Posts about Airports

Transit and bike friendly airport

Landing in PDX, you are greeted by abundant wayfinding signage, all of which clearly points out transit and bike options.

The MAX light rail line dead ends at one end of the terminal, much like the MTA light rail does at BWI. The covered walk from there into the main terminal is easily half the distance most drivers would walk from the nearest, most expensive parking garage. The MAX is brightly advertised on monitors in the airport, encouraging people to take transit into the city.

PDX is also extremely bike friendly, even featuring a bike assembly area. As one of the few airports in the country to be connected by trails and bike lanes to its downtown, this is an outstanding amenity. And while fliers probably don't use it heavily since checking a full-size bike on an airplane has become almost prohibitively expensive, even travelers with folding bikes will find the work stand, tool set, and bike pump useful.

It's also a low-cost amenity that is makes commuting by bike easier for thousands of airport employees and serves as a visible reminder that biking is a valued access mode.

Washington National Airport is ideal for an amenity like this. DCA connects to multiple trails, making a ride to the airport convenient from downtown, the close-in Virginia suburbs and even parts of Maryland. Washington National is even closer to downtown DC and Arlington than PDX is to Portland, making biking an even more viable option.

Bike amenities everywhere

Induced demand gets a bad rap on the highways side, but Portland is using it to its advantage with bike parking. You cannot walk 20 feet without finding a bike rack, both downtown and in neighborhoods. I was struck by Portland State University and Oregon Health and Science University efforts to provide ample bike parking. Demographically, students, and to some extent faculty members, are more likely to ride bikes, so it makes perfect sense.

Comparatively, the major universities in DC have made meager attempts to provide ample, high quality bike racks. The biggest bike parking are on Georgetown's campus consists of 4 "comb" racks which are nearly impossible to safely lock bikes on. George Washington University's campus in Foggy Bottom, is practically devoid of on-street bike racks. GW's newest mixed-use building, Square 21, provided a total of 10 racks spread around an entire block with a Whole Foods and multiple restaurants.

The MAX trains also have hanging bike racks in them for cyclists. While racks like these won't work in the shorter Metro cars, they're worth keeping in mind as the DC streetcar system gets started.

In downtown, several streets feature buffered bike lanes. Although they were one-way, they were nice and wide, allowing easy passing for cyclists traveling different speeds. In other places where bike lanes were not separated from traffic, they were painted bright green and flowed into large green bike boxes at intersections.

In the redeveloped South Waterfront neighborhood, there are significant on- and off-street bike treatments that connect to a trail into downtown. Best of all, there is a massive bike parking area and a bike station with valet and repair services.

This is right next to the lower Portland Aerial Tram station and a Streetcar stop. The Tram connects the burgeoning research, education, and residential neighborhood with the main campus of Oregon Health & Science University, situated on a massive hill and separated from the waterfront by I-5.

Good on-street transit information

Tri-Met and the city of Portland have made significant investments in good, visible transit information on the streets of downtown. The city's wayfinding system signs point to the nearest streetcar and MAX stations. Major downtown stops have very clear customer information, communicating which buses stop where, and where those buses travel. Also, many of the stops have real-time arrival screens, something DC has yet to achieve outside of the Metro.

Strategic single-tracking

Acquiring right-of-way and laying track is expensive. So Tri-Met and Portland chose to single-track the MAX and Streetcar in some places where right-of-way would have been politically or financially unfeasible. In downtown, the streetcar runs on one track in both directions for 2 blocks just past PSU. For a low-speed system, where headways are unlikely ever to be shorter than a few minutes, this compromise makes sense if it allows for the most effective routing, in this case right through the center of PSU's campus.

On the MAX line to the airport, the system is single tracked in two places, for almost a mile after the Gateway/NE 99th Ave stop where the Red Line parts ways with the Blue and Green lines to head north along I-205, and again upon entering airport property until just before the terminal station. The first location incorporates a tight cloverleaf flyover and several over- and underpasses around I-84 and I-205. Again, frequencies on this line are unlikely to be high enough to make it worth the massive extra cost to build this infrastructure doubly wide.

Not quite level boarding

The streetcar and MAX both use low-floor vehicles and featured raised platforms at the all the stations I visited. Yet none of these stations had totally level boarding. Instead, the trains have small ramps at some of the doors that have to be manually deployed to bridge the gap for anyone in a mobility device.

The result is that people with disabilities can only board some doors, which would maddeningly frustrating when an extra few inches of precision would have made all the doors accessible. The operational ramifications of having to deploy a ramp are minor, but not insignificant, so I'm not sure why you wouldn't just make sure the platform is entirely level with the rolling stock.

In DC, the existing streetcar platforms on H Street only have portions that are raised, so people in mobility devices will not be able to board at any doors. Hopefully, though those raised sections will at least be totally level, eliminating the need to operate and maintain ramps.

