Tag Archives: Dulles Metro

TOD at IAD: a concept for developing Saarinen Circle at Dulles International Airport

As the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority continues work on Phase 2 of the Metrorail extension to Dulles International Airport and beyond, it’s worth considering some of the transit oriented development opportunities at the airport beyond just the obvious connection for passengers at the terminal.

Airports around the world take advantage of their connectivity in developing an airport city: office space, warehouses, hotels all diversify an airport’s business income. It’s a virtuous cycle:

real estate connected to the airport has value;
rents from those spaces diversifies airport revenues and drives down their operating costs;
lower costs encourage more airline service which increase connectivity around the world;
increased connectivity adds value to the airport location.

Amsterdam Schiphol is one of the best examples, with nearly 6 million sf of commercial space on the airport grounds alone. They don’t just brand themselves as an airport city, but as the ‘Schiphol CBD,’ complete with new public spaces.

Munich Airport Center. Image from Wikipedia.

While that may be an ultimate goal, perhaps something closer to the Munich Airport Center (MAC) is a better match – particularly for any development in the Dulles parking bowl within Saarinen Circle. MAC is a pedestrian oriented retail and commercial complex connecting the airport’s two terminals and S-Bahn station, flanked by airport parking, buses, and a hotel. All of the key airport destinations feed pedestrians into the space: parking, taxi, drop-off, etc, increasing foot traffic to the retail spaces.

Schematic map of Munich Airport Center; note retail (red) and restaurants (yellow), Terminal 1 (top), Terminal 2 and the Forum (bottom), S-Bahn station (below), buses (left side) and taxis (right side).

The most iconic element is the MAC Forum, a large covered outdoor plaza surrounded by shops and offices. The airport operator extensively programs the Forum with a variety of sponsored events to draw in non-airport patrons (for whom parking fees are waived) in addition to workers and travelers.

Entrance to the S-Bahn at the MAC Forum; CC image from Jeromyu on Flickr.

Munich Airport Forum; showing roof over the open air public space. Creative Commons image from Nir on Flickr.

The key elements of the Munich Airport Center include retail, restaurants, public space, and public transit. For adjacent development, the airport offers flexible office and conference space for rent (and is working on additional office development – they do not yet have planning permission for office space on the magnitude of Schiphol) as well as a connected hotel.

MWAA is actively looking to diversify their revenues at Dulles. For development, MWAA is shopping the Western Lands on the far side of the airport, searching for interest in a second on-airport hotel, as well as other various sites on airport property that might generate some kind of revenue for the Authority. Among other development opportunities, they list ‘Saarinen Circle’ as something to watch.

Saarinen Circle surrounds the surface parking lot directly in front of the Eero Saarinen terminal building. The Metro station (under construction) and parking garage are currently connected to the main terminal via a tunnel beneath the parking lot.

The Saarinen Circle site has several advantages. Space is plentiful (there was plenty of complaining about the decision to move the Metro station to the opposite side of the parking lot from the terminal), but the distances aren’t overwhelming: The distance between the garage and the terminal is similar to the distance between Terminals 1 and 2 at Munich. Development in the circle has the potential to make that walk a pleasant stroll among shops and public space, rather than through the drab-but-functional existing tunnel.

Because of the iconic Saarinen Terminal and the views of it for drivers approaching via Saarinen Circle, any development within the parking bowl couldn’t be very tall. Several historic preservationists objected to the Metro aerial guideway’s potential to block views. While this may foreclose on a large structure such as the one covering Munich’s Forum (after all, the canopy over the forum is the signature architecture for Munich’s airport – Dulles already has an icon), it shouldn’t stop all development. Using the existing tunnel level as the ‘ground’ floor would offer some room for development above. MAC is similarly surrounded by roadways and airport infrastructure at different levels.

Munich Airport Center makes good use of changes in grade to connect pedestrians between the terminals at multiple levels. Relocating existing taxi, bus, and valet parking to flank a new multi-level development between the terminal building and the parking garage/Metro station. The development not only has the chance to aid the finances of IAD by generating non-aviation revenue, but also in attracting more use to the Metro station via old-fashioned transit oriented development.

There’s plenty of developable land at Dulles, but only Saarinen Circle has the key location between the Metro station and the terminal. Airports around the world provide models for better uses of the space than surface parking.

Even more signs that the Silver Line is coming…

We still don’t have word on a start date for WMATA’s new Silver Line service to Tysons Corner, but more and more signage for the service is appearing in the rest of the system.

New signage, complete with (SV) bullets at Federal Center SW Station. Photo by the author.

This signage is from the platform pylon near the base of the escalators at Federal Center SW.

