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No infrastructure needed? This must be a joke. Have you heard about the concept of an airport? Airports are humongous and contain a ton of infrastructure, compa

No infrastructure needed? This must be a joke. Have you heard about the concept of an airport? Airports are humongous and contain a ton of infrastructure, compared to a train station. Gare de Paris-Nord, the busiest train station in Europe, is planned to have a floor area of 120 000 m² after the next renovation. I couldn't find the number for the ground area, but it's obviously smaller than the floor area. Dulles airport, in Washington DC (a relatively small city by all standards), has an area of 47 km². That's 47 000 000 m², for the unaware. Meanwhile, its annual traffic (about 20M passengers) is approximately a fifth of the Gare du Nord (about 100M passengers). And then you obviously have to take into account everything that goes into an airport. How much infrastructure to carry fuel and equipment to the airport? To carry passengers to the airport? Most airports aren't in city centers! Do the roads and rails that lead to the airport count? Most certainly. Runways, terminals, air control towers... All this is infrastructure. So no, you don't need to lay out rails in the sky for planes. That's pretty much where the list of pros stop, in terms of infrastructure. The cons, on the other hand...

globular-toast 3y ago
And that doesn't include how you get to and from the airport at either end plus the supporting infrastructure for fuelling, catering etc.
masklinn 3y ago
> Gare de Paris-Nord, the busiest train station in Europe, is planned to have a floor area of 120 000 m² after the next renovation. I couldn't find the number for the ground area, but it's obviously smaller than the floor area. Dulles airport, in Washington DC (a relatively small city by all standards), has an area of 47 km². That's 47 000 000 m², for the unaware. Meanwhile, its annual traffic (about 20M passengers) is approximately a fifth of the Gare du Nord (about 100M passengers). Not to detract from the point but Dulles is way oversized for its traffic (so's BWI). Paris-CDG, Frankfurt, Schipol, or Madrid carry near triple (or above in high-traffic years) the passengers in half to 2/3rds the surface. Heathrow moves more than triple on about 1/4th the surface (though it's rather unpleasant IIRC).
- uxp8u61q 3y ago
  Half the surface is still 23km².
mytailorisrich 3y ago
An airport is negligible compared to the scale of building railways. Incredible how you and many have drunk the kool aid and are now shutting down any discussions.

globular-toast 3y ago

And that doesn't include how you get to and from the airport at either end plus the supporting infrastructure for fuelling, catering etc.

masklinn 3y ago

> Gare de Paris-Nord, the busiest train station in Europe, is planned to have a floor area of 120 000 m² after the next renovation. I couldn't find the number for the ground area, but it's obviously smaller than the floor area. Dulles airport, in Washington DC (a relatively small city by all standards), has an area of 47 km². That's 47 000 000 m², for the unaware. Meanwhile, its annual traffic (about 20M passengers) is approximately a fifth of the Gare du Nord (about 100M passengers). Not to detract from the point but Dulles is way oversized for its traffic (so's BWI). Paris-CDG, Frankfurt, Schipol, or Madrid carry near triple (or above in high-traffic years) the passengers in half to 2/3rds the surface. Heathrow moves more than triple on about 1/4th the surface (though it's rather unpleasant IIRC).

uxp8u61q 3y ago
Half the surface is still 23km².

mytailorisrich 3y ago

An airport is negligible compared to the scale of building railways. Incredible how you and many have drunk the kool aid and are now shutting down any discussions.