The Pros and Cons of Airport Transit

this video is sponsored by curiositystream and nebula nebula is the home for my new original series great cities my most recent video in that series which launches with this one is all about the world's largest metro system in Shanghai that video is longer and higher budget than this one it also joins the other videos in the series on paris's boulevards and Canberra Australia new videos in the great cities series drop every month sign up to nebula for less than one dollar per month so you don't miss any even the most die-hard car people will agree that taking a train to the airport is a better experience than braving airport traffic to either park at an expensive garage or try and navigate departures or Rivals to either drop off someone or pick them up it's honestly one of the few places where just about everyone agrees that cars pose a fundamental geometry problem cars are simply too big and when you get a large number of people descending on the departures level of an airport at 5am it creates a traffic jam every time there's just not enough space taking the train in contrast means no traffic on the way no parking hassles and if you've arrived at a new city a train can get you downtown without having to rent a car and trying to navigate roads you're unfamiliar with trains and airports just go together like trains and anything trains are great is what I'm saying as a result many cities globally have trains to their airports it's seen as a symbol of a prosperous business oriented Metropolis it's business oriented because business Travelers in particular benefit from a train that takes them right from the airport to the downtown conference hotel or major downtown Office Buildings cities that wanted Court conventions and new businesses view airport rails a winning proposition in an era where mass transit is still recovering from covid-19 and there are some real questions about if it will ever fully recover rail to the airport seems like a bright spot in the transit landscape it's a rare moment where you have trained nerds car commuters city planners and business people all agreeing that trains are the solution the thing is rail transport to airports is more complicated than it seems at first and may not even be a good idea or at least the best idea planners have to consider factors like local versus express service rail versus bus serving visitors versus serving employees let's uncover the hidden complexities of rail transport to airports after the bike Bell let's start this discussion of airport Transit complexity by looking at an example Denver International Airport is the second largest airport in the world by land area and in 2019 the last normal travel year was the world's 16th busiest by Passenger volume it's a major domestic hub for United Airlines Frontier Airlines and Southwest Airlines it also has flights to Europe South America and Asia it's a massive busy facility that employs 35 000 people that makes it the largest employer in the U.S state of Colorado the airport opened in 1995 and in 2016 the transit operator RTD opened a Commuter Rail line connecting downtown Denver to the airport it's a 37-minute trip between the airport and Denver Union Station and the trip will set you back 10.50 it serves about twenty thousand Riders per day making it the most popular line of the 12 Total light and Commuter Rail lines serving the region now that we know the facts about the airport and the transit we can discuss the pros and cons of the line on the positive side Denver International Airport employs tens of thousands of workers who could potentially use that rail line to get to work and when you add in passengers that can also use that line it makes a compelling case for connecting the airport via train and airports can make great terminating stations too in fact in the streetcar suburb ERA Real Estate developers would build attractions like amusement parks and at the end of their streetcar lines to encourage ridership in the Direction moving away from the Central City this is just a side note but the Wikipedia entry on trolley Parks is actually super interesting and I've left the link in the description if you want to learn more airports are often terminating stations because they're so far from the Central City Denver's airport is particularly far it feels like you're Landing in the middle of nowhere those are some pros but are there any cons well yeah 1050 one-way doesn't sound that expensive if you're a traveler particularly if you're comparing it to renting a car but if you're someone who works the airport that's actually quite expensive that's over twenty dollars to get to and from work now there are monthly passes for 200 and qualifying low-income individuals can cut their daily one-way fare to six dollars and 30 cents but it's not exactly cheap and you might be saying well it's cheaper than owning a car and that would be the case but I'm guessing that most airport employees have to take a car at some point in their trip anyway that's in part because there are only six stops on the entire A-line between the airport and downtown each of those stations has Park and Ride Lots with 200 to a thousand spaces there isn't a whole lot else at some of these stations meaning that someone who works at the airport is probably not living on the same rail line if they aren't parking and riding then they're probably transferring from another line which is likely to make their community closer to an hour each Direction that's not ideal to be fair to Denver the city has plans to transform these stations into Transit oriented development it's one of the benefits of a line that goes into the middle of nowhere there's a blank slate to build high quality neighborhoods that support people walking to the station and taking the train and that's already happened at the site of Denver's Old Airport Stapleton which is on the same A-line after the new airport was built the decommissioned airport became a new urbanist style neighborhood development that currently houses 30 000 people in 12 000 housing units this is the station for that area and it seems like even those residents probably drive to the station it's also somewhat