Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion

[monsoon]

When BA was here, nobody would ride them to London because their prices were so high compared to USAIR. So you would always see packed USAIR planes and relatively empty BA planes making the London journey. That is why BA pulled out.

What we really need is a direct flight to Asia. Tokyo or Osaka would be great.

[UrbanCharlotte]

arnt they making direct flights to Venice and Barcelona?

Alitalia or Air France would be nice.

[tiblerbrit]

I think another reason that BA couldn't compete is because they pulled the new 777 from their flight route because demand didn't justify using it. They were using an older 767, and when USAIR switched to their new Airbus, it just didn't make any sense to fly BA. That was my family's justification atleast, and we have used both flights every year for the last 12 years (I'm from England).

[dubone]

I believe the people mover will be built at the time of the West Corridor line.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

any hope that they'll use the same technology as on the west corridor, (ie. streetcar, hopefully), and just have that corridor have a stop at the terminal instead of just at wilkinson. It would be nice to have all those intra-airport riders count for CATS' system ridership.

also, some airports these days are just making a series of travelators (flat-escalators) to get people between long distances in the airport. any chance they'd simply do that between the terminal, the parking decks, and all the way to the planned W line stop at Wilkinson/LittleRock? How does that distance compare to distances where travelators are used in other airports?

it is only ~1 mile.

[atlrvr]

No because then you are more limited with what you can do....with the people moved they would have stops north of 74, at both parking decks, the ticketing/terminal/baggage claim area, and the main concourse.....I don't believe a streetcar allows for the frequent of stops.....plus the airport won't want to give up land for CATS to build their park and ride.

The longest set of travelators I have seen is at MIA, which they have running on the upper level connecting all 6 or 7 councourses......this disntance would far surpass that......additionally, people wouldn't be inclined to take bulky luggage on a travelator because it is cramped and would prevent people from passing......plus, due to emergency situations, travelators can't be all that long, and must allow for continuous breaks for people to get on and off.

I'm a big fan of the current plan. I wish I could find the site-plan that shows where the people mover stops are, but it really is one of the more efficient systems short of having a LRT/BRT/subway stop in the main terminal and a people mover distribute people from there.

[dubone]

what technology will be used for the people mover? is it fixed-guideway/rail? it is like a monorail? is it a bus?

it just seemed to me that if a monorail or other train could stop where it needed to, so could a streetcar, but the maintenance operations could be shared, and the intra-airport system could be integrated better into the system without need for transfer under some conditions.

the airport is one of the best-managed organizations and facilities around, and so i'm sure they will make a sound decision.

[atlrvr]

Fixed guidway of some sort, though the actual technology has not been selected. Part of the problem also with running the west corridor as the people mover is ticketing. Someone who gets on at the concourse would either have to pay to get to their car, or they would get a free ride all the way to downtown.

I personally want the rail line (LRT preferably) to run all the way to the whitewater park, but that option is out of the question.

[monsoon]

a people mover definitely is part of the airport master plan.  you can see the line down the center of the plans, and it also shows up in some of the parking deck renderings.  It would basically take passengers between the terminal, the parking decks, and then go out to the future rental car area and West CATS line on Wilkinson Blvd/Little Rock Rd.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Unfortunately it looks like a road to me on the renderings.

[NcSc74]

Unfortunately it looks like a road to me on the renderings.

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Hopefully IF Southwest decides to enter the market there or some other carrier then gate traffic would alter those plans. Maybe it is just me but nothing says a major airport than a tram or some sort of people mover. I guess I like to look more in to things than what is really there.

[atlrvr]

Well....it looks like the plan is 86 jetways plus 45 more commuter gates.....a hotel, a people-mover connecting to mass-transit (albeit slow and traffic variable streetcars) that goes downtown.....terminals dedicated for domestic, international, and commuter passengers....it certainly is lofty plans.....I just wonder if the new gates at the international terminal will be built to accomodate the A-380?

