Logan Airport Capital Projects

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Y’see… This is what happens when Wham-O gets a design-build contract.

Gotta say…it looks really cool! I’m surprised it actually got built in a town of such architectural self-flagellators. Say it. We deserve nice things.
 
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I like it but it doesnt fit Boston at all. Also, it looks like a soccer stadium
 
BeyondRevenue said:
Cool as Terminal E is, I won't be happy until Massport catches a clue about really connecting public transportation. We need a smooth, non-bus connection to the T.
Next time I'm stuck on one of the airport shuttle busses I'll put a microphone near the front shocks and luggage racks and record when those stupid busses go over a bump. It sounds like somebody dropped a hamster cage onto a steel door from three stories up! We've all been trained to suck it up and just accept the noise without realizing how nerve-wracking and jarring each noise is. That goes without mentioning the cold/hot/wet wait outdoors, the plastic seat discomfort, the diesel stank, the filthy windows... the overall lack of attention paid to the non-car Logan visitor. It makes us look low-rent, old... and just plain mean.
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No disagreement here. It's an embarrassment and we need a better system.

That said, as a Blue Line rider, I'd be pretty happy with some more pedestrian consideration between Terminal E and Airport station. It's a pretty easy walk from Terminal E (Google says 14 minutes, for me it's typically 10) and a direct one too. But it's a pretty desolate walk with no trees/plantings along the sidewalk and a complete lack of crosswalks at the first set of lights entering the station from Service Road (to cross legally, you have to walk a little further, cross Cottage St, and then Service Road, and then another small driveway). It's unnecessarily circuitous and there's nothing even remotely inviting about what is otherwise an extremely easy connection for the traveler that's willing/able to make the walk.

In fact, I'm fairly certain most people using the airport don't have any idea that pedestrian connections are often better than the bus connections. Especially with the current construction near Terminal C and the awful weekend delays caused by the Sumner closure. For example, back in July, I had a flight out of Terminal E. The 11 (all terminals/rental car) and the 33 (terminal C&E + rental car shuttle) from the Blue Line were nowhere to to be found (not even appearing on the digital signs), so I boarded a 22 bus and figured I'd just walk across the garage to Terminal E. Out of curiosity, I asked the driver of the 22 where the C/E shuttles were. He said traffic was so bad getting in/out of those terminals that they're stuck (though one was "just behind us."). He then asked if I was going to A or B and I told him "no, but I'll just walk across the garage to E." He shook his head and repeated that the other bus was just behind us and said the walk would be hard and take too long (it's not - maybe 5 minutes). Another couple overheard me and asked if I was sure and if they could tag along as they were up against the clock and had been waiting 20 minutes for a bus to E. We got to A, and made it to E within 10 minutes of pulling in to A (which is a LOT quicker than if we sat on a bus that had to go around that congested loop). Of course, walking isn't an option for everyone, but in recent months, it's easily been my best bet (especially flying out of Terminal A - easy walk from the Logan Water Transportation Center or Maverick Square and Jeffries Point).
 
Lrfox said:
No disagreement here. It's an embarrassment and we need a better system.
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Instead they actively made it worse when they opened the added the Rental Car stop to the bus system, made the Rental Car stop the bus layover (more than once I've been told to change buses there).

Also... how I put this delicately. There seems to be a don't drive like a Masshole instruction that the drivers receive that makes the bus take even longer than it should -- there isn't the sense of urgency you get from the SL1 drivers.

Lrfox said:
That said, as a Blue Line rider, I'd be pretty happy with some more pedestrian consideration between Terminal E and Airport station. It's a pretty easy walk from Terminal E (Google says 14 minutes, for me it's typically 10) and a direct one too. But it's a pretty desolate walk with no trees/plantings along the sidewalk and a complete lack of crosswalks at the first set of lights entering the station from Service Road (to cross legally, you have to walk a little further, cross Cottage St, and then Service Road, and then another small driveway). It's unnecessarily circuitous and there's nothing even remotely inviting about what is otherwise an extremely easy connection for the traveler that's willing/able to make the walk.
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The people mover is badly needed, but it would probably result in the opposite problem: getting to A from Airport would take a long time. At least it would make SL3 an actually useful way to get to the airport (and Red-Blue + Peoplemover would really decrease the issues with SL1)
 
737900er said:
The people mover is badly needed, but it would probably result in the opposite problem: getting to A from Airport would take a long time. At least it would make SL3 an actually useful way to get to the airport (and Red-Blue + Peoplemover would really decrease the issues with SL1)
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If the people mover stop were near-enough to the parking lot bridge at E, it'd probably be a decent shortcut to cross to A that way (at least if the moving walkways weren't broken).

