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The inanity of airport connectors

Despite my issues with how new transit projects are implemented in America today, I’m generally happy to see them built. Even though they’re flawed, heavily-subsidized government creations, they make upzoning more palatable and can later be sold off and privately managed. There’s a lot I’d do differently, but on net I think most new transit projects are a step, however imperfect, in the direction of market urbanism. But there’s at least one form of transit that I can almost never get behind: the airport connector. The airport connector is a special beast of a rail-based transit system that’s a relatively recent phenomenon outside of transit-dense regions like Western Europe and Japan. So manifestly wasteful that it generates more animosity towards mass transit than it does riders, it’s a project that only politicians and unions could love. Unlike more integrated networks where the airport is just one station on an otherwise viable route (like Philadelphia’s Airport Line or DC’s proposed Silver Line), airport connectors generally serve only the airport and one local hub. With no purpose other than to get people in and out of the airport, they provide neither ancillary transit benefits nor TOD opportunities.  Oftentimes they don’t even reach downtown, acting instead like glorified park-and-rides. The most egregious example in the US would have to be BART’s proposed Oakland Airport Connector. The rail line will extend for a little more than three miles, replacing what is now a bus routes.  The $3 fare will double, along with the half billion dollars that it will cost the government. Like the current bus route, it will only connect Oakland’s airport to the nearest BART station with no intermediate stops. It’s opposed by transit activists, who would rather convert the bus into a dedicated BRT lane and spend the rest of the half billion […]

HSR Urbanists: “We Are All O’Tooles Now”

I probably won’t make any friends today, but now I’ve read one too many urbanist (many who’s ideas I usually respect) use unsound logic to support high speed rail. This argument often includes something like this: “…and furthermore, highways and airports don’t come close to paying for themselves, therefore high speed rail need not meet that hurdle either.” Here’s some examples of the typical contradiction many usually-reasonable urbanists are making when arguing for high speed rail- Ryan Avent in an article plagued with this pseudo-logic: Government is going to build more capacity. Given that, what is likely to be the best investment, all things considered? Available alternatives, as it turns out, are not all that attractive. Roads do not appear to pay for themselves any more than railways do. Receipts from the federal gas tax come close to covering federal highway expenditures, but gas is used on highways and non-highways alike, indicating that at the federal level, highways are subsidized. and: I respect Mr Cowen very much, but I think it’s long past time we stopped listening to libertarians on the issue of whether or not to build high-speed rail. Who will ask whether road construction remotely passes any of the tests they’re so prepared to push on rail? And if we begin charging an appropriate fee on drivers to maintain existing roads and reduce congestion, what do they all think will happen to land use patterns and transportation mode share? Some have emailed to ask me why I dislike Randal O’Toole so much.  The main reason is because people like Avent will always be able to point to the government highway-lover from CATO and rashly proclaim all libertarians have forever lost credibility when it comes to transportation and land use.  Of course, Avent’s narrow-mindedness on this topic deserves contempt […]

Airport Protectionism?

Richard’s Real Estate and Urban Economics Blog – Federalism and Taxis Taxicabs in the Washington area are regulated by various jurisdictions–DC cabs may not pick up fares in Virginia and Maryland, Virginia cabs can’t get passengers in the District and Maryland, and District Cabs are forbidden from pick ups in Maryland and Virginia. In New York, they charge an additional $15 surcharge fee to take a taxi to Newark, NJ. It seems like interstate protectionism to me, nudging me to use LaGuardia or JFK.

Privatize Midway Airport

If Chicago’s Midway Airport is privatized, I’ll be looking forward to flying in there. (And it won’t just be to satisfy cravings of Italian beef sandwiches and hot dogs at the food court.) It’s success may depend on the how much (or hopefully how little) the city regulates the airport’s contracts and operations as well as how much wasteful patronage will be eliminated by the private operator. From Reason.org‘s Out of Control Blog: Leasing Chicago’s Midway Airport If there was any question whether investors would be interested in a long-term lease of Chicago’s Midway Airport, it was answered in the affirmative at the beginning of April. If Midway does generate significant value for the city, the lease could be as precedent-setting as the city’s January 2005 lease of the Chicago Skyway. That transaction focused global attention on the United States as a new market for privatization of toll roads. But for the same thing to be possible in the airport sector would require Congress to amend the Airport Privatization Pilot Program legislation it enacted in 1996 . If it is as successful as the Skyway lease, it could usher in a wave of privatization of airports and highways across the US as governments try to shore up their budgets.

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