider doors, wider aisles. Luggage racks everywhere... maybe
| to a standard width but only have two seats on one side, and
| luggage rack on the other.
| 8organicbits wrote:
| How do you exit? Do you take a train back to city center,
| or do you have an option to exit near the runways? I wonder
| if you'd end up with multiple entry points with this model.
| bombcar wrote:
| You likely would. The simplest example would be a high-
| speed train that connected two airports (either two
| existing, or an old and new). You could imagine a high-
| speed subway that connected JFK to EWR that was about 30
| minutes or less. Now you don't have to work out how to
| get to a specific airport, you get to the closest one.
|
| For people without luggage, the difference is minor; but
| if you are checking bags it would be a huge advantage to
| dump your bags as soon as possible.
| brewdad wrote:
| The trouble with this plan is that downtown land is more
| expensive than rural land. The land area you need to
| efficiently build the check-in facilities will be similar
| whether you put it on site or away from the airport. So
| you'd spend more for the off-site and then still have to
| build a people mover that provides zero benefit to anyone
| not going to and from the airport.
|
| It makes far more sense to build the airport far away and
| add a public rail service to it that can also serve non-
| airport passengers.
| TylerE wrote:
| In an urban environment you can build UP. Airports avoid
| structure over 40 or 50ft to avoid interfering with the
| controllers visibility.
|
| Instead of having one giant check in hall you could have
| one floor per airline, for instance.
| bluGill wrote:
| Airports because of noise have plenty of space nobody
| else wants so building out isn't an issue.
| TylerE wrote:
| The exact issue under discussion is "We can't build
| airports where people can get to them because of how big
| loud and annoying they are". I am proposing a mitigation
| aka problem solving.
| ianburrell wrote:
| One problem is that this plan is bad for everyone in the half
| of metro closer to airport or coming from other direction. They
| would have to go out of their way. Or the airport would need
| checkin facilities, then what is the point of the downtown
| check in.
|
| The other problem is that regular trains are better because
| they stop at intermediate stations and can run more frequently
| because serving regular traffic. The Elizabeth Line is better
| than the Heathrow Express.
|
| The only way I can see it being advantage is the check in and
| security is done on the train. That would save time, But that
| would require a train twice the size with pre and post security
| areas, and luggage space.
| jmyeet wrote:
| In short, it's short-term interests and skewed incentives.
|
| A classic example particular to US airports is why transport
| links are almost universally terrible. The answer is: parking.
| Parking is a _huge_ revenue source for airports [1] so airports
| don 't actually want good public transport links and when you do
| have them (eg the JFK AirTrain) they're unreasonably expensive.
| Airports are making up for "lost" revenue. This has been a huge
| problem as Uber and Lyft have cut into airport revenues.
|
| The real reason this is a problem is because airports make almost
| nothing from the planes using them. Shouldn't the planes be
| funded the airport?
|
| Another case study springs to mind: Sydney. Sydney has a very
| central main airport but it's relatively small compared to demand
| because it was planned for so long ago. It can't expand: the land
| around it used now. Sydney has been talking about building a
| second airport for at least 40 years in Western Sydney
| (originally named Badgerys Creek). This is much further from the
| city but has had all the usual planning problems eg developers
| build homes around the proposed site and then residents complain
| about the proposed airport that was proposed way before those
| homes were built. IIRC a similar thing happened around LAX.
|
| This was so much of a hot potato that one Australian government
| just gave planning permission for Sydney airport to build a third
| runway in the dead of night and then ran. There are funds to
| noise-proof affected homes and this was wildly controversial.
|
| I believe the Western Sydney airport is finally happening. I
| haven't looked at the planes but it doesn't include an efficient
| and relatively cheap high speed rail link to central Sydney, it's
| going to struggle.
|
| In the Western world we really need to examine how the supremacy
| of private property rights and utter car dependence mean we can't
| build anything, let alone have anything nice. It seems like Asia
| is the only place where non-horrible airports get built.
|
| [1]: https://www.orbility.com/news/64-parking-is-a-huge-money-
| mak...
| asdff wrote:
| LAX actually bought out a lot of the built neighborhood land
| around it and cleared it for expansion, so its not an
| impossibility.
