Logan Airport Capital Projects

stefal said:
It's a fine looking building. The sustainability angle is deeply flawed at a planning-level:
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I don't really see the problem here. Nothing about this is arguing that they've somehow offset aircraft emissions. The building was going to be built either way. Would it somehow be better if they built the building as unsustainably as possible? Build the thing out of 100% plastic, zero insulation, and heat it with a coal plant?

OR also has little influence over the Portland-Seattle stretch of rail given that 99% of it is in WA, so it's not like they could invest in rail improvements for the corridor instead - that's going to have to come from WA and/or the feds.
 
millerm277 said:
I don't really see the problem here. Nothing about this is arguing that they've somehow offset aircraft emissions. The building was going to be built either way. Would it somehow be better if they built the building as unsustainably as possible? Build the thing out of 100% plastic, zero insulation, and heat it with a coal plant?

OR also has little influence over the Portland-Seattle stretch of rail given that 99% of it is in WA, so it's not like they could invest in rail improvements for the corridor instead - that's going to have to come from WA and/or the feds.
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Emphasis mine. This is the crux of modern airport planning flaws, in an age where every state an authority is stating their intention/aiming toward carbon reductions (rightfully so). Note I said it was flawed at the planning level, not the material specification.

If you as an owner are going to build an airport in the name of sustainability, as they did here (this project keeps getting published on their great job they did with being bold with timber, and this website also notes carbon 6 times), the 30 daily flights that cover a 3-hour drive should first be assessed. As already suggested, HSR would be a much more appropriate response at a planning level, than a new terminal space. That level of planning and decision making makes a substantially larger impact on the authority's carbon footprint, and likely reduces the need for increased space at the airport. You need airport space, yes, and nobody said build the thing out of plastic, but we should take a step back and be more careful with how we size and program buildings and spaces more.
 
stefal said:
Emphasis mine. This is the crux of modern airport planning flaws, in an age where every state an authority is stating their intention/aiming toward carbon reductions (rightfully so). Note I said it was flawed at the planning level, not the material specification.

If you as an owner are going to build an airport in the name of sustainability, as they did here (this project keeps getting published on their great job they did with being bold with timber, and this website also notes carbon 6 times), the 30 daily flights that cover a 3-hour drive should first be assessed. As already suggested, HSR would be a much more appropriate response at a planning level, than a new terminal space. That level of planning and decision making makes a substantially larger impact on the authority's carbon footprint, and likely reduces the need for increased space at the airport. You need airport space, yes, and nobody said build the thing out of plastic, but we should take a step back and be more careful with how we size and program buildings and spaces more.
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Are you suggesting that airport/port authorities, that operate airports (see MassPort, Port of Portland, PANYNJ etc) should also be investing in rail and other modes of transport to nearby cities, as a mechanism to allow them to reclaim gate space for longer, more "flying worthy" routes? That's an interesting idea, and it has happened in the past - NE shuttle flights were largely supplanted by Acela, leading to sharp drop in flights from BOS to NYC, WAS and vice versa, Harrisburg-PHL is now a bus, etc, but I wouldn't know if that's even allowed, and I think this is one of those things where the free market and airline deregulation hurts your case from a planning side - post abolition of the CAA you both can't stop an airline from ending unprofitable service, or stop them from operating a profitable one that has negative externalities.

Port authorities are usually single purpose entities only concerned with making the port facility itself, airport or maritime, appealing for operators to come to, and accomodate whatever operators want to bring. They're also usually more or less carrier / route agnostic, nor is it directly connected with gate capacity - and most airports aren't slot or gate constrained. The ability to accommodate a finite number of additional flights usually isn't concomitant with expansion - though there are always exceptions and natural limits. Therefore, the question for PDX is - who paid for the terminal expansion, or why there's demand for flights to SEA? In PDX's case, the answer to the former is apparently largely their tenants - namely, the airlines that will operate out of those spaces. Neither the state of OR nor the Federal Government contributed substantial sums to their project - the airlines that will rent the new terminal space did. Part of that was likely a cash injection, part of that in long term lease commitment. Here in BOS, in 2013 United ultimately paid at least ~120m of $170m for improvements to the portion of terminal B that it operates out of in BOS - plus more as it continues to lease gates. If an airline thinks it'll find profit in flying PDX-SEA, and sees value in paying for the gate space on both ends so they can, I doubt there's anything you can do to stop them - how they use the gates they pay for is ultimately their business. Plus - I don't know what the O&D mix is - are a plurality of PDX-SEA flyers connecting to other AS/DL flights? Those volumes are likely never to divert to other modes.

