4 ms·

Why not build the airport 40 miles inland, in the desert? There's no shortage of desert land in California. Wouldn't that make so much more sense (by orders of

by TriinT 17y ago

Why not build the airport 40 miles inland, in the desert? There's no shortage of desert land in California. Wouldn't that make so much more sense (by orders of magnitude) than build a floating airport? Just wondering...

caffeine 17y ago
Nonsense! You have no sense of opera. Where would we put our SFT [1]? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submerged_floating_tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submerged_floating_tunnel . This is probably the best transportation system ever.
anamax 17y ago
> Why not build the airport 40 miles inland, in the desert? Heresy! Desert land in CA is considered sacred.
marze 17y ago
For one thing, a desert airport is harder to sell once you outgrow it. "Used airport, good condition, excellent for coastal city, $15B, free shipping."
indiejade 17y ago
Wouldn't that make so much more sense (by orders of magnitude) than build a floating airport? Not necessarily. Look at the long-term impact of building a one-road-in and one-road-out solution into the desert vs. a potentially multi-routing solution for something on the water. It's no accident that the coastlines of the USA were populated first, and are currently the most densely populated areas of the country. Logistically-speaking, the multi-variant nature of water trails makes much more sense.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
baguasquirrel 17y ago
If you look at that topo map, it looks like San Diego is bounded by mountains, just like SF and LA. Flat land in CA tends to be where you can't easily get to it.
etal 17y ago
San Diego's downtown airport is comically tiny, so this has been an issue for awhile. The ideas proposed, in order, were: 1. Convert the Marine base at Miramar into an airport -- nixed by the wealthy residents of nearby La Jolla 2. Partner with Tijuana and build a binational airport straddling TJ and San Ysidro on some conveniently undeveloped land there. This stalled for a number of reasons, and then some housing developments sprang up on the mesa where this would have worked, so the idea died. 3. Build a mega-airport in the desert, out towards El Centro, and a superfast bullet train between there and downtown San Diego. Kind of... inconvenient, and reeks of compromise. 4. A floating metropolis off the coast of Point Loma! Well, Singapore's doing something similar. Notably, most of the flights from San Diego's downtown airport go to LAX or other nearby hubs, and LAX to San Francisco is the most-travelled air route in the country. These are not long distances; a decent bullet train system connecting California's metro areas would substantially ease the congestion at SAN, SNA, LAX, etc. and probably be more environmentally friendly, too. The CA high-speed rail project was proposed about a decade ago, and is progressing excruciatingly slowly -- deets here: http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/ http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/ Last I heard, it was expected to begin construction in 2012, and start carrying passengers around 2020.

by TriinT 17y ago

caffeine 17y ago

Nonsense! You have no sense of opera. Where would we put our SFT [1]? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submerged_floating_tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submerged_floating_tunnel . This is probably the best transportation system ever.

anamax 17y ago

> Why not build the airport 40 miles inland, in the desert? Heresy! Desert land in CA is considered sacred.

marze 17y ago

For one thing, a desert airport is harder to sell once you outgrow it. "Used airport, good condition, excellent for coastal city, $15B, free shipping."

indiejade 17y ago

Wouldn't that make so much more sense (by orders of magnitude) than build a floating airport? Not necessarily. Look at the long-term impact of building a one-road-in and one-road-out solution into the desert vs. a potentially multi-routing solution for something on the water. It's no accident that the coastlines of the USA were populated first, and are currently the most densely populated areas of the country. Logistically-speaking, the multi-variant nature of water trails makes much more sense.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

baguasquirrel 17y ago

If you look at that topo map, it looks like San Diego is bounded by mountains, just like SF and LA. Flat land in CA tends to be where you can't easily get to it.

etal 17y ago

San Diego's downtown airport is comically tiny, so this has been an issue for awhile. The ideas proposed, in order, were: 1. Convert the Marine base at Miramar into an airport -- nixed by the wealthy residents of nearby La Jolla 2. Partner with Tijuana and build a binational airport straddling TJ and San Ysidro on some conveniently undeveloped land there. This stalled for a number of reasons, and then some housing developments sprang up on the mesa where this would have worked, so the idea died. 3. Build a mega-airport in the desert, out towards El Centro, and a superfast bullet train between there and downtown San Diego. Kind of... inconvenient, and reeks of compromise. 4. A floating metropolis off the coast of Point Loma! Well, Singapore's doing something similar. Notably, most of the flights from San Diego's downtown airport go to LAX or other nearby hubs, and LAX to San Francisco is the most-travelled air route in the country. These are not long distances; a decent bullet train system connecting California's metro areas would substantially ease the congestion at SAN, SNA, LAX, etc. and probably be more environmentally friendly, too. The CA high-speed rail project was proposed about a decade ago, and is progressing excruciatingly slowly -- deets here: http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/ http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/ Last I heard, it was expected to begin construction in 2012, and start carrying passengers around 2020.