You wouldn’t use light rail to the airport anyway
The Star presents a very detailed analysis today of why you probably wouldn't ride light rail to the airport even if you had the opportunity… hardly anyone else does. Honestly, we thought some of the other city figures would be higher considering how easy the connection is — only 15% of passengers at DC's Reagan airport arrive via Metro, arguably one of the fastest and easiest rail-to-airport connections in the US… and one of the worst cities for driving. Even super-green Portland sits at 6% of airport passengers, another convenient connection.
It's good to see the data laid now out so Northland interests who see an airport link as critical for the starter line will realize the cost-benefit is very, very low. Perhaps by the time we're ready to expand the system, we'll know whether we're getting a new terminal south of the existing runways that will save us about 8 miles of rail (and at $50 million a mile, that's nothing to sneeze at). In the interim, we're better off implementing express bus service that terminates at several key points throughout the metro and runs 7 days a week.
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I would take it. I’d absolutely love to park my car at Union Station and hop a train to the airport. I already park at satellite parking, so i have the bus transit anyway, if I could hop a train closer to home (for less money) and I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I guess “1″ isn’t enough to justify the expense
BTW, I also wonder how much some of the numbers are skewed by the rental car numbers…figuring that 1/2 of all flights taken are from people who are not residents of that city and likely rented a car. so that would make it 30% of residents…which is likely too high because I’m sure a lot of tourists (like me) would fly in and not rent cars. Anyway, interesting stuff.
They’re right. The light rail system would be a great idea if and only if anyone knew exactly what route would justify the expense. But no one does. What would need to have happened in order for that information to be available is for a useful and usable bus-based rapid transit system (I.e. Not what we’ve had for the last 30 years in metro KC) that would have been competitive with driving your own gas-guzzler everywhere.
So what we’re going to wind up with is an expensive albatross of a starter line that goes to and from places not enough people qant to travel between, and taxpayers like me will get to make up the difference. Lovely.
pretty sure the plaza, crown center, and downtown are quite popular, last i checked. the expense is justified because that corridor has the job and population density the feds are looking for, while the 20-mile corridor between the river and the airport does not.
What’s all this talk about Grand Blvd having a few cuts in it all about? Wait this Light Rail comes and the whole street will be torn up.
It took a year and a half to do the bridge and intersection at Troost and 85th St., I wonder how long the bridges & streets downtown will take for Light Rail?
Looks like some business men will be in for a long vacation.
the ATA and HNTB are not Public Works.
as for downtown specifically, it’s been torn up for the better part of four years and everyone seems to be doing just fine.
But the people at Power & Light were not here four years ago,or the Sprint Arena.
i was referring to when site prep and rampant road closures began. that was four years ago, believe it or not.