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New York Architects Suggest Complete Re-Ordering of Airports

Unless someone can come up with a non-polluting jet fuel soon, we should be thinking of ways to reduce air travel, not make it easier to acces, cheaper, and more frequent by expanding airports and making room for more runways.

With luck, Pearson is as big now as it'll ever get.
 
Depends on what you mean by 'non-polluting'. Carbon neutral? Shouldn't be all that difficult.

Zero emission would be a bit more challenging...

All in all though, rail travel is vastly more efficient in terms of energy used per seat, though the infrastructure may not be justifiable in every area.
 
Fascinating idea, it's exciting just to see a new approach proposed. But, it's a design that's based upon a "decentralisation", something that never has worked efficiently, if it all. The thought of the actual airport "terminal" being about as impressive as a big bus shelter (because all the facilites would be located at the train stations instead) would be a though sell, if your flight is delayed at the last minute you're not going to want to hop on a train again and leave the terminal. There also seems to be not enough thought given to arriving passengers: how would baggage claims and immigration work since there is no "central" facility/structure of any sort? And how about changing planes at the same airport? The train loop suffers from a bit of a Blue22 problem as well: great, speedy transport for airport passengers, no provision for local passengers. I'm sure there are lots of New Yorkers who would love a high-speed link between Manhattan, Newark riverside, downtown Newark, downtown Brooklyn, and Jamaica!

I think they could keep a more traditional airport design (it shouldn't be such a problem for the general population to walk a few metres, dammit!) and keep many facilities like security at the airport, but work to decentralise check-ins, parking, pick-ups and drop-offs through the use of the train. That way the amount of space needed at the airports for roads and cars could be reduced or eliminated and the airport could have the space to be rebuilt with more runways. Multiple small terminals is a design that usually minimises distance from the plane to a car (Los Angeles, Cincinatti), a single large terminal is a design that usually minimises distance to a transit hub (Schiphol).
 
LAX really feels like a small airport once you're inside as the terminals themselves are nice and small, the big problem being the lack of inter-terminal connections, though - it is not set up well for that.

I agree with CDL that there's too much to be said for decentralizing all the airport functions. I like to get to my gate early - and that point buy a coffee (I don't find food or soft drinks much more expensive than outside) or catch up on some reading. Check-in is certainly one thing that works well off-site, as does meeting-and-greeting, parking.

I also wonder where the Department of Homeland Paranoia would go? Would they be at each off-site hub? How would you deal with domestic and international connections?
 
The idea is interesting. I can it costing an insane amount of money, but its New York, so you never know.

I do think that this kind of creative and radical thinking would be great, and in someways necessary, for passenger rail in North America. While the modality of travel is great and has any number of advantages, rethinking how rail networks serve cities and people could yield some interesting results and perhaps come up with a system that would be highly suitable for the sprawling mess of North American cities.
 
In a bold new check-in paradigm, passengers would get their boarding passes and go through security at special stations in Union Square and Red Hook (and Astoria and Grand Central and …), then hop on trains that would let them out directly at their plane.
Click to expand...

YVR already uses remote check-in terminals (to receive a boarding pass), and the Canada Line will have remote check-in at most of its stations. I think the concept is pretty common. You'll still have to line up at the terminal to check-in baggage though. Off-site security would be a tough sell.

http://www.yvr.ca/flightinfo/fastrackborder.asp

YVR FasTrack Check-In

YVR FasTrack common-use self-service check-in kiosks allow passengers to access multiple airlines from one machine, check in faster, and avoid line-ups. The kiosks are free, easy to use, and can be used by all guests. It takes approximately 60 seconds to check in at a kiosk, making them a quick and convenient alternative to traditional check-in processes.

YVR's common-use self-service check-in kiosks are located throughout the terminals, in the parkade, at the Fairmont Vancouver Airport Hotel, and at off-airport locations such as the Delta Vancouver Airport Hotel in Richmond, the Delta Vancouver Suites Hotel in downtown Vancouver, and at the Vancouver Tourist Info Centre, next door to the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in downtown Vancouver.

They are also located in Whistler at the following off-airport locations: Hilton Whistler, Delta Whistler, Tourism Whistler, Westin Whistler, Four Seasons Whistler and Chateau Whistler.

Passengers checking in with the kiosk system will receive a boarding pass to take with them to their gate at YVR, either directly or after dropping off their baggage with the airline.
Click to expand...
 
