This old canard has been repeated ad-nauseam, ever since the 90s, to the point where it’s just accepted as fact. Maybe some time in the past some RDUAA board members have said something like “We’re concerned about loss of parking revenue” (frankly, it is a legitimate concern) but that doesn’t mean RDUAA has ever said flatly that they don’t want it. In fact, if I recall, they’ve even gone on record saying that they would support it at various times.
The main reason rail transit to RDU doesn’t get pursued isn’t some anti-transit conspiracy on the board. It’s that a rail link to the airport doesn’t make sense at this point.
There is a chance that this new FAA rule could change things a bit, but it still doesn’t make it any more practical to serve the airport with trains.
The terminal is 3.5 miles at its closest from the railroad. Much (most?) of that 3.5 mile radius around the terminal is either part of the airport itself, or untouchable state parkland (Umstead), freeways or interchange right-of-way, wetlands, or otherwise highly restricted in terms of development due to airport noise. That’s a lot of money to build at least 7 miles of new right-of-way to serve only the airport. Not saying it won’t be worth it some day, but we’re definitely not there yet.
And what incentive do they have to publicly voice their concern over the matter? None. Why would they choose to speak truthfully on a matter that would assure they come out in an unfavorably light?
A large percentage of their revenue comes from parking and the RDU taxi system. They will continue to ensure that doesn’t change.
It’s true that parking is a major source of revenue for them. It actually nets a tidy profit - even after considering the cost of operations, depreciation, and servicing the debt issued to build the facilities.
To that I say, so what? Parking revenue is a big deal at every major airport, and yet many of them have rail links. This is an issue that has been overcome before.
Firstly, because passengers riding the train to airports in a city like Raleigh will be so few that it will hardly dent parking, taxi, or car rental revenue- if even at all. Most who ride transit to an airport like RDU are, and will continue to be, employees. Look at peer cities with rail links for evidence. SLC is probably the metro area closest to a peer city with an airport rail link. Their light rail link opened in 2013 and their parking revenues went up steadily, never dropping for a single year, from 23m in 2010 to 36 million in 2019. In fact the fastest rate of increase was from 2012-2016. All of 1100 people per day ride the train there.
Why would RDU be worse about this than elsewhere? It doesn’t make sense.
The truth, that people don’t seem to want to admit, is that rail to RDU just isn’t as much of a home run no-brainer idea as we’d like to think. It seems like “common sense,” like an almost visceral instinct, that rail to the airport would be essential, but the fact is: instincts can, and do, often lead us astray.
Conspiracy theories painting the airport authority as anti-transit bogeyman colluding to keep us from building the best transit system, the one we need and deserve, are both inaccurate and unhelpful, because they erode public trust in the planning work that has shown us, again and again, that the NCRR is the best corridor for rail transit in the triangle.
I did some quick math, and that sounds about right (though airport employees would still be a minority of passengers). Click here to see why!
14 million passengers went through RDU in 2019. Let’s say 1% of them (which is a bigger share than for Newark Airport) were to switch to mass transit, as well as 1/3 of the 344 employees hired by RDU at the end of the last fiscal year (which is high, but it’s fine since I couldn’t find the number of airport employees on other companies’ payrolls).
That means only 868 passengers per day could use this public transit system to get to and from RDU. Do you really think this sort of ridership would be a threat to RDU’s finances, or otherwise form any reason for them to care?
For added context, the pre-pandemic 2020-21 budget had about $71M (38.5%) of their total operating revenues projected to come from RDU-owned parking facilities. This is the single largest source of income for the airport, and is more than what they directly make off of passengers and shop customers through facility charges. To show this more visually:
And that reliance will only get more lopsided over time. After all, RDU:
is planning on (eventually?) expanding parking facilities
relies on their low rent to compete against other airports and recruit long-distance flights, and;
needs Congress to pass a new law if they want to increase facility fees any more.
In that context, a new way to get to and from the airport constitutes neither a threat NOR an opportunity for RDU. In other words: they have no reason to care.
Also, if you want to say RDU has a moral obligation to provide an alternative to cars for access, they already allow that with GoTriangle’s 100 bus (and through this pandemic, the RDU-RTP Shuttle).
Maybe all of this could change depending airport land use patterns? But from what we know here and now, it seems like you wouldn’t lose much by not having a direct commuter/regional rail connection to RDU.
