5 ms·

> And an airport can’t be too far from a city and remain useful, since travelers need to access the city, workers need to be within commuting distance, and so o

by sofixa 3y ago

> And an airport can’t be too far from a city and remain useful, since travelers need to access the city, workers need to be within commuting distance, and so on. In Canada, Mirabel airport was built 35 miles from Montreal, surrounded by a 79,000 acre buffer zone to prevent any issues of incompatible land use. Mirabel was expected to replace Dorval (today Montreal-Trudeau) as Canada’s main eastern airport, but, in part because of its long distance from the city, this never happened, and Mirabel stopped serving passenger traffic in 2004. It was because of very stupid mismanagement and lack of connections, not the distance. The old airport remained opened and continued serving domestic flights, while international ones were moved to Mirabel... which was extremely dumb because Montreal was the major interchange point between international arrivals and smaller locations not served directly by international flights in Canada. So most of the utility of Montreal airport was killed, and airlines started serving other airports in Canada to do the same thing. Also, there was no good link to the airport - it shouldn't have opened without a direct at least somewhat fast rail link, but it had no good road nor rail connection. Also, it was put in the wrong place - one of the potential locations was midway between Ottawa and Montreal and could have served both cities, but politicians decided they don't want that.

vel0city 3y ago
That sounds like exceptionally poor planning. Just to confirm, the new airport served pretty much only international flights? It should have been the nexus for domestic travel to connect to the big hop to Europe, meaning it should have had a ton of domestic routes as well feeding it.
- TRDRVR 3y ago
  It's the main counterexample to 'The Olympics are good because they force the development of infrastructure that otherwise wouldn't get built' argument. Many of the weird choices about that airport was made so it would be open and useful for the 1976 Olympics. The location was closer to Montreal (but father from Ottawa) in part to make the international arrival experience better for the fans (not for the long-term users of the airport). The plan was 'International flights in time for the Olympics and Domestic flights a couple of years later' as a way to 'show off to the world.' All this rushing and purpose-building led to suboptimal decision making that ultimately made it a completely wasted investment. A similar story can be told about Olympic stadium in Montreal.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    I thought the main counterexample to that argument was the fact that it has never worked anywhere. From what I've heard, the Olympics have failed to benefit every city that's hosted them except LA, and the reason they were good for LA was specifically that no new infrastructure was built to accommodate them.
    - rqtwteye 3y ago
      I think Munich did well in 1972. They got a lot of public transport and most of the sports facilities are used a lot.
      - Andrex 3y ago
        Shame about the security, though.
    - mdtusz 3y ago
      Many will disagree with me, but the Vancouver Olympics prompted construction of some things that I would consider vital to the Sea to Sky region - the highway upgrade being the biggest.
    - mdtusz 3y ago
      Many will disagree with me, but the Vancouver Olympics prompted construction of some things that I would consider vital to the Sea to Sky region - the highway upgrade being the biggest.
    - Mvandenbergh 3y ago
      London as well, or at least broke even. (Although of course this is complicated to assess and contested). Same reason, all infrastructure was either already there or usable after (the Olympic stadium was sold to a football team). Generally the larger a city is, the better able it is to host an event like this for obvious reasons.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    > It's the main counterexample to 'The Olympics are good because they force the development of infrastructure that otherwise wouldn't get built' argument. > Many of the weird choices about that airport was made so it would be open and useful for the 1976 Olympics. The location was closer to Montreal (but father from Ottawa) in part to make the international arrival experience better for the fans (not for the long-term users of the airport). The plan was 'International flights in time for the Olympics and Domestic flights a couple of years later' as a way to 'show off to the world.' That's just poor and short sighted planning, nothing specific for the Olympics. Paris for instance isn't making any such short term infrastructure decisions, only rushing to finish some stuff before the Olympics (e.g. line 14 to Orly, while failing others like line 15 South which was supposed to be ready but won't).