Additionally, Here you're asking an airport to directly compete with its customers - at the time I doubt MassPort would have supported Acela, given it cannibalised the NE shuttle flights, especially given how many daily landings and passengers it had previously accounted for. I wouldn't be surprised if you looked in the record and found a note opposing Acela from Massport. That said, the way to reduce gate usage for SEA-PDX is to provide adequate competition from Rail. The case study here is the NE corridor, and making Cascades fast enough to compete and be profitable enough for Amtrak to take the business away from the airlines. Given its ridership, you can fairly easily argue that it already has taken a few thousand daily passengers out of cars/planes.
 
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stefal said:
Emphasis mine. This is the crux of modern airport planning flaws, in an age where every state an authority is stating their intention/aiming toward carbon reductions (rightfully so). Note I said it was flawed at the planning level, not the material specification.

If you as an owner are going to build an airport in the name of sustainability, as they did here (this project keeps getting published on their great job they did with being bold with timber, and this website also notes carbon 6 times), the 30 daily flights that cover a 3-hour drive should first be assessed. As already suggested, HSR would be a much more appropriate response at a planning level, than a new terminal space. That level of planning and decision making makes a substantially larger impact on the authority's carbon footprint, and likely reduces the need for increased space at the airport. You need airport space, yes, and nobody said build the thing out of plastic, but we should take a step back and be more careful with how we size and program buildings and spaces more.
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I totally agree, that looks a failure of planning.

Tying this locally, there was a push in the State House to change MassPort's charter to require it consider broader climate objectives in their planning. Basically this is about blocking MassPort in its planned expansion at Hanscom. That expansion would mainly enable more super-high-polluting private jets.

I don't know how effective that charter amendment would have been. But regardless, these Authorities are just creations of the State, and they're malleable. A lot of States's plans for transportation involves delegating a chunk of that planning to a quasi-independent Authority. If that system isn't giving us the results we want, we can change up to board, change their charters, add responsibilities, strip power, or close them all together.
 
ritchiew said:
I totally agree, that looks a failure of planning.

Tying this locally, there was a push in the State House to change MassPort's charter to require it consider broader climate objectives in their planning. Basically this is about blocking MassPort in its planned expansion at Hanscom. That expansion would mainly enable more super-high-polluting private jets.

I don't know how effective that charter amendment would have been. But regardless, these Authorities are just creations of the State, and they're malleable. A lot of States's plans for transportation involves delegating a chunk of that planning to a quasi-independent Authority. If that system isn't giving us the results we want, we can change up to board, change their charters, add responsibilities, strip power, or close them all together.
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Generally these throttling of activities only work if politically viable alternatives are provided.

France is a good example. Given their extensive high-speed rail network (TGV), they found it to be politically viable to ban commuter jet service between high speed rail connected cities. But you have to have the viable alternative in place first, otherwise you just get voted out of office.
 
JeffDowntown said:
France is a good example. Given their extensive high-speed rail network (TGV), they found it to be politically viable to ban commuter jet service between high speed rail connected cities. But you have to have the viable alternative in place first, otherwise you just get voted out of office.
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They also didn't really ban anything the way the regulation was done. According to IATA it impacted three routes, accounting for less than 4% of domestic seats in France and resulted in a 0.12% drop in emissions. Made for nice headlines though if nothing else.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
They also didn't really ban anything the way the regulation was done. According to IATA it impacted three routes, accounting for less than 4% of domestic seats in France and resulted in a 0.12% drop in emissions. Made for nice headlines though if nothing else.
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Yes, I thought I heard that -- they let international connections continue, for example, so basically everything regional operating from CDG was not affected.
 
ritchiew said:
I totally agree, that looks a failure of planning.

Tying this locally, there was a push in the State House to change MassPort's charter to require it consider broader climate objectives in their planning. Basically this is about blocking MassPort in its planned expansion at Hanscom. That expansion would mainly enable more super-high-polluting private jets.

I don't know how effective that charter amendment would have been. But regardless, these Authorities are just creations of the State, and they're malleable. A lot of States's plans for transportation involves delegating a chunk of that planning to a quasi-independent Authority. If that system isn't giving us the results we want, we can change up to board, change their charters, add responsibilities, strip power, or close them all together.
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It would be an interesting proposal to make at the Congressional level in the next Transportation Bill (it would die there) that aviation revenues should be usable for aviation alternatives like HSR. At the moment it's illegal to spend them on anything other than aviation improvements.
 
Some new A-B Connector Renders

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HenryAlan said:
There is actually a shuttle bus that operates between A and E for the purpose of connecting passengers without needing to leave the security zone.
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That's part of this project, right? They're building a new facility for those buses.

In addition to the conclusion that Massport just hates people who use the C piers at a personal level, these two projects also make me wonder about whether Logan should be like SFO at this point and number gates across the whole airport. It would resolve possible confusion as airlines spread into adjacent terminals across these connectors - they've had to address that in the C-E connector by literally giving the gates alternate numbers depending on whether an airline based in C or E is using them. Since part of the impetus to do this is to give Delta access to B1 and B2, it may be time to start treating Logan as a single airside with four landside access points.
 