| gumby wrote:
| Lots of complex issues, but the distance one is manageable: put
| the check in / security part of the terminal in the city or at
| its edge and then send the passengers straight to the appropriate
| terminal (and their luggage straight to the baggage management)
| via HSR. You could have multiple check in terminals to expand the
| catchment area.
| ghaff wrote:
| That assumes you're coming from the city and now you need acres
| of parking in a more built-up urban area.
| gumby wrote:
| I mention you can have other terminals as well, and those in
| other urban areas can be connected to transit. You spread the
| parking around; in cities it's often easier to take transit.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| How much does Bent Flyvbjerg's work on megaprojects impact this?
|
| Around 2000, he used to claim that either people didn't
| understand the scope of very large projects, or that there were
| shenanigans involved.
|
| One of Flyvbjerg's more recent papers:
| https://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.0003
| jameshart wrote:
| The claim:
|
| > Despite their importance, airports are enormously difficult to
| build, not only in the US but around the world.
|
| The evidence: all about the US, with a brief sentence about
| London Heathrow.
|
| New international airport construction projects started in
| 2021-2022 include Sydney, Mumbai, Addis Ababa, Manila, Cavite
| (Phillipines), Dong Nai (Vietnam), Noida (India)...
|
| Sounds more like this is just a 'you' problem :)
| 1-6 wrote:
| This is mainly focused on noise levels. They did not focus on
| large runways and the water runoff calcs and flight paths and
| elevation restrictions on neighboring buildings etc.
|
| It's easier to put in an airport first and then build a city
| around it than the other way around.
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| They are trying to expand the Trenton-Mercer Airport. One of the
| justifications is airport expansion would "increase tourism into
| the City of Trenton".
|
| Anyone who has been to Trenton, NJ will understand what is wrong
| with that idea.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| One economic problem is that the express train to or from the
| airport (if there is one) is that a roundtrip ticket can quickly
| cost more than the roundtrip airfare these days.
|
| That is yet another barrier for disadvantaged people.
|
| When the airport is closer to the city they are often included in
| the normal public transit system and thus a lot more affordable.
| zzz999 wrote:
| An airport is very simple to build if you ignore regulations
| (laws keep getting worst too because they mostly only add them
| and rarely subtract them... Soon it will be like building a
| nuclear reactor).
| holmesworcester wrote:
| Only if either:
|
| a) the airport is far from any other humans b) the horde of
| humans your airport angers do not also ignore regulations OR
| your airport has its own sufficiently large private army
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| People say this but rarely give specific examples. My
| experience is that things seem simple on the surface but are
| actually more complex than you'd expect.
|
| As an example, I've seen people complain about building codes
| and why they can't they do what they want with their property.
| But they don't consider that fire services, for example, need
| to be able to rely on those codes.
| balderdash wrote:
| 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 claim to have been
| surprised by its existence when they moved into (or built) their
| houses, yet their is perpetual noise complaints and a
| surprisingly vociferous group that wants it shut down. Similar
| thing happened where I went to college (house prices were lower
| near campus - because you had to put up with being near several
| thousand college kids) and then people move in and complain about
| the college kids!
| renewiltord wrote:
| 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 next door for cheaper. Then you can lobby
| for the place to become a park. Boom! Your home is now more
| valuable than it would be.
|
| It's just political arbitrage.
| loteck wrote:
| 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.
| holmesworcester wrote:
| 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.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| This is absolutely how it should work. Negative
| externalities should be paid for by the source of them.
| It can be difficult of course to find where that price
| lies, but this is what all those lawsuits were about.
| It's a shame they didn't just bake that cost in from the
| beginning, instead of failing to take responsibility and
| then having to be forced to do so.
| 2arrs2ells wrote:
| This is Coase's Theorem:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem
| bell-cot wrote:
| 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.
| renewiltord wrote:
| That's just a matter of ability. A few guys can easily
| stall things. It didn't take many to force Sonoma to
| change. All these attempts have risks. You can always
| try. Sometimes you're powerful enough to get change in
| your favour. Other times you're not and it was a good
| bet. Other times you're not and it was a bad bet.
