The Airport Dilemma

A Boston official was recently asked where the city could build a new airport. Without hesitation he replied, "In Wyoming."

The empty West is one of few places left with room for airports. Around most major U.S. cities, home owners have risen in vehement objection to the noise of air traffic. Pending suits against Los Angeles International, for example, now add up to an incredible $4 billion. In New York City, authorities have been turned down every time they have proposed a site for a new jetport within 75 miles of Times Square. Indeed, New Jersey Governor William T. Cahill's election platform called for prohibition of any large new airports in the northern part of his state. St. Louis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Atlanta and San Francisco--all face the same problem. Local citizens flatly reject new airports in their communities.

Meantime, an estimated 183 million travelers will use existing airports this year, 13 million more than last year. By 1982, the Civil Aeronautics Board confidently predicts, 485 million passengers will annually travel the air routes. Where, then, will they land?

Expansion. One solution would be to reduce the hostility to airports by changing the nature of airplanes. If a much quieter plane could be developed --and engine manufacturers are beginning to muffle the thunder of the biggest new jets--then the major complaint against airports would be removed. Similarly, the development of a quiet STOL (for short take-off and landing) plane would make better use of short runways that either now exist (the U.S. has 12,000 airports, more than half of which are small, unlit fields) or could be built in strategic urban locations. In theory, the STOL planes would unclog major airports because two-thirds of all flights there are short hops, less than 500 miles. Only experimental STOL models are now flying, but designers are confident that these planes will be a reality within a decade.

In the interim, existing airports could be expanded--though at immense expense. At Newark International, the total bill for expansion was a staggering $400 million, or more than double what it cost to build the field in the first place. Land is the most expensive element, mainly because airports usually attract development around them, becoming minicities in their own right. At Chicago's O'Hare, for example, land goes for $ 125,000 an acre--a price that airport economics cannot pay.

The cheapest and best solution is to build a completely new airport wherever possible. With this in mind, Congress passed the Airports and Airway Development Act of 1970. The act provides matching federal funds for airport construction, but only for those airports that take steps to protect and enhance "the national quality of life." To prepare environmental studies, gain government approval and build a new facility, airport officials say, can take up to 15 years. As a result, most new airport plans are being shelved.

Ironically, both Kansas City and Dallas-Fort Worth started building new airports in the mid-1960s, before Congress acted, and both worked out bold new schemes. The key ingredient: empty space. Kansas City bought and took options on 10,400 acres just 17 miles from downtown. The Texas cities dropped their traditional rivalry to purchase 17,400 acres--a parcel larger than Manhattan Island--midway between them. The extra land around the runways forms a buffer between airport and community; it is reserved for light industry, warehousing and other uses unaffected by the roar of jetliners.

Even better, the planners have made the new airports into more pleasant places for air travelers--and shortened the long voyage home as well. At the $250 million Kansas City International, which was dedicated last month, Architects Kivett and Myers designed three almost circular terminals, with as many as 19 gates each, and laid out a fourth circle for future expansion. In effect, they are planned like the simplest (and oldest) airports, with planes on one side of the building, ticket counters practically on top of the gate and parking spaces at the front door. Instead of long hikes from curbside to plane--a quarter-mile is not unusual--the departing passenger drives to a parking lot close to his gate, checks in at the counter and boards his flight. Total walk once he gets to the terminal's door: 75 feet.

Dallas-Fort Worth, which will open next fall, uses the same principle--on a Texan scale. Four semicircular terminals stand on opposite sides of a central access road and are linked by an automated intraterminal transit system, a "horizontal elevator" capable of carrying 8,000 people an hour. Eventually, as air traffic increases, the $700 million airport will expand by building nine more identical buildings with a grand total of 234 gates--enough to handle 60 million passengers a year, or the projected needs to the year 2001.

However efficient the "drive to your gate" scheme seems, it does have a few drawbacks. Architects at the St. Louis firm of Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum, principal designers of the Texas airport, admit that airlines will have to add personnel to service each gate. In Kansas City, J.J. O'Donnell, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, worries that the many gates will hinder anti-skyjacking procedures. "I've seen a sieve with less holes," he says.

But the real problem with gigantism as a solution to the airport problem is that big plots of land are simply not available on the crowded East and West coasts, where air traffic is most congested. In response, New York City is now studying the possibilities of building a new jetport five miles out at sea. "FAA studies indicate that it would cost about $7 billion to create an airport island in the Atlantic," says Lawrence Lerner, the project's designer. "But to build a comparable airport inland would cost at least $5 billion--not counting the costs of transportation and pollution." There may be no other alternative.

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