- londons_explore 3y ago
  "exceptionally poor planning" is common in big projects like this. As soon as the design/planning teams gets big enough that there are many people who barely know eachother, they start competing to the detriment of the whole... Nobody wants their part late/over budget, so they do things to screw other parts of the project just so their part isn't late or over budget.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    You also have large groups of various entities brawling over it, and you end up with compromises - where compromise means nobody is happy about anything.
- sofixa 3y ago
  > Just to confirm, the new airport served pretty much only international flights Yes, they decided they'll try to do it like Paris with CDG and Orly, but fundamentally misunderstood the differences the traffic - Orly mostly serves tourist destinations or places where lots of people living and working in France have origins in such as Portugal and the Maghreb from where there will be limited amounts of changes to international flights; and Air France is abandoning Orly and focusing entirely on CDG because even the small opportunity misses aren't worth the extra costs. And both are well connected to the city they're serving, including to each other with the RER B (okay it takes 1h30m, but at least it's a mostly direct connection). And CDG even has high speed rail to other cities. Montreal isn't even close in terms of traffic patterns... and even if it was, the connectivity to Montreal (and ideally Ottawa) really wasn't there.
- reaperducer 3y ago
  Just to confirm, the new airport served pretty much only international flights? It was a pretty common urban planning concept for a large city to have one airport devoted mostly or entirely to domestic flights, and one mostly or entirely for international flights. New York domestic: EWR New York international: JFK New York freight: LGA Chicago domestic: MDW Chicago international: ORD Houston domestic: HOU Houston international: IAH Dallas domestic: LUV Dallas international: DFW Paris international: CGD Paris international: ORY Washington domestic: DCA Washington international: IAD Notice how some airports (IAD, IAH) specifically have "International Airport" in their codes. It worked fine for a very long time until the airlines optimized into the hub-and-spoke system we have today, where connecting flights has become normalized. Because people think now it's normal to have connecting flights all the time, the domestic airports have added international flights, and vice-versa. What was once orderly and predictable has become very messy, and had a number of other side-effects.
  - sumtechguy 3y ago
    I too thought 'international' in the name meant something. Until I worked with a guy who was into gliders. They named the large empty grass field that you had to drive for an hour to get to an 'international' airport. It was basically just enough to get a very small airplane aloft with a glider attached. They thought it was funny they pulled it off.
    - reaperducer 3y ago
      "International" in the name of an airport signifies that it is certified to receive international flights. I'm pointing out the use of "International" in airport codes, not names.
      - sumtechguy 3y ago
        you would think that.... This 'runway'/grass field was named an international. They thought it was funny to do. The naming group did not really seem to care all they cared about was the letter code was unique.
jrockway 3y ago
Montreal isn't the only city that failed with a too-far-away airport. Tokyo built Narita against much local opposition (they still check your ID before you're allowed inside the airport, to make sure you're not an angry local resident), and the opposition resulted in not being able to build the transport link they wanted (the Narita Shinkansen). The result is a good hour wasted on conventional rail to get to Tokyo. (Sky Access kind of fixed this, but I think it's limited to 160km/h and still takes 40 minutes.) Meanwhile, in the 2010s they expanded Haneda and started accepting international flights, and you can get to Tokyo via a variety of normal trains (and buses if your destination is on the Shinjuku side of things) in 15 minutes. The whole thing is landfill, so no residents to be mad either. Last time I flew to Haneda they made all the flights from the US arrive and depart at times when public transportation wasn't running, to discourage those flights, but it seems like they stopped doing that. So now it's more convenient for everyone, and Narita is largely pointless for everyone that isn't an extreme budget traveler (but I think Haneda built Terminal 3 for that use case... so... is there any reason for Narita to exist if you aren't visiting Chiba?)