|
| Besides, this is quite refined now. I just put nana in
| the house. People can't resist old people. She'll have
| medical issues that need quiet etc etc.
|
| My landlord did something like that with a few buildings
| for the big London sewer project. London actually paid
| him for new windows and things like that.
|
| You just apply the force. Most taxpayers don't notice
| this stuff so you can get hundreds of thousands out of
| it.
|
| Many government projects are slow, too, so you can do
| this for ones where they're announced but no work has
| been done. Bam, free upgrades, earthquake retrofit, etc.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| This is so so how the world works in reality.
| hervature wrote:
| 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...
| jenny91 wrote:
| This is not "arbitrage" though. It's not risk free, etc.
| Nicholas_C wrote:
| Rent-seeking is a better term for what the OP is
| describing.
| emiliobumachar wrote:
| 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!"
| xattt wrote:
| 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.
| n_plus_1_acc wrote:
| Who expects a city and its economy to shrink though?
| SL61 wrote:
| This is what happened in my childhood home. We lived within a
| couple miles of a mid-sized airport. We could always hear the
| planes to some extent, but over time they expanded their
| cargo operations, which typically fly at night. They also
| added a new flight path that went directly over our house, so
| it became common for 747s to fly 2000 feet above us every
| 15-20 minutes through the night. I was fortunate to be a
| heavy sleeper.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Portland, OR has a similar problem with the raceway.
|
| People buy houses near Portland International Raceway and then
| complain about the noise of race cars. Just doesn't make sense
| to me.
| atoav wrote:
| You don't say? I know more than one bar that was shut down
| after someone moved in above it with the explicit warning
| that it is a bar.
|
| Noise is killer, even if you don't think it is. A well rested
| adult will not have any problems stomaching a single noisy
| night. But if every night is noisy you are going to fall
| apart after a while. Dosis making poisons etc. On a related
| note, sexism is bad for a similar reason. It is not about one
| asshole making one comment, once. What makws it bad is
| getting those constantly and from all kind of directions.
|
| I once lived next to a main road and when I moved after a few
| years, the first night in a silent room felt like someone had
| lifted a sack of bricks from my chest. And I play in a rock
| band, so not the noise averse type.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Reminds me of that person protesting a Beer Festival in Golden
| Colorado. On their sign they stated they wanted to keep alcohol
| activities out of Golden but the city is home to Coors Brewing
| Company.
|
| https://kdvr.com/news/trending/golden-residents-anti-beer-fe...
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Jack Daniels distillery is famously in a dry county in
| Tennessee. It's legal to distill it there, but illegal to
| purchase it in county.
|
| https://thesterlingtraveler.com/jack-daniels-distillery-
| tour...
| jtbayly wrote:
| This is not surprising if you think about it.
|
| You understand a new airport generating complaints based on
| loss of value.
|
| Have you considered what successfully getting an airport shut
| down might do for the nearby property owners?
|
| It's not uncommon for people to try to (often successfully)
| tell other people what they can and cannot do with their own
| land, simply for the benefit of the one trying.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Its akin to shortsellers actively campaigning against weak
| companies. Sure Theresa small burn of interest but if you can
| leverage and move the needle, profirs'
| dawnerd wrote:
| Same people that buy a house next to Disneyland then complain
| about the fireworks and traffic. They just don't consider it
| and the disclosures about it if any are often buried in
| documents they're rushed to sign.
| athenot wrote:
| That's similar to people who move to the countryside then
| complain that the farms nearby stink.
| paulddraper wrote:
| That's happened to my area.
|
| It used to be the countryside; now's it's the suburbs.
|
| But now the suburbs complain about the smells from the few
| farms that are left.
| jen729w wrote:
| I used to live above a Japanese bar in the centre of Melbourne,
| Australia. It was a busy street in a busy part of town. (Robot,
| for the locals.)
|
| Of course this place was sold, both to renters and buyers, as
| 'hip', it was 'the inner-city lifestyle', it was 'everything on
| your doorstep'.
|
| And yet the neighbours. My god what cretins. Noise! On a
| weekend! They couldn't bear it.
