4 ms·

Connecting to airports as transportation hubs is interesting and makes a lot of sense - gives you access to 24/7 rental cars, air travel, and often rail connect

Connecting to airports as transportation hubs is interesting and makes a lot of sense - gives you access to 24/7 rental cars, air travel, and often rail connections to downtown areas. One thing with traveling on Amtrak in most of America is it plops you in a downtown with few options for getting anywhere.

ulfw 3y ago
This is legit the first time I've ever heard someone being in favour of going to an airport outside a city by train rather than going to the city centre. If I am ending at the airport anyway I might as well fly there.
- bombas 3y ago
  I mean, I guess… how many visitors to Orlando actually go downtown though
pm3003 3y ago
There are a few airports in Europe with a high-speed train station in the airport, like Roissy in Paris (sadly the trains don't go to Paris, wouldn't be French enough) or Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. It can be extremely practical to take the train to downtown wherever in the country instead of waiting 5 hours for your connecting flight to an airport 20 miles away from civilization.
- dboreham 3y ago
  Add Brussles and Geneva.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    There is a very inconsistent and incomplete list on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airport_rail_link_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airport_rail_link_syst...
crote 3y ago
The problem is that you get stuck in a local maximum. Nobody really wants to be at an airport. They are located on the outskirts of cities due to noise issues, and you still have to spend quite a lot of time traveling to downtown or even the completely opposite side of the city. It is also extremely difficult to actually build things near the train station due to all the space being required for the airport itself. Compare the Orlando terminal[0] with a train station like Amsterdam Zuid[1], which is going to be the terminus for high-speed trains in the near future. Orlando has rental cars and taxis. Amsterdam Zuid has 32 semi-local trains per hour, 3 metro lines each serving 6 trains per hour in either direction, 9 bus lines with similar frequencies, and 2 comparable tram lines. The Orlando terminal is within walking distance of Orlando Airport terminal C. Amsterdam Zuid is within walking distance of a major hospital, a major university, and offices for multinationals like Google, Accenture, and the European Medicine Agency. When you have to rent a car to get to your destination anyways, why bother taking a train? [0]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brightline+Orlando+Train+Station/@28.4116512,-81.3074618,1192m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x88e763b90944fe27:0x2e2fd16a439b4b51!8m2!3d28.4116983!4d-81.3076185!16s%2Fg%2F11hyzyy11n?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brightline+Orlando+Train+S... [1]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Amsterdam+Zuid/@52.334522,4.8720573,960a,35y,358.87h,25.93t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x47c609fd919e5b05:0xfadb36a3b89991d8!2sAmsterdam-Zuid,+Amsterdam!3b1!8m2!3d52.344931!4d4.8766245!16s%2Fm%2F0cc7cdv!3m5!1s0x47c60a04ebd586dd:0x83c494b3ffcb95a2!8m2!3d52.3392596!4d4.8743229!16s%2Fg%2F11c52pvbd7?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Amsterdam+Zuid/@52.334522,...
- nrr 3y ago
  To get an answer your question, consider the PI on a grant who's located in, say, Champaign, IL, or Carbondale, IL, and who needs to fly internationally to attend a conference. (Or, perhaps more direly, needs to attend some family emergency.) With rail alignments going, say, STL-CHM-CHI and STL-CDL-NVL, and with those alignments being wallclock time-competitive with just driving, the opportunity exists now for those PIs not to have to worry about, e.g., the roadworthiness of their cars or whether they'll have to account for traffic for the two- or three-hour commute to the airport. Extend this to cover other folks who live away from major metropolises but who could be served with better airport access, or college students from those metropolises (or even internationally) whose schools are in places not particularly conveniently served by air, and this plan might start to appear to do measurable good. To compare this with Europe, flying into FRA out of ORD (after a cramped puddle jumper flight out of STL and several hours' layover) and taking the ICE to Offenburg to visit family for Easter was a thing I did for years, and I found the German side far less agonizing. There were some years when I never even bothered to purchase my Bahn fare until I could get to the DB Reisezentrum in the basement of FRA because the frequency of the trains made it certain I'd not have to wait long.
yterdy 3y ago
Every train station I've been to in the Northeast has been within a few minutes walk of a subway station, light rail station, bus hub, or taxi stand. What you mean by "few options" is "no car rental", which is an unfortunate consequence of our auto-centric psychology.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Well, yes, Amtrak in the Northeast is convenient if you want to go downtown at a stop. It’s mostly a poor choice if you want to rent a car and go somewhere else in which case you’re probably better flying or just driving in the first place. Not sure about car-centric philosophy. It’s about the destination for a given trip. No judgement about it.
  - igrekel 3y ago
    Do mind that it's often more cost effective to take the train and you have more rental options. I've taken the train from WDC to NYC at times because there were better rental options there when travelling further north.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      There is absolutely no way I would take a train into NYC for a cheaper rental option requiring me to drive out of the city. Driving to NYC is already my fastest option but I hate doing it so I basically drive an hour in the wrong direction to catch a train.
  - yterdy 3y ago
    When I was in my early 20s, I flew into Providence, RI. I was too young to rent a car, and too poor to take a taxi all the way to my final destination, so I had to take it to the place downtown where the busses all crossed paths. I only learned later that where the taxi dropped me off was about a 5-to-10-minute walk from the Amtrak station. If I'd taken the train, I could have eschewed a leg of my trip (and embarked from a station closer than my local airport). This was, in fact, one of the experiences which informed my previous statement. I've made the same trip by car and train. Train is by far the most convenient and relaxed. I would drive about the same distance from home to the local station (those exist) as I would in order to get to the airport, park for free 10 minutes before boarding, and do it at an hour that was not ungodly (which was a necessity for flights for pricing reasons). Every minute dealing with TSA and arcane terminal navigation is worth 10 sitting in a large, seatbelt-free Amtrak seat. I am happy to judge: your characterization sounds like someone who doesn't actually have much experience riding trains - and, specifically, walking out of a train station and navigating to their destination. This is frustrating because you seem rather assured.