unlikely that many airport employees live there as is one of the highest income neighborhoods in the Denver region and most airport employees are low income in fact one study of airport Transit affordability found that most Denver Airport employees couldn't afford transit to work and that was before the train when they were just taking a lower cost bus service you might be wondering why I keep coming back to low-income workers in a video about airport rail the intended audience of that line is business Travelers right well every Transit line represents a choice about how to best spend limited Transportation dollars Denver is actually relatively well funded thanks to a 2004 ballot measure that approved a sales tax for Transit it's generated billions of dollars for new lines but even with all that money and new Transit one can make the argument that high quality Transit should be provided to those who need it most which are often lower income residents business Travelers are the opposite they are often higher income and and their travel may not even be paid for out of pocket it wouldn't make a difference to the individual if their company reimbursed for transit fare or for a rental car and the fares on the A-line reflect this higher income target audience what if the funds to build and operate the A-line had been spent to upgrade bus service in Central Denver increasing coverage and frequency for people most likely either to not have a car or be willing to Dish theirs for high quality Transit RTD could still offer a bus to the airport like they did prior to 2016. this is the primary Transit option for cities that don't have trains to the airport when I lived in Sacramento I took the bus to the airport all the time it stopped downtown where I lived made a couple more stops and went expressed to the airport it was a fantastic option now the only possible downside is it could get stuck in traffic but in places with HOV lanes that's not a problem now I was often taking the bus you know about five in the morning like most people do to get to the airport and there's never any traffic then anyway but airport rail connections are popular with the general public because for many people it it's one of the only scenarios where they would even consider Transit at all many people will simply not consider riding a bus under any circumstances middle and upper income people with cars are considered Choice Riders meaning they have other Transportation options like driving a car lower income people and people without cars are considered captive Riders meaning they rely on Transit and don't have any other options they don't need to be convinced fast rail connections to the airport convince Choice Riders to hop on board but they don't necessarily make life better for captive Riders Choice writers can further be convinced by offering them Express rail service tune from the airport that means a train with far fewer stops than a normal rail line O'Hare and Midway in Chicago are served by the regular CTA Airlines for example but Pearson and Toronto and Heathrow and London have special Express trains Toronto only makes two stops in between Union Station and the airport and the ride costs 12.35 one way this is clearly a service aimed at Travelers and not airport staff it also suffers from the problem that not all travelers want to go downtown after the airport but the train is reliable and fast guaranteeing 25 minutes from downtown to the airport so after hearing all of this discussion about airport Transit what's the best model well the absolute best option is that the airport will be connected to a dense grid of Rapid Transit lines and it'll be easy for someone to transfer from the airport line to any other line in the system and access the entire metro area the service doesn't have to be trained fast and convenient bus service can work fine trains offer the benefit of higher capacities though and are generally attractive for choice and captive Riders the ideal airport Transit should also be affordable for airport staff free or reduced Transit programs for airport staff could solve this problem or cities could see that the airport is just one of many destinations and not a special destination that requires a separate higher fare some cities can solve these airport Transit issues by offering both Express trains and local train services to the airport shanghai's pudong International Airport is connected to the Metro system and offers a one-hour trip from downtown at normal metro fare the airport is also connected to a higher cost maglev train that makes an eight-minute trip to a major rail hub of course Shanghai has the world's largest metro system so this level of connectivity is basically a given if you'd like to learn even more about this truly impressive Metro system built in only 30 years check out my nebula original video on this topic it's a part of my new series great cities I've already covered paris's boulevards and the design of Australia's Capital Canberra in New York Central Park is coming up next new episodes in the series drop every month so go sign up now so you don't miss any great cities joins me other great content you can't find anywhere else like my video on planning Ancient Rome or 13 short bonus videos or 20 videos with extended endings on top of all of that other great educational creators also Post hours of additional content on nebula creators like real life lore and Wendover Productions all of this content is ad free too signing up for nebula is a great deal and it's made even better thanks to our partnership with curiosity stream curiosity stream is the source for high quality engaging documentaries you can learn more about Shanghai by watching the 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Channel: City Beautiful

Views: 151,130

Keywords: city planning, town planning, urban planning, urban design

Id: zoKEy63mdKM

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 11 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

He kind of touches on it, but a big pro of these lines is that make money. They can jack up fairs much higher on the airport line than any other line because other options like a taxi are so expensive.