|
| I think it should be flat-out forbidden to complain about noise
| if the thing you're complaining about existed when you arrived.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| What did they say about it, if you asked them?
|
| You never know: Maybe the bar owner has been a jerk to them,
| maybe it could be quieter. Also, a transient resident can
| have a much different perspective than someone who is there
| permanently.
| nox101 wrote:
| I wonder if landlords should be required to disclose noise
| sources.
|
| As a renter there's no easy way for you to know that every
| Friday night the bar a block away has music so loud you can
| hear it in your apartment til 2am or that a band practices at
| the school down the street etc...
|
| You generally have about 5 minutes too look around a
| apartment and a few more to look around the neighborhood and
| then sign a contract for $60k not knowing the place will be
| unacceptable once you actually spend a week there.
|
| maybe this is only a problem in expensive cities like
| SF/NYC/LA where when you find a place you have to take it
| immediately nor lose it to the line of people ready to rent
| doctor_eval wrote:
| To be fair to the GP, that part of Melbourne is very, very
| busy. But Melbourne is very expensive and you do have to
| compete with other renters. It's a nightmare to find a good
| spot especially if you're in a hurry.
|
| I think another aspect is that to someone who lives in the
| area - like a real estate agent - it's _obvious_ that it
| would be noisy at night. Why else would you want live
| there? There are multiple bars in every laneway. Many of
| them are open until the wee hours.
|
| So while I agree with the sentiment I think it's difficult
| in practice.
| lukan wrote:
| "maybe this is only a problem in expensive cities like
| SF/NYC/LA where when you find a place you have to take it
| immediately nor lose it to the line of people ready to
| rent"
|
| This. Everywhere else people usually can and do take the
| time to explore the area of the potential new home.
|
| "I wonder if landlords should be required to disclose noise
| sources."
|
| Maybe, but maybe they also don't know about those school
| band practices, so how to enforce it, but in general there
| are noise maps.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| Robot is a great bar! I used to work in Flinders Lane, it's
| the best part of Melbourne. Still grab lunch from Yen Sushi
| Noodles in Centre Place when I visit.
|
| But yeah it would be noisy. Great spot to live for a while if
| you're young. A lot of my favourite places didn't make it
| post Covid tho.
| jen729w wrote:
| Ha! I bet I've seen you in there. Yeah we were in our 30s,
| absolutely loved it. This was from 2007-2010~ish.
|
| I can't believe Robot survived. Yoshi's done well there.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Some counterpoints:
|
| 'I was there first' doesn't give you more property rights than
| the other person.
|
| The amount of or location of the noise could change over time.
|
| If the airport has been careless about noise for 20 years, that
| doesn't make it ok for them to continue.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Yes, property values IS local politics.
|
| Race tensions is fundamentally about property values.
|
| Policing is about property values.
|
| Road construction and transport infrastructure is about
| property values.
|
| Bike paths and parks are about property values.
| thfuran wrote:
| That's a massive oversimplification.
| RajT88 wrote:
| This seems to be referring only to large international airports.
|
| Wikipedia lists 383 airports in the US, only 30 of which are
| "large". None of the muni airports are on the list. There's so
| many of those! I can think of 5 within a short drive of my home;
| there's got to be thousands in the US.
|
| So, no shit building big noisy busy things on huge plots of land
| is hard! NIMBYism scales.
| ed_balls wrote:
| There is a huge political battle in Poland right now regarding a
| new airport. It's more controversial than nuclear plants and new
| rail combined.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Communication_Port
| amai wrote:
| Don't build another airport. Better invest in a high speed train
| network.
| satellite2 wrote:
| > Similarly, not only are many of the users of an airport
| tourists who don't live in the area, but at hub airports they
| might merely pass through without interacting with the local
| region at all.
|
| Why not create hub only airports (in the middle of nowhere) and
| enforce them via no hub policies around cities?
| Fatnino wrote:
| Staffed by people flown in daily from some city half an hour
| flight away?
| satellite2 wrote:
| > The FAA was so concerned about reactions to jet noise in
| Washington DC that it didn't authorize jets to land there until
| 1966.
|
| Interesting how that could be considered as interfering with the
| democratic process nowadays.
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