Via Twitter, Dan Malouff (@BeyondDC) took note of the new (SV) bullets on one of the narrow pylons used for Metro’s side platform stations, wondering if the bullets are using a different typeface from the rest of WMATA’s signage:

Am I crazy, or is this a slightly different font? (Or both?) pic.twitter.com/lOADzh7UQR

— BeyondDC (@beyonddc) December 31, 2013

The answer is: sort of. The graphic standards (which I stumbled across via googling for this post) for the Rush Plus signage changes note that the bullets use Helvetica Bold, while the rest of the text uses Helvetica Medium.

Signs that the Silver Line is coming…

As WMATA prepares to take control of the first phase of the Silver Line from MWAA (with the exact handover date yet to be determined), signage for the new service is starting to pop-up around the system. WMATA is trying to raise awareness about the new service and new track with a dedicated website; you can see a presentation to the WMATA Board on their Silver Line activation plan here.

Some rail stations include strip maps on the station wall signage and on platform pylons. Others include backlit strip maps located above the on-platform map/advertising panels. In several stations, these maps have been updated with new Silver Line information:

Backlit strip map above one of Metro's platform ad panels at the Federal Triangle Station. Photo by the author.

Backlit westbound strip map above one of Metro’s platform ad panels at the Federal Triangle Station. Photo by the author.

Backlit strip map at Federal Triangle, including Silver Line to Largo. Photo by the author.

Backlit eastbound strip map at Federal Triangle, including Silver Line to Largo. Photo by the author.

In recent months, WMATA has installed new wall signage in Blue/Orange stations. The signage included awkward spacing for the lines/destinations, preserving space for the future inclusion of Silver Line services:

New wall signage on the westbound track at Eastern Market, with room for Silver Line information below OR and BL. Photo by the author.

The current signage makes for an odd asymmetry, where the westbound signs clearly preserve space for a future (SV) bullet and destination below the current Orange and Blue line termini. The eastbound signs, however, looked more evenly spaced, perhaps anticipating the end of Orange Line ‘Rush Plus‘ service to Largo, to be replaced by Silver Line service. The revised sign will include a similar look to the eastbound strip map spotted at Federal Triangle.

The demise of at least some of the difficult-to-read striped Rush Plus bullets can’t come soon enough.

Eastbound wall signage at Eastern Market; awkward space above OR and BL destinations is reserved for future SV service. Photo by the author.

Eastbound wall signage at Eastern Market with ‘normal’ spacing; OR ‘Rush Plus’ service to Largo likely to be replaced with an SV bullet. Photo by the author.

Metro’s stainless steel future – Rosslyn

As the construction fencing starts to come down around the second entrance to Rosslyn Station, you can now see the future aesthetic for Metro infrastructure. Lots of steel and glass, but little of Metro’s original materials: concrete, tile, and brass.

Elevator-only second entrace to the Rosslyn Station. Photo by the author.

Elevator-only second entrance to the Rosslyn Station. Photo by the author.

The three elevators descend to a new mezzanine adjacent to the existing mezzanine. More renderings of the project are available at Arlington County’s website.

Cutaway of the Rosslyn Station second entrance. Image from Arlington County.

Above ground, the elevators emerge in a completely different structure across the street from the existing entrance. The separation between the two avoids the discord between Metro’s current embrace of stainless steel and the system’s historic colors and materials. Even though this project represents an addition to an existing station, the construction is almost entirely outside of the existing station shell. Unlike the proposed Bethesda renovation, the Rosslyn project thereby avoids the conflict between the old and new palates.

New Rosslyn Station entrance pavilion. Photo by the author.

As the Metro system has expanded, it’s also picked up architectural variety. Even during the build-out of the original Adopted Regional System, the station architecture varies from station to station, depending on age and the construction methods. All of the ARS stations used the same palate of materials, despite the variety in design. Additions beyond the ARS (NoMa infill station and the Largo Extension) feature a different look than other above-ground stations; the Silver Line to Dulles will feature an entirely different architectural vocabulary.

A visual survey of selected elevated rail viaducts: part 5 – Vancouver and Tysons Corner

Pulling together some suggestions from the comments of the series prologue, part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4…

Vancouver: Alon Levy reminds us to look at Skytrain’s viaducts in Greater Vancouver. Skytrain represents the kind of future for rapid transit this series means to investigate, baked right into the system’s name: expansion of transit aboveground, rather than under.

