herrfrank wrote:LAX has been a nightmare for arrivals for at least the last five years. It is now largely NO STOPPING curbside (in addition to No Parking and No Standing) on the lower level roadway. The upper departures level is a little better, but the whole experience is orders-of-magnitude worse than MCI or even a busier airport like JFK. LaGuardia is similar in its crappy arrivals experience.
Not for me, but only flown in/out of LAX around 3 times in that span. KCI is technically no stopping also and has the same caveat regarding immediate dropoff or pickup only, but the security/police have been more lax over recent years in letting people wait around in KC (I remember them really harassing people 5+ years ago). Anyhow, the LA market is a bad comparison for KC other than to prove a much larger market can handle the traffic with that type of layout. KC is in no danger of trying to run that type of traffic through the airport pickup/dropoff. I'm sure ride-sharing and limo pickups are more challenging since you are competing with more people and have to go to a designated location, but I've not seen a major city do it so that it is less of a hassle.
TLDR; Sure, there are many better designs than LAX, but I think the painfulness of the experience of entering and exiting LAX is overblown based on my experience.
There are several possible outcomes that range from the good to the disastrous to Kansas City.
1. Nothing at all comes of this. I think it's the most likely outcome.
2. The threat of a new airport in Kansas becomes the catalyst for a new and functional terminal at KCI. Best case scenario.
3. A second airport is built and operated in Kansas. Worst case scenario. KC cannot support two airports. There would be no economy of scale at either airport, both would just be dismal and vacant and I suspect airlines would never go for it (they their planes full - which will not happen with two airports in competition with each other).
4. KCI is entirely scrapped and a new airport is built in Kansas. This is possible but extremely inefficient and expensive since everything other than the terminals work quite well at KCI (except maybe distance from downtown but building in Kansas isn't going to solve that issue) and the road infrastructure is built and intact. All the private infrastructure around KCI also would need to be replaced.
Well...now we know who has their hands the furthest in the cookie jar and wants to make some money. Brownback. Go figure. Leave the state in a budget crisis, while you get filthy rich. *Applaud politicians*
I expect it would cost $6-8 billion to build new. If they say $3 billion then 4% annual costs increases becomes $5.4 billion in 15 years. This is why I hear $1 billion and know that's cheap.
Why 15 years? The Star made a good point here but think of all the delays built into the process. KC is 5 years into just the studies and we don't need to fight over land purchasing.
Just think of the lawsuits over the land value plummeting near it and eminent domain fights. Remember, KCI is the physical size of Gladstone. That's how much land it can take for an airport.
They need a massive new road system to serve it.
A major utility extension.
The entire airport maintenance system from scratch.
The entire security perimeter. New will come with all the new requirements KCI doesn't have.
There's massive studies around air patterns which will include the military.
May not be reusing runways if the alignment is wrong for the new bigger plane approaches and existing towers.
Federal approval mess.
If they build garages that cost be $500 million just for parking, or they can do massive lots like KC has and need more land.
They need agreements with the rental car companies and parking companies. They're going to demand incentives.
Any hotel will demand incentives to build there.
Airlines will demand way better deals than they can get at KCI. They will be able to play both states off each other.
When St. Louis had troubles with Lambert a second airport was built on the Illinois side. Even now I don't think any commercial passenger traffic flys in and out there. Just freight and private and I would assume charter.
Don't think the feds would contribute any funds to build a second local airport on the Kansas side.
aknowledgeableperson wrote:There is a big difference between those smaller airports and Midway.
Midway has 10x the number of flights as Columbia, MO and twice as many as KCI
The comparison gets worse. New Century and JoCo Executive both already have twice as many flights as Columbia does. Rockford is slightly smaller than both
Sanford is the best example except it has as many flights, just smaller ones.
So that idea is to either make an existing airport bigger than KCI, the same size or smaller than what we have today. But it depends on if you count flights or passengers too.
I am guessing Brownback would want to expand New Century rather than a greenfield airport. Off the top of my head here are some of the requirements:
-- lengthened runways and expanded taxiways
-- the new terminal with multi-level parking garages (no space for expansive parking lots)
-- a new high-capacity flyover with dedicated exit from I-35 both directions
-- eminent domain removal of at least two warehouse buildings near New Century
-- jet fuel storage, utilities, airport support and security construction on the perimeter
This is easily 4 billion and probably closer to 6 billion. Denver's new DIA cost 5 billion and that was 20 years ago.
