Quote:
Originally Posted by K4GPB
I recall RDU Airport hates rail, as it would take away from their parking deck income, if folks took a train to the airport.
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Please stop repeating this unless you can provide receipts.
The logic that always follows is
"The rail line doesn't go through the airport -> The people planning it must be incompetent -> Let's not build it"
And this is just tremendously harmful.
From what I can tell, this is nothing more than a canard, that's been repeated so many times that it's just taken as fact. I've never been able to find a shred of evidence that the airport authority has ever taken this stance, officially or unofficially. If it happened, it was decades ago, and it isn't true at all anymore (RDUAA has publicly said they're open to transit, at least as far back as the 2005-era regional rail plan.)
Regardless of RDUAA's willingness to support rail transit, the reason it isn't planned, is because it just doesn't make sense for commuter rail to stop at the airport terminal on its way from Raleigh to Durham.
First, there's no way to draw a route on a map from Raleigh to Durham that goes through Cary, RDU, and RTP, without adding something like six or seven miles of zig-zaging extra length to the route. Basically, pick two of the three - and unless you want to spend $billions to build rail along Glenwood, one of them has to be Cary. So basically, you have to pick between RTP and RDU.
Second, Rail ridership to the airport would be miniscule compared to the number of people who Uber and the number of people who park there. Parking revenue would be essentially unaffected. In 2013, Salt Lake City opened light rail to their airport. Guess what happened over the following year? The parking decks continued to fill as before, and parking revenue continued to increase. Not so much as a hiccup!
No doubt you will say "But ATLANTA has rail to its airport!" because that's what literally everybody who trots out this story says.
Atlanta is different for many reasons.
(1) The airport is at the end of a branch, They didn't have to skip anything nor go out of the way to serve it. RDU is between Raleigh and Durham, and you basically have to choose between serving RTP or RDU.
(2) The main terminal at ATL is about 1/4 mile from the rail corridor that MARTA follows, conveniently very near to the edge of the airport's property. RDU's terminal is about 3 miles from the rail corridor, inconveniently located between two runways, smack in the middle of airport property, and very far from anything other than more airport property.
(3) ATL is inconveniently located on the far side of downtown from the suburbs where most people live, through some of the worst traffic in the nation. RDU is exceptionally well located, right in the center of the region, with major highways on 3 sides and excellent access from all directions. The highways do see some peak-hour congestion but it's absolutely not even in the same universe as Atlanta.
(4) Atlanta's metro area has more than 3x as many people as Raleigh/Durham
(5) ATL has a billion nonstop flights to a million destinations both domestic and overseas. RDU is nice, but it's no ATL.