Salon’s “Ask the Pilot” columnist Patrick Smith writes:
Which brings us to [Hong Kong Airport’s] most impressive and appealing feature: its rail connection to the city. The sleek, high-speed Airport Express train is literally only steps from the arrival and departure halls. Within a half-hour of landing you can be alighting at Kowloon or Hong Kong Island — without ever having stepped outside. Returning to the airport, you can check your bags and get your seat assignment right there at the downtown station.
Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo-Narita and Shanghai are among other spots in Asia with similar railway links. And this is where it gets depressing. Why can’t American airports have public transport like this?
Amen.
I left on Alaska Air flight 2 for Reagan National on Wednesday, escaping a rainy, 40 degree Seattle to arrive at a rainy 40 degree evening in Washington, D.C.
(Aside: Our Boeing 737 did a go-around on final approach. My initial thought was that the controller fell asleep before issuing our landing clearance. Alas another plane was taking too long to exit the runway, so the controller, very much awake, thank you, instructed the pilot to go around).
I fly to D.C. once or twice a year, and I always fly into Reagan. I suppose you could say that I love Reagan. I love being able to hop on the Metro and quickly be within a short walk of any destination I need to be at.
A metro-like rail connection should be a feature of every large American airport. In Seattle, the light rail between the Airport and downtown is a fair start. But wouldn’t it be great to have rail infrastructure as well developed in Seattle as in D.C.?
If only we could be as Socialist as D.C….
yep…if only we had $50 billion to spend on trucking a few thousand riders around…
BTW…hows that light rail ridership going?
last reports are that ridership is not even close to meeting the promised goals.
more money thrown away.
maybe all those airport visitors can go sightseeing in Columbia City…hmmm…..
I lived in DC (Arlington) about half the time of my last five years in my previous life. The Metro is indispensable and gets you to 99% of everywhere you’d ever want to go.
I refer to the airport it connects to as “National”, though, as I always throw up a little in my mouth when the “R word” passes my lips. In fact, even that oblique reference just made me a little nauseous.
I’ve been to that airport, too. I noticed that there are parking spots reserved for Supreme Court judges. Do they decide a lot of cases out there at Reagan Airport? Why would they need reserved parking if they didn’t view themselves as being above everyone else. What arrogance!
Just another example of why we need term limits for these arrogant bastards and bitches who permeate government.
1. never call it reagan, call it national.
2. you can’t really say you have a train system when you just hve one line in the main city….without multiple lines it’s lacking in the synergy benefits you get with covering most of the city….
3. odd that seattle would also build it first in the most underpopulated quadrant, SE seattle near the stations is looking almost vacant…..
4. odd that in seattle the stations are so far apart. one station between westlake and north seattle?
5. in dc they allow very large towers near stations (outside dc) (but even in dc, 12 stories) whereas in seattle we still have ultra strict pro suburban type zoning, allowing a little zone of 4 blocks of 6 story buildings is hardly urban density. compare Ballston and Bethesda and you’ll see the difference. Each of those has thousands of new condos and about 100 restaurants and is a mini downtown of density.
6. while rail to national is okay, remember, dc doesn’t have rail to dulles or BWI yet…well actually the rail to bwi comes close but you have a bus transfer.
7. it’s not an issue of money though the feds paid for much fo the dc system; it’s well known that seattle and washington state are fairly “not poor” what with washington state having the same population and gdp as a sweden or a switzerland, you have to conclude it’s just poor planning. our mayor is struggling to get ten million to plan the next light rail line in seattle, doesn’t seem like ST is all that much into it, and the powers that be clearly prefer a very large DBT project to use up lots of money, with very little mobility or transit benefit.
@2
Driving is down too, should be tear up the roads?
Hahaha, righties. The GMA, the law you love to hate, (which would never have passed with the support of the head of the state senate who was an R at the time (can’t remember her name.)) just went national and it was a Republican that did it.
Our trolls are so fucked.
@7: I just heard Rand Paul’s head explode.
I trust no news on April first. This sounds like an April Fools.
@9: That was definitely an April Fools joke. If only…
Reagan National is appropriately named because the decor looks like a direct snapshot of the early 80’s!
Dang it! Note to self: check the date before posting. I forgot all about April Fools.
@2
After seeing the review of The Columbia City Bakery in the New York Times they just might. They wont be disappointed, the bakery is just a couple minutes walk from the light-rail line and is on a neat stretch of street.
Look, we get that you and folks like you don’t like cities. You don’t like the things you need to make a city work like good transit and higher density housing. We get that, OK? So don’t go to cities! Don’t live in cities! There’s plenty of room for you in the ‘burbs. As Goldy and others have shown, cities more than pay for themselves. It’s not you’re dime that’s getting spent to build a successful city, so why are you complaining?
Of course @2 is afraid to tell us where he/she lives. Probably just another rural TB living off the fat of the cities.
Unfortunately light rail works better in DC and Hong Kong than here because those cities are much denser — not because they’re more socialist. Some rail may be worthwhile here, but it will never be as compelling financially as in much denser cities.
Boston is another city with a great rail infrastructure connecting to the airport.
@15: It works both ways – rail encourages density. Since the stations are at fixed points, land nearby becomes valuable and the city builds up around them.
@15 DC was like seattle today thirty years ago — not at all dense — but they allowed density and built a full metro.
It all goes together and it’s all our design chappie. Our choice. Not fate or anonymous destiny — it’s your choice to not be dense. In this case a self rationalizing choice.
Here’s an interesting and thought provoking link about urban rail. http://www.bos.frb.org/commdev.....rhoods.pdf
“Why would they need reserved parking if they didn’t view themselves as being above everyone else. What arrogance!”
check it out. You want to petition them for review of your case decision from the court of appeals? It will cost you about $10,000 because they have two silly rules about printing briefs and papers. One is their very partiuclar size of paper. Two is when you submit the prior ruling of the court of appeals and the 100-200 pages off the record — they (the supremes) don’t want it on 8.5 by 11 paper. Nope. And they don’t want you to shrink it to fit their special size rules. Nope. So you gotta hire a firm in DC to physically RETYPE the court of appeals decision and the key motions rulings and papers you are relying on. Imagine that, they make every citizen incur $6000 to $10000 in print costs because they don’t want to take 8.5 by 11 paper even for the prior record papers!
So if you have to ask if they are arrogant, don’t ask.
here’s another piece on BRT/LRT http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01984.pdf
@20
Interesting report.