4 ms·

Better centralization. Having three control towers having to coordinate traffic between them is more chaotic than two or one. And it's more orderly to have pl

Better centralization. Having three control towers having to coordinate traffic between them is more chaotic than two or one. And it's more orderly to have planes coming in to fewer sets of runways.

mikeash 11y ago
Having TRACON work with three towers instead of two doesn't sound any more difficult. I thought that the towers mostly just took already-sequenced traffic from TRACON and landed them, and handed departing traffic off to TRACON once they left the runway. As for fewer sets of runways, that sounds harder to me, not easier, since you have more traffic coming into the airport and that traffic has to be sequenced and deconflicted with all the other traffic coming into that particular airport. I could be wrong on this, my interactions with ATC are limited to occasionally listening to DCA tower while watching the planes land, and every so often being the point of contact to call the local TRACON to notify them of our glider operations.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  Fewer sets of runways seems like it should be easier, because the runways can be set up to be parallel to each other, so planes can all come in on the same approach and land in parallel. That's how they do it in Phoenix, with three parallel runways. With more airports, you have planes all going different directions instead. Besides, it seems like it'd be better to push some of that air traffic away from the city center, and free up some extremely valuable real estate. If they'd put in some better public transit to those two airports, people would be able to get in and out of the city a lot faster. Why can't they build actual subway lines to them anyway, instead of having to make slow and crappy, special trains to them which aren't on the main lines and then require time-consuming transfers?

4 ms·

Better centralization. Having three control towers having to coordinate traffic between them is more chaotic than two or one. And it's more orderly to have pl

by Grishnakh 11y ago

Better centralization. Having three control towers having to coordinate traffic between them is more chaotic than two or one. And it's more orderly to have planes coming in to fewer sets of runways.

mikeash 11y ago
Having TRACON work with three towers instead of two doesn't sound any more difficult. I thought that the towers mostly just took already-sequenced traffic from TRACON and landed them, and handed departing traffic off to TRACON once they left the runway. As for fewer sets of runways, that sounds harder to me, not easier, since you have more traffic coming into the airport and that traffic has to be sequenced and deconflicted with all the other traffic coming into that particular airport. I could be wrong on this, my interactions with ATC are limited to occasionally listening to DCA tower while watching the planes land, and every so often being the point of contact to call the local TRACON to notify them of our glider operations.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  Fewer sets of runways seems like it should be easier, because the runways can be set up to be parallel to each other, so planes can all come in on the same approach and land in parallel. That's how they do it in Phoenix, with three parallel runways. With more airports, you have planes all going different directions instead. Besides, it seems like it'd be better to push some of that air traffic away from the city center, and free up some extremely valuable real estate. If they'd put in some better public transit to those two airports, people would be able to get in and out of the city a lot faster. Why can't they build actual subway lines to them anyway, instead of having to make slow and crappy, special trains to them which aren't on the main lines and then require time-consuming transfers?