Check-in away from the airport isn't such a big deal anymore, frankly. When I was recently in Detroit, the Marriott Hotel in the Ren Cen put 3 computers with limited web access and a printer in the lobby. You walk up, choose your airline, it opens their website and you do an on-line check in and print your boarding pass right there. Pretty convienent, and dirt cheap to implement.

Given the fact that a lot of flights in the New York area are delayed due to weather and FAA spacing requirements in the air and on the runways, I think the problem of passengers arriving at their planes and it being delayed is a big one. Plus, I think the airports make a lot of money off the restaurants, bars and shops in the terminals, and would be loath to give those up.

That being said, it would be cool to have decent rail connections between the three airports.
 
In NY, it would not take much effort to get all 3 airports connected to one another. They would have to extend the AirTrain up the VanWyck to LGA. Then they would need to string up wires to run NJ transit trains on from Penn station to Jamaica to link Newark airport to the other 2. Apart from that, everything is more or less in place.
 
rethinking how rail networks serve cities and people could yield some interesting results and perhaps come up with a system that would be highly suitable for the sprawling mess of North American cities.
Click to expand...

That will be quite a challenge. I believe that the population size and density of any region needs to pass a certain treshold in order for rail networks to work.
The concept of Transit Oriented Development is great, but mostly usefull at the urban scale. It's no solution for regional traffic.
When travelling from city to city, people need to be tempted to go by train. Driving through metropolitan regions costs the most time (as it is where the most congested roads are), so this is where rail traffic can gain a competitive advantage. If you get on a train at the centre of one town and get off at the centre of another town (without stopping at suburban stations), you'll probably be at your destination quicker than when you drive.
Concentrating important functions (and more intensive land use) around stations would be a good bet (but it will be a bet to get a good-working rail network off the ground, because the urban form simply isn't dense enough at most places for rail transit to become economically viable).
 
^I am not suggesting it would be easy. In fact it is an incredibley challenging problem. And you are right that there will always be factors such as density, development around stations, and population requirements that need to be met.

The primary issue, or one of them, is how do you develop a system that will appeal to people living not just within a few blocks or an easy streetcar ride from main train stations, but also too those who live in suburban areas at the fringes of the city which in some cases can be 30km or more from a central station. If you take the example of HS service between Montreal and Toronto. Those two cities will be able to capture a respectable market because they do have large population in dense urban areas for whom travel by rail would be convenient. But it is the other half of the population that live in suburbs like Markham or Laval that rarely, if ever get addressed. Once they are in their car it is far less likely they will travel maybe an hour or more (depending on traffic) to take a train which might be able to go from Toronto to Montreal in 3 hours or less, but is not very convenient to get too. Especially when by car their trip might take only an additional hour.

You will never be able to totally serve all the people living in sprawling subdivisions just because the form makes it far too difficult and expensive to serve them by rail. But ignoring the problem is no better either, which is exactly what is done now. There is not going to be a magic answer, but, unless the question is explored and unless attempts are made to develop systems that might be relatively effective (and it could all aspects from infrastructure, rolling stock, agency organization, etc) then rail is going to have a hard time being accepted by users.
 
Vey interesting. I love seeing new ways of thinking about current processes that we take for granted, but in reality don't work that well.

I guess my major question is...what happens if you actually want to go to Newburgh, NY?
 
The biggest problem with their proposal is security. If they want to be able to have all the functions decentralized then the train with have to be a completely closed and secured system so that the only people and items that are able to get on the train are those heading too the airport. Which of course means it can only be used for one single purpose and then you have the question of how do make a train totally secure once it leaves the station and begins travelling? If it is at grade that leaves it with any number of serious vulnerabilities.

If you accept that it has to be a totally secured line then the cost to do that would be extrodinary, especially in the US with the endless number of restrictions and concerns from Homeland Security.

And of course the problem is if the train breaks down in that system...then what do you do? You can't shuttle people by bus (you can but not without serious security concerns). Which means that you would have to have on site facilities to handle such a situation, which in some ways defeats the whole purpose.

Though the idea of improved rail access is a good idea and a train line that specifically served the airports and select city stations would be very effective. You could also have at the select airport rail line stations check in services and the option of having the cost of the train ride to the airport included in your ticket so that would be taken care of ahead of time. Plus other services like information screens for flight times (and delays), money exchanges, etc. It wouldn't be a fully decentralized system, but, it could at least offer enough convenience and amenities to make it a much more efficient way of travelling to and from the airport from around the city.
 
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