@ScrantonUSC, you might be able to prove Owen and I wrong by doing a feasibility study to see if there’s truly an unserved market (and I’ll happily change my mind if there’s good evidence!). But knowing all of the above, do you think you’d really find people who are willing to put the time, money, and effort to find out?
This whole conversation has only been about the merits of building an airport-rail connection for its own sake. But what if we reframe the problem? What if we, instead, ask whether it’s worth it to build a transit system with a dedicated right-of-way for RTP, Brier Creek, and Morrisville and it just happens to also include RDU?
For example, the way we do transit planning in the Triangle today is biased against RTP and Brier Creek since they straddle county and MPO borders. Could there actually be a significant commute pattern there we don’t know about (so it’s not captured in the Wake or Durham counties’ transit plans)?
That’s a lot of travel! Multiple flights on one itinerary or separate destinations?
Agreed. Vacation travel will probably rebound pretty hard. Lots of vacation savings stocking up, and perhaps new perspectives on what’s important in life. The only things holding me back at this point are restrictions on int’l travel. Certainly have a few extra CC points to burn…
To and from Denver at the end of January and 4 flights total with connections to and from Idaho Falls, then drove to Jackson Hole, WY. Every flight was completely full including the airports of Denver and Raleigh, except Idaho Falls was pretty bare although it was smaller than Raleigh’s Executive Jetport in Sanford with only two plane bays.
Was Idaho Falls a lot cheaper than Jackson? I like the Jackson airport, although that’s my perspective from the cockpit. Not sure if it’s as much fun to fly into as a passenger.
It was a 1/3 of the price and only 50 minutes more of driving time to the Teton Village where we stayed.
I turned it into a work visit seeing some customers and potato vendors in Idaho Falls, and it was worth every second considering how scenic the drive was. I’m really hoping during your visit to Jackson you were able to ski, Holy Cow was that incredible, I really enjoy big mountain skiing and that was hands-down the best mountain I’ve ever been to.
With the news of Apple setting up shop, I wonder what kind of impact that will have to future flights in/out of RDU. It doesn’t seem there are any direct flights to/from San Jose, the closest airport to Cupertino. And while you could fly in/out of SFO, that’s not exactly next door and traffic between the two can be pretty bad. Which airline will step up to service the new cool kid in town?
BTW, Austin (Apple’s other large employee base) does have direct flights.
Very encouraging article from the Wall Street Journal saying RDU is one of the airports most likely to see growth in the near future (along with Austin and Boston).
Discusses how business travel will likely be reduced across the board for years, but the expanding economy here means we may get as much business travel as before, and then it Mentions the Apple announcement as an example.
It’s easy to take RDU’s growth for granted, but it’s really not that simple. It’s actually short on $2 billion according to the N&O and needs new funding sources to make the growth we want happen. The RTA released a report that looks into how every stakeholder could help with that situation. It suggests things like:
Make Raleigh, Durham, and Wake and Durham counties (the four owner governments of the airport) pay more to fund RDU. This has been stuck at $12,500/year per party since 1957 -which would be about $120,000/year if it had scaled with inflation.
Lobbying Congress so that RDU is legally allowed to charge more than $4.50/flight; a $1 increase is estimated to help bring the airport $6 million per year for airport repairs and upgrades
Slightly raise car rental taxes. There’s a 1.5% charge that cities can charge, but RDU currently can’t levy since (like every major airport except Charlotte’s) it’s not within a municipality.
Implement an airport access fee so that people dropping off or picking up people at RDU (not just people parking there) must pay for airport facilities, too
It also mentions other options like using counties’ hospitality taxes, federal grant funding, changing some policy infrastructure for national airport funding etc. …but those are the big things.
The access fee jumped out at me. How that made it pass brainstorming is beyond me. Perhaps they argued it would hit the uber/lyft drivers, and just get passed on so no one will fuss - and did not consider the real anger this will spark amongst the rest.
Maybe an outside-the-box thing but would they consider making it a tri-county authority with Orange getting a seat at the table? Chapel Hill and environs benefits immensely from its proximity to RDU and is kind of getting a free ride if we’re talking about putting up money for improvements. Maybe get some skin in the game from them in exchange for adding a county commissioner or whatever to the board. That won’t make up a ton of the shortfall, or even come close to it, but it might help.
Speaking of which is there an annoying nick name outsiders use for Atlanta? (Note: I don’t really care just yankin yer chain).