[NcSc74]

I just got back from a working vacation to Panama City FL and we had a layover in ATL. I have to say I hate that airport. It is super crowded and 99% of the time your flight will be delayed sitting on the taxiway for about 15 minutes.

[monsoon]

.....I just wonder if the new gates at the international terminal will be built to accomodate the A-380?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That plane is destined to become a commercial failure so I don't think we are going to see them in Charlotte.

[dubone]

Unfortunately it looks like a road to me on the renderings.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

there is a train, though in some of the parking deck renderings.

[orulz]

I think it would be better to have the streetcar/brt run straight to the airport, too. Streetcars can definitely handle frequent stops like that. They're electric, remember, and they can accellerate / brake quite well.

Cities like Chicago and New York are preparing to spend embarrasingly huge amounts of cash in the name of timely, no-transfer rail service from their downtowns to their airports. It's a very worthwhile endeavour. The people mover transfer and the

The JFK AirTrain uses the same right-of-way for free, intra-airport circulation and fare airport access serivice. AirTrain doesn't go all the way to Manhattan, yet - but they're working on it. If the free/fare combination can work in NYC, it can work in Charlotte, too.

For many business travelers, that transfer at Wilkinson Boulevard would probably be the difference between taking transit uptown and just catching a cab. Just how important is for the west rapid transit line go beyond the airport, anyway? If it's that important, why not build the westward extension as a branch line, and run half the trains/buses that way and half to the airport?

[dubone]

are there any precedents for having some people ride the trains free?

I don't think it would be that hard to do anyway. Basically, the free uses would be to the rental car agencies or to the parking facilities.

Basically, the rental car companies could provide checkin in the terminal, as they do in many airports, and then the rental agreement or whatever they print out is simply what you show on the streetcar to ride free. And a parking stub from the decks or lots are easy to show. It is basically the same as what elderly or people who prepay show. In some cases, if people end up not remembering their stub or fail to get a rental car agreement in the terminal, they'd simply pay their buck and then get it reimbursed at the parking booth or the rental car stand.

i don't even think it would be all that complicated for people who aren't familiar with transit.

another way to do it is like this:

don't check for streetcar tickets/stubs until you are outside the free airport zone. a conductor could easily be employed for assisting newcomers/visitors, checking tickets to make sure no one fails to pay to ride from the airport to downtown.

I just think it would be so easy to figure out the operations, and they'd basically have a unified system without a transfer.

[orulz]

are there any precedents for having some people ride the trains free?

I don't think it would be that hard to do anyway.  Basically, the free uses would be to the rental car agencies or to the parking facilities.

As I noted before, AirTrain JFK does exactly that. Rather than providing access to parking, it connects the 8 airport terminals together - but the concept is very similar.

Another way to do it would be to have a smaller vehicle do people mover duties, just running back and forth between the parking lot and the terminal every 3 or 4 minutes, except when the west corridor train to downtown comes in (every 15 minutes, presumably), in which case people headed to the parking lot would have to wait another 3 or 4 minutes for the next train to the parking lot.

The problem with that is that the west corridor transit will run partially in mixed traffic. That is not conducive to precise scheduling, which would be necessary to make something like that work.

[monsoon]

are there any precedents for having some people ride the trains free?

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I don't think that I have ever seen a train from an airport that goes into a city be free. They are often quite expensive as the city operating them sees this as another mechanism to get cash off of business travelers.

Personally I don't think an airport type people mover should be directly integrated into the West transit line. The transit technologies you would use for that are not really compatible and the demands of people needed to move between airport concourses are much tighter that what will be needed for a LRT, streetcar or BRT on the west line.

Most likely what should happen is a people mover at the airport with a stop to a CATs transit station. At the transit station a person pays for a normal or abnormal fare to board the train. I was under the impression the West line was not even going to the airport. Did that change?