- niklasrde 3y ago
  Arlanda feels like another good example of a "far out" (23 mi) airport that works pretty damn well. 18 minutes on the train.
  - mayormcmatt 3y ago
    Arlanda is my favorite major-city airport. I'm not as well-traveled as many, but I've been to dozens and it's my favorite. I've transited between Stockholm, Norrtalje, and the airport in bus, tax, and train, with each being the easiest experience I've had with that respective form of transit.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      Zurich Airport was much better for me, a few minutes to Zurich by train and they go every few minutes and tickets are cheap since those are the commuter trains. No need to plan, just go to the train station and hop on the first train and you are there in less than 10 minutes. It really blew my mind when I first visited, I never thought getting to a major international airport could be that convenient. Swiss transit is so well designed.
bombcar 3y ago
Exactly - it has to be holistic and actually planned out. If you want to run two airports in the same city, there really should be some form of quick connection between them, or each has to be so big as to be self-sufficient. Moving an airport is even harder than just building one, because the airport often doesn't own all the businesses and land around said airport, and so is negotiation making those less valuable. And at some point, it's stuck - LAX is so enclosed in Los Angeles and LA is so big that you'd be quite far from it to add a new airport. You're more likely to repurpose Ontario or even a military base instead.
- giantrobot 3y ago
  > You're more likely to repurpose Ontario or even a military base instead. Ontario was repurposed, at least expanded greatly in scope. It used to be basically a UPS and FedEx airstrip with very limited passenger flights. But LAX was so overloaded and out of the way (for a lot of the IE and LA county) Ontario's passenger terminals were significantly expanded. Unless your destination is in the LA metro area Ontario (or John Wayne) is way more convenient than LAX.
benjymo 3y ago
It also should be connected to the national rail network so long distance trains go there directly. It greatly reduces time to switch trains when you're not directly from the nearest city. Vienna did this with their airport.
- sealeck 3y ago
  Switzerland also has this, for example there is a direct train from Zurich Airport to Geneva Airport.
- 11101010001100 3y ago
  It is (in theory). There is a via rail track and stop < 1 km away.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    That's inadequate. I don't want to drag my luggage around the front of the terminal looking for the shuttle bus to the station, wait for it to arrive, figure out paying for the bus (if it isn't free), then wait for a train. The railway line should go underneath the airport terminal building. If that's not possible, a covered walkway is OK. Many significant European airports are like this. If a connection on medium/long distance trains isn't realistic, at least there should be a metro (or whatever the 'best' transport the city has, e.g. light rail). Compare: Mirabelle: https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=45.679722&mlon=-74.038611 https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=45.679722&mlon=-74.03861... Vienna: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/48.1155/16.5329 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/48.1155/16.5329
- bluGill 3y ago
  Only if the airport is onithe way. Overall the city center is more important so don't slow down trains for people who don't want to be at the airport.
- sofixa 3y ago
  Yep, Paris CDG has a small version of this (high speed trains only, but this allows for connections between planes and rail to be made) which is getting expanded with a link to the regional network of the region right to the north of the airport.
dclowd9901 3y ago
It sounds like basically all of the issues amount to “it was too far away to be convenient.”
- sofixa 3y ago
  No. They split the traffic between domestic and international making Montreal no longer useful as an interchange hub. They failed to implement any proper connections to the city itself, which is related to but not due to the distance. They also failed to place the airport in between two cities to have a bigger market for it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
codexb 3y ago
Yeah, Denver Intl is out way outside of Denver and it's a major hub.

