Commercial Travel Terminals

Design by Committee. That can be the only explanation for why drop-off and pick-up points at airports and train stations are such cluster effs. I can just hear the design committees vague mumblings and their fantasy based logic when they decide which donut they want, er, the design parameters for the next glorious portal to our fair city. I suspect they go out of their way to make using a car difficult "in order to encourage people" to use public transportation. Time is money fools, that's why I am flying, and that's why I am driving to the airport instead of taking the wonderful, but dead slow, cross town train, AKA the "Max". It basically takes twice as long to get anywhere on the Max as it does to drive, even when traffic is really bad.

A couple of weeks ago I took my son to Union Station in downtown Portland so he could catch the train back to school in Eugene. We were a little early so I looked for a parking space and found one in the tiny, congested lot across the street. We walked back to the station and he got in line to get his ticket when I remembered I hadn't paid. Portland has some really vicious tow trucks and parking fines and I didn't want to get snared, so I went back to pay the stupid fee. $3.50 on my debit card. By the time I got back to the station, my son was gone and a few minutes later the train started pulling out.

Okay, I misjudged how much time we time had. I would have been better off dropping him at the curb. But train travel is supposed to be more relaxed, more civilized. We should have had time to chew the fat for a bit before the train left. Well, now I know better, I need to allow more time if that's what I want to do.

Union Station in downtown Portland.

Today I go to the train station to pick up my daughter, home for the weekend. I get there a little early because last time I was a little late. There are like three spots at the curb, and they are all full. Besides, I am early, it would be rude to occupy one of those slots for all this time. So I go looking for a free place to park. I'm still ticked off about $3.50 for nothing. I've got time so I drive, and drive and drive. Union station is in the middle of an urban redevelopment project and every single spot within a mile has a parking meter on it. Never mind that it is Saturday and 90% of the spots are empty. You know as soon as you park without paying some little meter maid is going to be coming by and writing you a ticket.

I eventually find some unmetered spots, but I am a long ways from the station and it's getting to be train time. So I meander back to the station and there's my daughter walking across the driveway. She hops in and away we go.

When I lived in Phoenix we used to fly on American West. They had a pretty good arrangement. They had a parking lot a short distance from the terminal. You pull in, check your baggage right there and then take a shuttle to the terminal proper. You dispense with your luggage, parking and driving all in one fell swoop. Best arrangement I've ever seen.

There are several ways airports and train stations could do a better job of accommodating automobiles.

1. Automated parking garages. You pull in, check your luggage, your car disappears into the parking machine. You walk to your plane.
2. Free valet parking. Same as #1 except a person makes your car disappear.
3. Build a mile of curbside parking for every airliner gate. In order to make your walk to the aircraft reasonable, you may want to make arrange for two, three, four or even more stories.
4. The terminal does not need to be small. There is no reason to cluster aircraft close together. The flipping runways are a mile long. The terminal building could be that long as well. Shoot, some places, it already is.

The best idea, the one I thought of, is to have numerous slots for cars dropping off passengers. Slots would be side by side separated by sidewalks. Cars would access the slots from a common driveway. A dispatcher would allow a car into the driveway whenever there was an open slot. The sidewalks would extend directly into the terminal building. The slots for the cars would go down an incline and join another driveway one floor down. Big advantage is arriving cars would not be fighting with cars trying to leave. Each car would have it's allocated space. No pedestrians would have to cross the driveways. It would be glorious. It would also be big and expensive, and given the mental capacity of most Americans, too complicated to work. But that's the way I would do it.

Minneapolis / St. Paul Terminal. The blue line is 1.16 miles long.

Update December 2016 replaced missing images.