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JeffDowntown said:
I have to assume that Massport has not figured out how to rebuild the Terminal C piers while:
1) keeping JetBlue in full operation, and
2) at a cost that is not in the stratosphere (like the LaGuardia rebuilds).
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Then don't. Gut a couple of gate areas at a time and renovate them to the standard of the rest of the airport. The new gates available to JetBlue thanks to B/C should allow them to do rolling closures.

Having flown through A recently they also need to do this at a lesser level there, mainly in terms of seating options (and addressing probably the worst set of food options at Logan, but that's a different issue).
 
Equilibria said:
Then don't. Gut a couple of gate areas at a time and renovate them to the standard of the rest of the airport. The new gates available to JetBlue thanks to B/C should allow them to do rolling closures.

Having flown through A recently they also need to do this at a lesser level there, mainly in terms of seating options (and addressing probably the worst set of food options at Logan, but that's a different issue).
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Why do I suspect that a lot more needs to be upgraded in the Terminal C piers than can be done with "gate by gate" closures. (Like everything, including all systems and utilities).
 
JeffDowntown said:
Why do I suspect that a lot more needs to be upgraded in the Terminal C piers than can be done with "gate by gate" closures. (Like everything, including all systems and utilities).
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Maybe. Over time they've done some back-of-house work on the piers, and I know HVAC was part of that.

Also, they don't have to shut down too many gates at a time to be comprehensive. The hammerhead halves have 4, 3, 3, and 4 gates respectively. If they're willing to move those ops into the new gates available to JetBlue (or if JetBlue continues on its current business trajectory and doesn't need as many gates), they could rebuild them from the ground up, bit-by-bit.
 
The C-E gates are scheduled for renovations and expansion, covering the surface parking between C&E with holdroom expansion and a new pre-security walkway, and extending the EIS walkway to C8. In addition, C is getting a pair of new lounges, and l believe the scope of work includes minor concourse improvements to pier B.

The RFQ isn't particularly clear but given its expected to constructe / renovate ~150k sqft of area, which appears more than can be accounted for by lounges and C-E, it appears to be in scope. Frankly, I'm intrigued by the possibility of what looks like possibly publicly accessible rooftop greenspace as part of the new club.
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Equilibria said:
Maybe. Over time they've done some back-of-house work on the piers, and I know HVAC was part of that.

Also, they don't have to shut down too many gates at a time to be comprehensive. The hammerhead halves have 4, 3, 3, and 4 gates respectively. If they're willing to move those ops into the new gates available to JetBlue (or if JetBlue continues on its current business trajectory and doesn't need as many gates), they could rebuild them from the ground up, bit-by-bit.
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The problem becomes meeting code requirements in the sections your try to keep open. You quickly run afoul of egress requirements and restroom facility requirements in a piecemeal rebuild. None of the restrooms in the C piers were designed for people with carry-on luggage, for example -- they need major expansions. Close the only restrooms in a section -- you need to close the entire section, many gates. And the sections of the piers you travel through to the ends need to be rebuilt as well -- that is really complex (maintain safe, appropriate volume passenger flow while rebuilding the section around them).

Also the core problem with C piers is structural -- too low ceiling and roof line, and too few windows. That is basically a ground up rebuild to fix.
 
Stlin said:
The C-E gates are scheduled for renovations and expansion, covering the surface parking between C&E with holdroom expansion and a new pre-security walkway, and extending the EIS walkway to C8. In addition, C is getting a pair of new lounges, and l believe the scope of work includes minor concourse improvements to pier B.

The RFQ isn't particularly clear but given its expected to constructe / renovate ~150k sqft of area, which appears more than can be accounted for by lounges and C-E, it appears to be in scope. Frankly, I'm intrigued by the possibility of what looks like possibly publicly accessible rooftop greenspace as part of the new club.
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Thank you for sharing these. I'm relieved to see some TLC coming to Terminal C. And I agree with others about the Terminal C piers: they gotta go.

I've long thought opportunities for the Terminal C piers to be phased out while reconstructing the terminal. I keep thinking about the 4 inward phasing gates and if it's possible to take them out of service for any period of time while a new configuration comes to fruition (gates C12, C14, C26 and C28). Instead of Terminal C featuring piers, I imagine it appearing/behaving more as the hub that it is. Reorienting it into a trapezoid where the TSA area leads you into a grand atrium/hall instead of a window wall directing you right or left would be much cooler. You'd be able to maintain a similar number of gates (if not increase them), add capacity for lounge spaces, shopping/restaurants, and even a distinctive feature similar to Changi Airport's iconic atrium. And it could/should be done across multiple levels.

I put the 'Boston Red' patented color in my proposed scheme for consistency with what was done at Terminal E (it's admittedly pretty cool), but ultimately I'm just hopeful that Massport and JetBlue are able/willing to make the meaningful investment into overhauling the terminal.

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