Mixed-traffic transit and highway right-of-ways

For a medium-size city, Portland has built a significant rail transit system in a phenomenally short time. However, this system suffers from one major shortcoming: low-quality right-of-way. The majority of Portland's light rail and streetcar systems run in either mixed-traffic lanes, or in the highway medians or shoulder.

The areas dense enough to best utilize high-capacity rapid transit only get high-capacity transit. The sections of the system where trains can run relatively fast suffer peaked ridership and lower productivity resulting from low-density development and park-and-rides that surround the stations.

The streetcar gets little or no priority along its route. As a result, it took me more than 30 minutes to go from Downtown to South Waterfront, a 2 mile trip.

The MAX gets more preferential treatment, running along a transit mall through much of downtown, but runs in highway right-of-ways in many directions on the outskirts of town, where comparatively little is within walking distance of stations.

Good or bad, Portland has led the way with many innovative urban investments. As we develop our bike and streetcar networks here in the Washington region, we should look to the west for lessons learned.

For more photos of Portland, check out photo sets by Greater Greater Washington editors and contributors Matt Johnson and Dan Malouff.

Late October, 1935, witnessed the start of direct service between Washington and Chicago when American Airlines introduced the service. The duration of the flights were approximately four hours and via Cincinnati and Indianapolis. American's service was also the only one between the cities to have stewardesses in attendance and the only Chicago service using Douglas equipment.

The proposal for a safe and adequate government operated airport was introduced in Congress as early as 1927, but did not gain ground until 1938. This eventually resulted in construction of National Airport, which opened on July 16, 1941. With the opening of National, the old airport was no longer needed and razed. The grounds were purchased by the War Department for part of the Pentagon's grounds.

More images below.

Sources consulted:
"Airlines Start Direct Service D.C.-to-Chicago: American's New Schedule Brings Western City Within 4 Hours." The Washington Post, November 3, 1935, MA7.

Goode, James M. "Washington Hoover Airport Terminal." In Capital Losses, 460-461. Washington: Smithsonian Books, 2003.

"Washington Airport Washington, D.C." The Architectural Forum, December 1930, 735-736.

As we are all aware, each bus has a finite capacity. According to WMATA, the average capacity for a 40-foot bus (pictured above) is 41 seats with a total of 71 passengers. Metro also operates 60-foot, articulated buses. These have a seating capacity of 57 and an overall capacity of 91. Of course, those numbers are typical for commuters, who don't regularly carry bags and suitcases. Bus capacity can also be limited by the experience level of riders. Novice riders don't always move back, and sometimes sit on the aisle seat, leaving a vacant or bag-filled seat by the window. And some buses serving the airports have luggage racks, which further limit seating capacity.

Suffice it to say that the buses serving Dulles and BWI have a capacity that is at least a little lower than the normal averages.

But let's assume that each bus could carry the maximum number of people. Even with that stipulation, the airport bus lines have a surprisingly low capacity.

To put those numbers in perspective, one railcar can carry about 70 seated passengers or 175 seated and standing passengers when full. That means that an 8-car train can carry about 1,400 people. One full 8-car train can has a higher capacity than all the 5A buses, combined, running from Washington to Dulles Airport on a Saturday or Sunday, if they're all 40-footers. Two 8-car trains would be more than enough to carry all of the weekday buses, even if they were all 60-footers.

During the holiday seasons, around Thanksgiving and Christmas, WMATA operates extra buses on both lines. This helps to ensure that someone doesn't have to wait 40 minutes on the next bus if they can't fit aboard the first one. But just last week, I saw airport-bound travelers left at Greenbelt because the B30 filled up before they could get on. Even with supplemental buses, passengers fret. After Thanksgiving, when my flight arrived at BWI, I hurried over to the stop outside Concourse E. The first bus, a 40-footer, came and filled up. Less than half of the people at the stop made it. The bus driver announced that an extra bus was "just behind her," and 10 minutes later, a 60-foot articulated bus arrived. Everyone did manage to climb aboard, but there was only room for about 5 or 6 more patrons.

For passengers arriving in our nation's capital for the first time, whether from Paris or Kansas City, the long bus rides are made torturous by overcrowding and long wait times.

In Berlin, on the other hand, the TXL JetExpress bus runs every 10 minutes weekdays and every 20 minutes on weekends. It connects Tegel Airport to the city center in under 40 minutes, and reaches its first rail connection within 10 minutes of leaving the airport.

In the face of today's budget crisis, however, it seems unlikely that Metro will be expanding service anytime soon. But WMATA needs to find ways to improve the headway of the lines. The 5A's running distance could be shortened and the headway improved if the line were truncated to West Falls Church, and once the first phase of the Silver Line opens, to Wiehle Avenue. Truncation would be one way of improving service without increasing cost.

The B30 is not in as dire need of improvement. Especially on weekdays, airport travelers bound for Washington have MARC and Amtrak as options. But improved headways and reduced travel times would reflect well on the entrance to the capital.