Doesn't matter to me where in Metro, KC direly needs a new airport if it wants to get out of minor league status, well from bottom tier of major league anyway.
New Century would also be convenable to add rail service to/ from Union Station (perhaps with intermediate stops along I-35) -- the existing freight line that runs south of the current property might need a connection in Olathe to the BNSF mainline.
If JoCo residents in that part of the county were against building the speedway and had a lot of concerns with the intermodal rail hub, they're going to be up in arms over building a major airport. On a side note, it's already a pain to explain the KCMO/KCK argument and people calling Kansas City simply 'Kansas' without having people hearing 'welcome to Kansas' at an airport that's actually in Kansas.
Doesn't matter to me where in Metro, KC direly needs a new airport if it wants to get out of minor league status, well from bottom tier of major league anyway.
Agree. Just please blow up those outdated terminals and rebuild somehow, somewhere.
I will say, however, that I enjoy KCI pulling the relative gravity of the metro area north. Along with significantly increased residential and retail growth, "the northland" really helps re-center the metro around downtown, and provides a reasonable MO-side alternative to JoCo in many cases.
New Century had already looked at commercial passenger service and air cargo service back in the early 2000's. If you jump ahead to page 2-11 of their master plan I linked to below you can see where they concluded commercial passenger service was not feasible. Even air cargo was found to be unfeasible in an even earlier study. The study was based on IXD being a second commercial airport and not a replacement to MCI.
Doesn't matter to me where in Metro, KC direly needs a new airport if it wants to get out of minor league status, well from bottom tier of major league anyway.
Agree. Just please blow up those outdated terminals and rebuild somehow, somewhere.
I will say, however, that I enjoy KCI pulling the relative gravity of the metro area north. Along with significantly increased residential and retail growth, "the northland" really helps re-center the metro around downtown, and provides a reasonable MO-side alternative to JoCo in many cases.
As a Northland resident now working in JoCo I definitely feel your sentiment. I'd like to see more business up north for white collar workers. Right now my two choices are downtown or I-35/I-435 in JoCo. As a high level accountant, it took me two years to find a new job and it ended up being in Corporate Woods in JoCo. In fact, I never once got an interview for any company on the Missouri side, including downtown. All my interviews were with business within five miles of where I-35 & I-435 intersect.
We'd like to stay where we currently live, KCMO, but in the Liberty, MO school district. But if I stick with this job we very well may end up moving to someplace in JoCo in the next five years. May do it anyway since my previous interviewing experience put all the good jobs in JoCo.
I don't know if the JD Power survey was discussed earlier or not (probably was), but I find it interesting that KCI is rated one of the worst airports in our peer set (mid-size airports), but if KCI were a large airport, we would be one of the higher rated airports (9th).
I just think the hand wringing over a new KCI is ridiculous. People will be able to zip through security like they do now (because we're a small airport), but more importantly, it will be more predictable because TSA could staff appropriately. Now, I never know if it'll take 10 minutes to check-in and get through security or if it will be 45 minutes. Terminal B is often jam packed for early morning flights and the lines are unpredictable. Not only that, but all the gates don't have TSA pre-check.
For the sake of comparison, I searched the distances from New Century (KIXD) and from KCI (KMCI) to various points in the metro and beyond (also posted elsewhere):
To Lee's Summit: KIXD -- 36 miles; KMCI -- 42 miles
To the Plaza: KIXD -- 27 miles; KMCI -- 24 miles
To Overland Park: KIXD -- 20 miles; KMCI -- 30 miles
To Blue Springs: KIXD -- 44 miles; KMCI -- 40 miles
To Downtown: KIXD -- 30 miles ; KMCI -- 20 miles
To Liberty: KIXD -- 46 miles; KMCI -- 21 miles
To Olathe: KIXD -- 7 miles; KMCI -- 39 miles
To Lawrence: KIXD -- 27 miles; KMCI -- 50 miles
