Boston becoming like San Francisco? (Worcester, Medford: storage, vs, airport)

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Dublin is the only airport in Western Europe I can think of that doesn’t have a train or subway from the main terminal to the city center. It’s really weird in Europe to have to get on a bus since rail is pretty much automatic. Hopefully, tunnel technology will advance to the point where Boston can fix that without spending hundreds of billions.

Well, and uh, Reykjavik, but that's arguably not Western Europe based on being on the North American plate and plus it's tiny. Though funny enough, Iceland has been considering putting in a railway to the airport.

One of the reasons for why this doesn't exist in the US for the most part is that there are actually federal funding restrictions on transport to and from airports where the purported intended goal was that funding for airport transport does not get manipulated into becoming funding for general transportation, but was done in such a way that we ended up with weird little people mover systems where you have to transfer from one thing to another.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by massnative71

MHT could accommodate a lot more traffic in its current form, at its peak it saw around 4 million PAX while it's currently under 2 million I believe. PVD is similarly underutilized. Worcester RIPE for growth, now with their new CAT III landing system.



But other than those, no there is nowhere inside 495 that's feasible for a new commercial airport. We need to work with what we have.

Right, which is what makes expanding one or more of the existing airfields probably the most reasonable course of action. Expanding those would entail a significant amount of buyouts for buildings currently existing around any of these fields, but that's going to be worth peanuts compared to what Logan and the nearby FAA height-restricted lands in the core are worth and is a hell of a lot more viable in terms of square footage of residential, commercial, and office space.

[Lampert]

Originally Posted by massnative71

MHT could accommodate a lot more traffic in its current form, at its peak it saw around 4 million PAX while it's currently under 2 million I believe. PVD is similarly underutilized. Worcester RIPE for growth, now with their new CAT III landing system.

Technically by adding a few miles of tracks and a station you could directly connect Worcester airport to South Station by train. At that point it would just be a matter of adding some expedite routes with few stops in between.
Not saying it's going to happen, but it surly would be less expensive than a new airport.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

Right, which is what makes expanding one or more of the existing airfields probably the most reasonable course of action. Expanding those would entail a significant amount of buyouts for buildings currently existing around any of these fields, but that's going to be worth peanuts compared to what Logan and the nearby FAA height-restricted lands in the core are worth and is a hell of a lot more viable in terms of square footage of residential, commercial, and office space.

Dude have you even been to Massachusetts before?

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by Lampert

Technically by adding a few miles of tracks and a station you could directly connect Worcester airport to South Station by train. At that point it would just be a matter of adding some expedite routes with few stops in between.
Not saying it's going to happen, but it surly would be less expensive than a new airport.

You'll never run a train up there, the hill is too steep. Maybe a train station down at the end of Goddard Drive and a shuttle bus, but you might as well just add better connections to the existing Worcester station. Current road access is fine for locals (the kind who aren't scared to get off the highway for a few miles), but otherwise a better access road is needed if they want to utilize its full potential for business travel.

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by Lampert

Technically by adding a few miles of tracks and a station you could directly connect Worcester airport to South Station by train. At that point it would just be a matter of adding some expedite routes with few stops in between.
Not saying it's going to happen, but it surly would be less expensive than a new airport.

It's really pocket change in the large picture.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by Boston Shudra

They might not have a choice if Logan starts flooding during high tide.

.

Even in the worst of of the worst scenarios, turning a huge swath of Blue Hills into an airport is an idea that would never, ever, ever advance any further than this forum or the comment section of the Herald. As of now, the sea level is expected to rise by about 3ft by the year 2100 - not enough to warrant shutting down and relocating Logan. There are also plenty of flooding solutions that would come before a relocation. There have already been discussions about a storm surge barrier to limit flooding in Boston Harbor. If Logan's flooding, it means there's flooding all along Boston's harborfront. It would also be much more cost effective to raise the tarmac and runways by a foot or two than to reclaim state parks and private property and level blue hills to build a new one.

As for the smaller airports, I’m sitting in MHT as I type this, and I’m not convinced they have a lot of room for expansion. The airport is hemmed in by office parks on practically all sides. I don’t think it’ll ever be a good enough pressure relief for Logan. Maybe TF Green could. Worcester’s is tiny, no? I’ve never even looked into flights there

So just to be clear, leveling Blue Hills to build an airport is a somewhat viable option, yet removing office park buildings near MHT isn't? Anyway, who said anything about MHT (or any of the others) needing to physically expand? I said expanded service. Airports like MHT, PVD, ORH, PSM, EWB, etc. are all operating well below their capacities. In the mid-90s, MHT saw about 4 million passengers per year. In 2019, the last full pre-pandemic year, it saw fewer than 1.8 million. PVD carried 5.4 million in 2002 and 4 million in 2019. ORH has flights on JetBlue, Delta, and American. It has about 3 scheduled commercial flights per day on a busy day. It hasn't even begun to scratch the surface in terms of its capacity. PSM has a slew of Allegient flights, but even then the terminal is empty at most hours. Hanscom has had commercial service but doesn't anymore (so it's using zero capacity), and EWB has scheduled service to the Islands, but could easily accommodate shuttle/feeder flights to major airports. All of these airports could carry millions of additional passengers between them (thus, the pressure relief for Logan) without even thinking about reaching capacity.

The issue with all of these places isn't capacity (there's plenty of it) or the need to expand, it's lack of Demand. As bad as Boston can be at times, it's not enough yet to make airlines seriously seek alternate options. If you connected ORH, PVD, and MHT to the Boston area with regular, fast, reliable transit service the story might be different. Because the airports can certainly handle the added traffic. In fact, they're begging for it.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by lrfox

In the mid-90s, MHT saw about 4 million passengers per year.

You mean early 2000s??? I believe that's when it peaked, right around the same time PVD did with the whole Southwest expansion.

[Lampert]

Originally Posted by massnative71

You'll never run a train up there, the hill is too steep. Maybe a train station down at the end of Goddard Drive and a shuttle bus, but you might as well just add better connections to the existing Worcester station. Current road access is fine for locals (the kind who aren't scared to get off the highway for a few miles), but otherwise a better access road is needed if they want to utilize its full potential for business travel.

I mean you could even dig a tunnel and stay below the aerostation if the problem is how steep the final hill is. We are talking about 2.5 miles from the cemetery (I believe the closest tracks) or less than 4 from the station itself. The tunnel may need to be a half a mile thing.

I feel it would be a lot easier to market a direct train than bus + train. Anyway, not that is going to happen so..

[scorpio516]

Originally Posted by Lampert

I mean you could even dig a tunnel and stay below the aerostation if the problem is how steep the final hill is. We are talking about 2.5 miles from the cemetery (I believe the closest tracks) or less than 4 from the station itself. The tunnel may need to be a half a mile thing.

I feel it would be a lot easier to market a direct train than bus + train. Anyway, not that is going to happen so..

A little more than that, but not much. Goddard drive up to the front door is 2.5 miles at average 2.8%. Trains want to stay at 1.5% or less, so the station would have to be about 175' below the airport . Total pie-in-the-sky planning would be adding a spur around the cemeteries, loop down rte 9 into Leicester and come up the backside to the airport. A lot longer, but less steep.