[dubone]

orulz - sorry about that. my groggy eyes must have missed your middle paragraph about airtrain at JFK. That does sound like a good precedent and could probably be done on a smaller scale here.

monsoon - The west corridor is BRT or Streetcar, run on Wilkinson Blvd from ~485 to the Gateway Station. Its only plans for connecting to the airport right now is a single stop on wilkinson at Little Rock, where the airport plans to run their people mover to do exactly as you propose. The hypothetical case of replacing the airport people mover with just a branch of the west line is because i think there would be efficiencies from having the same technology, and i think the operational issues could be resolved by the engineers. I'm not saying that the fare would be free for the west line, only that there would be no fares for people going between the stops within the aiport property (terminal to rental cars = free, terminal to downtown = 1.50).

[monsoon]

Forgetting the technology dicussion there is another issue that I see. In these days of increased airport security you have to have a way to screen passengers entering the airport. If the deptartment of homeland security goes to orange or red, that means they put guards at the parking decks and start searching cars. I've had that done to me several times. If the cars on the west line were also used for intra-airport transport I can see major disruptions and complaints if passengers on that line were subjected to searches even if they had no intentions of going to the airport. It could hurt ridership in the long run.

Also I think the airport master plan should setup the people mover so that people do have to go through security each time they leave a concourse.

[orulz]

I have a theory. That is: with dubone, monsoon, and I around - all topics at UrbanPlanet come back to transit, somehow. It's a guaranteed thing.

Anyway...

At least from the renderings, the people mover does not look like it's meant for intra-airport circulation. It looks like a single line right down the center of the airport, with four stops in the complex (two at parking decks, the new hotel/international/commuter terminal, and the main terminal.) If the people mover were converted into an extension of the west corridor transit line, the airport would be the end of the line. Nobody would ride transit through the airport unless they had business there.

From the rendering, I speculate that this people mover would not be "secure" since it connects directly to two parking decks and a hotel. It would connect the new (orange - commuter/international) and the existing (blue - main) terminal but you would probably have to go out the security gates at one terminal and back in at the other in order to make an inter-terminal transfer on the people mover. That's a pain in the neck, so they will probably have moving-sidewalk passageways to connect the terminals instead.

[atlrvr]

There is no reason to go through security just to visit a terminal....just when you access the concourses with the actual gates, so that will not preclude the train from accessing both.

[monsoon]

There is no reason to go through security just to visit a terminal....just when you access the concourses with the actual gates, so that will not preclude the train from accessing both.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Except when they announce a code yellow or higher. When that happens the Charlotte police set up checkpoints at the entrance to the airport and your car is searched before it even makes it to a parking deck. Like I said earlier this has happened to me several times. This is a federal requirement and would have very negative effects on the west transit line if it actually went into the airport terminal area and non airport passengers were subjected to the same searches.

[orulz]

What do they do under code yellow for other transit systems that go to airports? Systems like Marta, Chicago CTA, the aforementioned JFK AirTrain? Whatever they do there, why couldn't they just do the same thing at CLT?

[monsoon]

What do they do under code yellow for other transit systems that go to airports? Systems like Marta, Chicago CTA, the aforementioned JFK AirTrain? Whatever they do there, why couldn't they just do the same thing at CLT?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just to be clear, I am referring to combining the city transist system with the airport transit system so they use the same transit vehicles. I am suggesting that it will increase security concerns a great deal and it will be difficult to deal with on a system like what is proposed in Charlotte. Someone could put a bomb on the train in town where there is no security and set it to explode in the terminal.

I might be mistaken Marta, the CTA, and another the Metro in DC have separate stations and systems for the city transit system versus the one inside the airport.

[atlrvr]

I can't speak to the others, but the MARTA station is in somewhat of an isolated corridor of the one terminal that i've used....and is partioned off......it would certainly be easy to require the people entering the airport from the train to be screened.

Of course in Atlanta, your luggage is screened right there in the main terminal building before you can even leave to go the normal security checkpoints.