by sofixa 3y ago

vel0city 3y ago

That sounds like exceptionally poor planning. Just to confirm, the new airport served pretty much only international flights? It should have been the nexus for domestic travel to connect to the big hop to Europe, meaning it should have had a ton of domestic routes as well feeding it.

TRDRVR 3y ago
It's the main counterexample to 'The Olympics are good because they force the development of infrastructure that otherwise wouldn't get built' argument. Many of the weird choices about that airport was made so it would be open and useful for the 1976 Olympics. The location was closer to Montreal (but father from Ottawa) in part to make the international arrival experience better for the fans (not for the long-term users of the airport). The plan was 'International flights in time for the Olympics and Domestic flights a couple of years later' as a way to 'show off to the world.' All this rushing and purpose-building led to suboptimal decision making that ultimately made it a completely wasted investment. A similar story can be told about Olympic stadium in Montreal.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  I thought the main counterexample to that argument was the fact that it has never worked anywhere. From what I've heard, the Olympics have failed to benefit every city that's hosted them except LA, and the reason they were good for LA was specifically that no new infrastructure was built to accommodate them.
  - rqtwteye 3y ago
    I think Munich did well in 1972. They got a lot of public transport and most of the sports facilities are used a lot.
    - Andrex 3y ago
      Shame about the security, though.
  - mdtusz 3y ago
    Many will disagree with me, but the Vancouver Olympics prompted construction of some things that I would consider vital to the Sea to Sky region - the highway upgrade being the biggest.
  - mdtusz 3y ago
    Many will disagree with me, but the Vancouver Olympics prompted construction of some things that I would consider vital to the Sea to Sky region - the highway upgrade being the biggest.
  - Mvandenbergh 3y ago
    London as well, or at least broke even. (Although of course this is complicated to assess and contested). Same reason, all infrastructure was either already there or usable after (the Olympic stadium was sold to a football team). Generally the larger a city is, the better able it is to host an event like this for obvious reasons.
- sofixa 3y ago
  > It's the main counterexample to 'The Olympics are good because they force the development of infrastructure that otherwise wouldn't get built' argument. > Many of the weird choices about that airport was made so it would be open and useful for the 1976 Olympics. The location was closer to Montreal (but father from Ottawa) in part to make the international arrival experience better for the fans (not for the long-term users of the airport). The plan was 'International flights in time for the Olympics and Domestic flights a couple of years later' as a way to 'show off to the world.' That's just poor and short sighted planning, nothing specific for the Olympics. Paris for instance isn't making any such short term infrastructure decisions, only rushing to finish some stuff before the Olympics (e.g. line 14 to Orly, while failing others like line 15 South which was supposed to be ready but won't).
londons_explore 3y ago
"exceptionally poor planning" is common in big projects like this. As soon as the design/planning teams gets big enough that there are many people who barely know eachother, they start competing to the detriment of the whole... Nobody wants their part late/over budget, so they do things to screw other parts of the project just so their part isn't late or over budget.
- bombcar 3y ago
  You also have large groups of various entities brawling over it, and you end up with compromises - where compromise means nobody is happy about anything.
sofixa 3y ago
> Just to confirm, the new airport served pretty much only international flights Yes, they decided they'll try to do it like Paris with CDG and Orly, but fundamentally misunderstood the differences the traffic - Orly mostly serves tourist destinations or places where lots of people living and working in France have origins in such as Portugal and the Maghreb from where there will be limited amounts of changes to international flights; and Air France is abandoning Orly and focusing entirely on CDG because even the small opportunity misses aren't worth the extra costs. And both are well connected to the city they're serving, including to each other with the RER B (okay it takes 1h30m, but at least it's a mostly direct connection). And CDG even has high speed rail to other cities. Montreal isn't even close in terms of traffic patterns... and even if it was, the connectivity to Montreal (and ideally Ottawa) really wasn't there.
reaperducer 3y ago
Just to confirm, the new airport served pretty much only international flights? It was a pretty common urban planning concept for a large city to have one airport devoted mostly or entirely to domestic flights, and one mostly or entirely for international flights. New York domestic: EWR New York international: JFK New York freight: LGA Chicago domestic: MDW Chicago international: ORD Houston domestic: HOU Houston international: IAH Dallas domestic: LUV Dallas international: DFW Paris international: CGD Paris international: ORY Washington domestic: DCA Washington international: IAD Notice how some airports (IAD, IAH) specifically have "International Airport" in their codes. It worked fine for a very long time until the airlines optimized into the hub-and-spoke system we have today, where connecting flights has become normalized. Because people think now it's normal to have connecting flights all the time, the domestic airports have added international flights, and vice-versa. What was once orderly and predictable has become very messy, and had a number of other side-effects.
- sumtechguy 3y ago
  I too thought 'international' in the name meant something. Until I worked with a guy who was into gliders. They named the large empty grass field that you had to drive for an hour to get to an 'international' airport. It was basically just enough to get a very small airplane aloft with a glider attached. They thought it was funny they pulled it off.
  - reaperducer 3y ago
    "International" in the name of an airport signifies that it is certified to receive international flights. I'm pointing out the use of "International" in airport codes, not names.
    - sumtechguy 3y ago
      you would think that.... This 'runway'/grass field was named an international. They thought it was funny to do. The naming group did not really seem to care all they cared about was the letter code was unique.

