U.S. Airports No Longer Have to Build Their Own Terrible Trains (2021)
owl writes:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3v5j3/us-airports-no-longer-have-to-build-their-own-crappy-trains
On January 12 (2021), a time when most of us were distracted by other events pertaining to the federal government, the Federal Aviation Administration updated some rules that will have huge implications for how travelers access airports via public transportation, and even for public transportation systems as a whole. It is also a correction for one of my pet peeves about U.S. public transportation, that we have spent decades building trains-to-the-trains to the airport. This unique type of U.S. transportation has no commonly-recognized name, and I will soon arbitrarily assign a term for them just to make everything easier.
They do not have a name because they make no sense and have no good reason to exist. The train itself should just go to the airport, like they do in virtually every other airport with a mass transit connection in the world. These useless trains only exist because of byzantine bureaucratic rule that has condemned U.S. travelers to this crappy extra train for no good reason. And it's finally, finally, finally fixed.
To fully understand what's going on here, let's back up and talk about airport transportation. Most large international airports anywhere in the world have some type of "people mover" system, which can be anything from those weird and amazing mobile lounges at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. to the automated trains more commonly found at airports these days (including also at Dulles). Airports have these when they are very large with terminals very far apart and even those moving walkways you are supposed to walk on and not just stand there for fuck's sake MOVE are not enough to get people around efficiently.
Generally speaking, there are two types of airport people movers. The first and most common from a global perspective are those designed to get people between terminals at massive international airports. The second and most common in the U.S. but virtually non-existent elsewhere are those that not only connect terminals but also the airport to rental car hubs and mass transportation. These second types, which I will continue to refer to as people movers for convenience, are frustrating as hell, as it requires travelers-to mention airport employees-to take a train to the train, an unnecessary and expensive transfer that typically requires a second fare.
So: why? Why this extra train? It's because of this weird FAA rule.
In 1990, Congress passed the Aviation Safety and Capacity Expansion Act of 1990 which allowed airports, with the FAA's permission, to charge a small Passenger Facility Fee (PFC)-initially a maximum of $3 per ticket, later upped to $4.50 and, like the federal gas tax, not increased in the 20 years since despite losing much of its value to inflation-for airport improvements. The statute allows the revenue to be used for specific types of internal airport improvements only, such as people movers that stay within airport grounds. And in 2004 the FAA clarified that only rail lines which exclusively serve airports are eligible for PFCs.
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