ulfw 3y ago

This is legit the first time I've ever heard someone being in favour of going to an airport outside a city by train rather than going to the city centre. If I am ending at the airport anyway I might as well fly there.

bombas 3y ago
I mean, I guess… how many visitors to Orlando actually go downtown though

pm3003 3y ago

There are a few airports in Europe with a high-speed train station in the airport, like Roissy in Paris (sadly the trains don't go to Paris, wouldn't be French enough) or Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. It can be extremely practical to take the train to downtown wherever in the country instead of waiting 5 hours for your connecting flight to an airport 20 miles away from civilization.

dboreham 3y ago
Add Brussles and Geneva.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  There is a very inconsistent and incomplete list on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airport_rail_link_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airport_rail_link_syst...

crote 3y ago

The problem is that you get stuck in a local maximum. Nobody really wants to be at an airport. They are located on the outskirts of cities due to noise issues, and you still have to spend quite a lot of time traveling to downtown or even the completely opposite side of the city. It is also extremely difficult to actually build things near the train station due to all the space being required for the airport itself. Compare the Orlando terminal[0] with a train station like Amsterdam Zuid[1], which is going to be the terminus for high-speed trains in the near future. Orlando has rental cars and taxis. Amsterdam Zuid has 32 semi-local trains per hour, 3 metro lines each serving 6 trains per hour in either direction, 9 bus lines with similar frequencies, and 2 comparable tram lines. The Orlando terminal is within walking distance of Orlando Airport terminal C. Amsterdam Zuid is within walking distance of a major hospital, a major university, and offices for multinationals like Google, Accenture, and the European Medicine Agency. When you have to rent a car to get to your destination anyways, why bother taking a train? [0]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brightline+Orlando+Train+Station/@28.4116512,-81.3074618,1192m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x88e763b90944fe27:0x2e2fd16a439b4b51!8m2!3d28.4116983!4d-81.3076185!16s%2Fg%2F11hyzyy11n?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brightline+Orlando+Train+S... [1]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Amsterdam+Zuid/@52.334522,4.8720573,960a,35y,358.87h,25.93t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x47c609fd919e5b05:0xfadb36a3b89991d8!2sAmsterdam-Zuid,+Amsterdam!3b1!8m2!3d52.344931!4d4.8766245!16s%2Fm%2F0cc7cdv!3m5!1s0x47c60a04ebd586dd:0x83c494b3ffcb95a2!8m2!3d52.3392596!4d4.8743229!16s%2Fg%2F11c52pvbd7?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/place/Amsterdam+Zuid/@52.334522,...