737900er said:
Instead they actively made it worse when they opened the added the Rental Car stop to the bus system, made the Rental Car stop the bus layover (more than once I've been told to change buses there).
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That was a very noticeable downgrade in service. I'm sure there must be some people who come in via the Blue Line to get to the rental car center (though, probably not many), but most of the people getting on the shuttle at Airport are presumably going to the terminals, so naturally it makes perfect sense to make them all wait for an indeterminate period at the rental car center none of them are going to. (Seems like it would be faster and more efficient to separate the RCC out on its own route, but that'd probably require more drivers and buses.)
 
Brattle Loop said:
If the people mover stop were near-enough to the parking lot bridge at E, it'd probably be a decent shortcut to cross to A that way (at least if the moving walkways weren't broken).



That was a very noticeable downgrade in service. I'm sure there must be some people who come in via the Blue Line to get to the rental car center (though, probably not many), but most of the people getting on the shuttle at Airport are presumably going to the terminals, so naturally it makes perfect sense to make them all wait for an indeterminate period at the rental car center none of them are going to. (Seems like it would be faster and more efficient to separate the RCC out on its own route, but that'd probably require more drivers and buses.)
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I think it's probably a reflection of the airport road network being basically a series of unidirectional counter clockwise loops more than anything else. It's not too difficult to get from the Surface Road and Airport to the RCC, as it's a straight shot, but doing the inverse motion you would be basically a figure of 8 to then get to the terminals. That said, I do agree that not every route needs to go there - they already have the 2 RCC routes (22&33) - the 55 which is sign posted for the station it primarily serves doesn't also need to stop there.

As I recall, part of the people mover plan was to include a intermodal Transportation Center somewhere around the Limo/Bus holding area to accommodate all ride app, limo/taxi and water taxi/ferry riders - the advantage of a people mover is that it doesn't have to follow the counter clockwise pattern, and can be bidirectional. Further, based on the last render I saw, it would have actually served the terminals in reverse order from the T stop, going to E first before ending at the RCC.
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Stlin said:
I think it's probably a reflection of the airport road network being basically a series of unidirectional counter clockwise loops more than anything else. It's not too difficult to get from the Surface Road and Airport to the RCC, as it's a straight shot, but doing the inverse motion you would be basically a figure of 8 to then get to the terminals. That said, I do agree that not every route needs to go there - they already have the 2 RCC routes (22&33) - the 55 which is sign posted for the station it primarily serves doesn't also need to stop there.

As I recall, part of the people mover plan was to include a intermodal Transportation Center somewhere around the Limo/Bus holding area to accommodate all ride app, limo/taxi and water taxi/ferry riders - the advantage of a people mover is that it doesn't have to follow the counter clockwise pattern, and can be bidirectional. Further, based on the last render I saw, it would have actually served the terminals in reverse order from the T stop, going to E first before ending at the RCC.
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I love that this mockup doesn't even connect to the Airport T stop!
And it's unidirectional. Have these guys been to other airports? There should be one arriving every 2 minutes in both directions A to E and E to A.
Adding obligatory edited image to show how short they were from yadda yadda yadda intermodal connection...

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BeyondRevenue said:
I love that this mockup doesn't even connect to the Airport T stop!
And it's unidirectional. Have these guys been to other airports? There should be one arriving every 2 minutes in both directions A to E and E to A.
Adding obligatory edited image to show how short they were from yadda yadda yadda intermodal connection...

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My recollection of the proposed APM was that it wouldn't be a loop, but would run in both directions between stations at (well, adjacent to) the Airport T stop and the vicinity of the Rental Car Center, serving all terminals between those end points. The original rendering cuts off the area of the T stop, but you can see below Terminal E that the APM track continues out of the frame.
 
Brattle Loop said:
My recollection of the proposed APM was that it wouldn't be a loop, but would run in both directions between stations at (well, adjacent to) the Airport T stop and the vicinity of the Rental Car Center, serving all terminals between those end points. The original rendering cuts off the area of the T stop, but you can see below Terminal E that the APM track continues out of the frame.
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It looks like a half-ass solution. A 2-way loop would be best but a 2-way MBTA dead end would work.