jrockway 3y ago

Montreal isn't the only city that failed with a too-far-away airport. Tokyo built Narita against much local opposition (they still check your ID before you're allowed inside the airport, to make sure you're not an angry local resident), and the opposition resulted in not being able to build the transport link they wanted (the Narita Shinkansen). The result is a good hour wasted on conventional rail to get to Tokyo. (Sky Access kind of fixed this, but I think it's limited to 160km/h and still takes 40 minutes.) Meanwhile, in the 2010s they expanded Haneda and started accepting international flights, and you can get to Tokyo via a variety of normal trains (and buses if your destination is on the Shinjuku side of things) in 15 minutes. The whole thing is landfill, so no residents to be mad either. Last time I flew to Haneda they made all the flights from the US arrive and depart at times when public transportation wasn't running, to discourage those flights, but it seems like they stopped doing that. So now it's more convenient for everyone, and Narita is largely pointless for everyone that isn't an extreme budget traveler (but I think Haneda built Terminal 3 for that use case... so... is there any reason for Narita to exist if you aren't visiting Chiba?)

niklasrde 3y ago
Arlanda feels like another good example of a "far out" (23 mi) airport that works pretty damn well. 18 minutes on the train.
- mayormcmatt 3y ago
  Arlanda is my favorite major-city airport. I'm not as well-traveled as many, but I've been to dozens and it's my favorite. I've transited between Stockholm, Norrtalje, and the airport in bus, tax, and train, with each being the easiest experience I've had with that respective form of transit.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    Zurich Airport was much better for me, a few minutes to Zurich by train and they go every few minutes and tickets are cheap since those are the commuter trains. No need to plan, just go to the train station and hop on the first train and you are there in less than 10 minutes. It really blew my mind when I first visited, I never thought getting to a major international airport could be that convenient. Swiss transit is so well designed.

bombcar 3y ago

Exactly - it has to be holistic and actually planned out. If you want to run two airports in the same city, there really should be some form of quick connection between them, or each has to be so big as to be self-sufficient. Moving an airport is even harder than just building one, because the airport often doesn't own all the businesses and land around said airport, and so is negotiation making those less valuable. And at some point, it's stuck - LAX is so enclosed in Los Angeles and LA is so big that you'd be quite far from it to add a new airport. You're more likely to repurpose Ontario or even a military base instead.

giantrobot 3y ago
> You're more likely to repurpose Ontario or even a military base instead. Ontario was repurposed, at least expanded greatly in scope. It used to be basically a UPS and FedEx airstrip with very limited passenger flights. But LAX was so overloaded and out of the way (for a lot of the IE and LA county) Ontario's passenger terminals were significantly expanded. Unless your destination is in the LA metro area Ontario (or John Wayne) is way more convenient than LAX.

benjymo 3y ago

It also should be connected to the national rail network so long distance trains go there directly. It greatly reduces time to switch trains when you're not directly from the nearest city. Vienna did this with their airport.

sealeck 3y ago
Switzerland also has this, for example there is a direct train from Zurich Airport to Geneva Airport.
11101010001100 3y ago
It is (in theory). There is a via rail track and stop < 1 km away.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  That's inadequate. I don't want to drag my luggage around the front of the terminal looking for the shuttle bus to the station, wait for it to arrive, figure out paying for the bus (if it isn't free), then wait for a train. The railway line should go underneath the airport terminal building. If that's not possible, a covered walkway is OK. Many significant European airports are like this. If a connection on medium/long distance trains isn't realistic, at least there should be a metro (or whatever the 'best' transport the city has, e.g. light rail). Compare: Mirabelle: https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=45.679722&mlon=-74.038611 https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=45.679722&mlon=-74.03861... Vienna: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/48.1155/16.5329 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=13/48.1155/16.5329
bluGill 3y ago
Only if the airport is onithe way. Overall the city center is more important so don't slow down trains for people who don't want to be at the airport.
sofixa 3y ago
Yep, Paris CDG has a small version of this (high speed trains only, but this allows for connections between planes and rail to be made) which is getting expanded with a link to the regional network of the region right to the north of the airport.

dclowd9901 3y ago

It sounds like basically all of the issues amount to “it was too far away to be convenient.”

sofixa 3y ago
No. They split the traffic between domestic and international making Montreal no longer useful as an interchange hub. They failed to implement any proper connections to the city itself, which is related to but not due to the distance. They also failed to place the airport in between two cities to have a bigger market for it.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

codexb 3y ago

Yeah, Denver Intl is out way outside of Denver and it's a major hub.