nrr 3y ago
To get an answer your question, consider the PI on a grant who's located in, say, Champaign, IL, or Carbondale, IL, and who needs to fly internationally to attend a conference. (Or, perhaps more direly, needs to attend some family emergency.) With rail alignments going, say, STL-CHM-CHI and STL-CDL-NVL, and with those alignments being wallclock time-competitive with just driving, the opportunity exists now for those PIs not to have to worry about, e.g., the roadworthiness of their cars or whether they'll have to account for traffic for the two- or three-hour commute to the airport. Extend this to cover other folks who live away from major metropolises but who could be served with better airport access, or college students from those metropolises (or even internationally) whose schools are in places not particularly conveniently served by air, and this plan might start to appear to do measurable good. To compare this with Europe, flying into FRA out of ORD (after a cramped puddle jumper flight out of STL and several hours' layover) and taking the ICE to Offenburg to visit family for Easter was a thing I did for years, and I found the German side far less agonizing. There were some years when I never even bothered to purchase my Bahn fare until I could get to the DB Reisezentrum in the basement of FRA because the frequency of the trains made it certain I'd not have to wait long.

yterdy 3y ago

Every train station I've been to in the Northeast has been within a few minutes walk of a subway station, light rail station, bus hub, or taxi stand. What you mean by "few options" is "no car rental", which is an unfortunate consequence of our auto-centric psychology.

ghaff 3y ago
Well, yes, Amtrak in the Northeast is convenient if you want to go downtown at a stop. It’s mostly a poor choice if you want to rent a car and go somewhere else in which case you’re probably better flying or just driving in the first place. Not sure about car-centric philosophy. It’s about the destination for a given trip. No judgement about it.
- igrekel 3y ago
  Do mind that it's often more cost effective to take the train and you have more rental options. I've taken the train from WDC to NYC at times because there were better rental options there when travelling further north.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    There is absolutely no way I would take a train into NYC for a cheaper rental option requiring me to drive out of the city. Driving to NYC is already my fastest option but I hate doing it so I basically drive an hour in the wrong direction to catch a train.
- yterdy 3y ago
  When I was in my early 20s, I flew into Providence, RI. I was too young to rent a car, and too poor to take a taxi all the way to my final destination, so I had to take it to the place downtown where the busses all crossed paths. I only learned later that where the taxi dropped me off was about a 5-to-10-minute walk from the Amtrak station. If I'd taken the train, I could have eschewed a leg of my trip (and embarked from a station closer than my local airport). This was, in fact, one of the experiences which informed my previous statement. I've made the same trip by car and train. Train is by far the most convenient and relaxed. I would drive about the same distance from home to the local station (those exist) as I would in order to get to the airport, park for free 10 minutes before boarding, and do it at an hour that was not ungodly (which was a necessity for flights for pricing reasons). Every minute dealing with TSA and arcane terminal navigation is worth 10 sitting in a large, seatbelt-free Amtrak seat. I am happy to judge: your characterization sounds like someone who doesn't actually have much experience riding trains - and, specifically, walking out of a train station and navigating to their destination. This is frustrating because you seem rather assured.