I'm imagining myself riding on one of those little red tram cars on my way to Terminal A after narrowly missing a piece of falling metal on the Airport T platform.
I get off the T and have to...
Board tram at Airport MBTA Station >travel>Terminal E >travel> Terminal D >travel> Terminal C >travel> Terminal B >travel> Terminal A.
...No matter what.
The reverse option should be available.
Airport MBTA Stop >travel> Car Rental >travel> Terminal A >travel> Terminal B >travel> Terminal C >travel> Terminal D >travel> Terminal E >travel> Airport MBTA Stop

With the existing design, Terminal A gets the wet end of the stick. Built in favoritism toward international travel and bias against Terminal A. That's not necessary. We should strive to save everyone 10 minutes where possible. That's just good design.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
It looks like a half-ass solution. A 2-way loop would be best but a 2-way MBTA dead end would work.

I'm imagining myself riding on one of those little red tram cars on my way to Terminal A after narrowly missing a piece of falling metal on the Airport T platform.
I get off the T and have to...
Board tram at Airport MBTA Station >travel>Terminal E >travel> Terminal D >travel> Terminal C >travel> Terminal B >travel> Terminal A.
...No matter what.
The reverse option should be available.
Airport MBTA Stop >travel> Car Rental >travel> Terminal A >travel> Terminal B >travel> Terminal C >travel> Terminal D >travel> Terminal E >travel> Airport MBTA Stop

With the existing design, Terminal A gets the wet end of the stick. Built in favoritism toward international travel and bias against Terminal A. That's not necessary. We should strive to save everyone 10 minutes where possible. That's just good design.
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One major problem; the route basically doesn't exist. There's a giant clump of highway ramps completely surrounding the Airport T stop headhouse, which is why the APM stop was planned to be on the airport side of the Service Road (and so it could link up via pedestrian bridge to the economy garage). The big parcel right south of the Airport T stop with the sports fields isn't Massport's, it belongs to the city. Massport presumably (and, in my opinion, wisely) decided that they didn't want to engage with the nightmare that would be trying to acquire part of that parcel (especially as in addition to being politically perilous, it would have actively harmed their ability for the APM to serve the economy garage, and you'd be halfway from the T stop to Terminal E by the time you reached that dip in the highway ramps where it would become even notionally feasible to snake an APM bridge across to the Transportation Way side and hope there's enough room on the edge of the sports field parcel to run through before you hit the RCC ramp (which you probably can't remove because you're presumably still going to need some shuttle buses).

I don't know for sure, but I'd bet they looked at trying to run a full circuit, saw all those obstacles, and decided it just wasn't worth it, if it's even technically feasible at all. Massport's point in wanting the APM was to serve the airport, not just the T riders, and to let them replace (or at least reduce) the shuttle buses. It's already been shelved at least once; I for one would prefer not to let nitpicky perfectionism kill it a second time when attempting to run that gauntlet from the T stop to the Rental Car Center throws up one too many engineering or property-law headaches.

And not for nothing, but it's not an international-travel bias. The "horseshoe" service pattern means that anyone heading to the terminals from the Rental Car Center will hit Terminal A first and Terminal E last. It's only the people coming from the T who would hit E first and A last, but I guess the car-renters don't merit consideration or something? (Or, you know, if that pesky two additional stops is really so burdensome, A and E are linked via the Central Parking garage and the bridges with the moving walkways...a race would be interesting.)
 
Great shots, thanks for sharing. It's nice to see Massport opt for some higher ceiling and large windows for this connector. They really help make what is a small area feel a lot larger and more open. I'd like to see this happen on the piers of terminal C and the Alaska and Southwest pier in terminal B. Would make a big difference.
 
Windows are great.

Not a fan the interior design. Too many colors (that gold 🤮) that don't mesh and some of the lighting elements are a bit much.
 
Brattle Loop said:
....There's a giant clump of highway ramps completely surrounding the Airport T stop headhouse...
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I swear... it's like the bus drivers designed this concrete craptacular to protect their jobs! You couldn't design it any worse!
 
BeyondRevenue said:
I swear... it's like the bus drivers designed this concrete craptacular to protect their jobs! You couldn't design it any worse!
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I mean, the interchange the T headhouse is under has been there in one form or another for decades. Presumably they figured it made sense to build the big nasty highway interchange over the railroad because there weren't any houses or buildings there that'd have to be knocked down. And it's not like the T was going to re-route the entire Blue Line when they rebuilt Airport Station.
 
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