Skytrain’s fully automated, fully grade-separated network includes underground transit in dense areas and along narrow streets, but makes extensive use of elevated rail along wide streets and freight rail rights of way (active and dormant). Jarrett Walker discusses the virtues of the Skytrain system, above and beyond that of regular rapid transit – with the automated trains allowing for increased frequencies without increasing the associated operating costs:

Light rail is wonderfully flexible, able to run onstreet with signalized intersections, and across pedestrian zones, as well as in conventional elevated or underground profiles. Driverless metro must be totally grade-separated, which in practice usually means elevated or underground. SkyTrain got its name because the original lines were mostly elevated, though the newest, the Canada Line, has a long underground segment.

The system’s most recent addition, the Canada line, features elevated sections for the two southern branches – one that goes to the airport, and one to redevelopment areas in Richmond.

Skytrain Canada Line viaduct over a sidewalk in Richmond, BC. Image from Google Maps.

By placing the line alongside the roadway when next to surface parking, they’ve managed to expand the sidewalk without imposing too much on the pedestrian environment. The benches and trellises around the columns are a nice touch. The single guideway for both tracks helps minimize the bulk of the guideway. When those parking lots are redeveloped, they can front on the sidewalk without overshadowing it.

Aerial view of Skytrain in Richmond, BC – showing redevelopment of suburban land uses. Image from Google Maps.

Older elevated guideways in the system include center running sections through suburban land uses:

Center running elevated Skytrain line. Image from Google Maps.

Some sections run along alleyways.

Aerial of alley-running aerial alignment. Image from Google Maps.

Other sections combine separate and adjacent right of way with berms and greenery:

Elevated rail shielded by trees. Image from Google Maps.

Center-aligned side-platform station. Image from Google Maps.

Vancouver provides lessons for rapid transit expansion in that it uses elevated rail through suburban-style rights of way.

Tysons Corner:

The Silver Line extension of Washington’s Metro system to Tysons Corner follows some of same principles as Skytrain, but without the same quality of execution. Part of the challenge is the landscape (Tysons features some wider roads than Richmond), and part is in the transit infrastructure.

View of Tysons guideway along Route 7 in Tysons Corner. Image from the author.

Tysons tunnel proponents claimed that a Spanish-style large-bore TBM could tunnel through Tysons at lower cost than elevated rail. The authorities rejected this argument after some study, and with good reason. It may be true that the Spanish can build transit tunnels extremely cheaply (they can!), but it makes little sense to compare American elevated costs with Spanish tunneling costs.

Instead, it’s illustrative to look at relative costs of construction types. If the contractors could’ve built tunnels at the same cost as the Spaniards, they could’ve built elevated rail for less money, as well.

View of Silver Line Metro, looking back towards Greensboro Station. Image from the author.

Along Route 7, they’re starting to install sidewalks, but the pedestrian environment is still lacking.

View of new sidewalk along Route 7, leading to Greensboro Station. Image from the author.

There are opportunities for infill development along these new sidewalks, but sidewalks adjacent to a high-speed stroads isn’t the most compelling environment. Other new transit-oriented development in Tysons isn’t attempting to turn the existing main stroads (routes 7 and 123) into nice streets, but rather add a pedestrian layer on top of the current auto-centric network.

Image from the author.

Table of contents:

A visual survey of selected elevated rail viaducts: part 1 – the universe of post-tensioned pre-cast concrete

For background, see the prologue for this series.

With phase I of WMATA’s Silver Line through Tysons Corner nearing completion, we now have a better sense of the visual impact of the elevated guideways on the cityscape of Tysons Corner. Elevated rail in Tysons, given the widths of the roads it runs over/along, makes perfect sense. However, there are other examples of urban rail viaducts with more visual appeal and urban design sense than the Silver Line guideways.

Tunnels, all else being equal, would be preferable. Given the costs of tunneling (even with the promise of large diameter TBMs, Spanish-level construction costs, and other tunneling practices that could get American subway costs under control) and the reality of costs and land values means that most potential Metro expansions outside of the core will need to consider elevated rail.

Like the roads in Tysons, many potential rights of way feature plenty of room for elevated rail – if it is done well. While elevated rail in Tysons makes sense, the execution of the guideways could’ve featured better design with less visual obstruction. Jarrett Walker discusses the pro/con of elevated rail here, noting that rapid transit requires full grade separation.

For comprehensive visual documentation of the Phase I construction, I recommend Sand Box John Cambron’s blog.

Through Tysons, the elevated guideway is aligned in the center of the Route 7 roadway and alongside the Route 123 roadway. The guideways use segmented pre-cast post-tensioned box girder spans, with one box girder for each track supported by a variety of piers. Large portions of the guideway use a single pier with a large hammerhead cap to support both tracks.

Metro guideway in Tysons Corner, VA. Image from John Cambron.

Center-running guideway with hammerhead pier caps in Tysons Corner. Image from John Cambron.

Center-running guideway showing single pier supporting both tracks. Image from John Cambron.

Center-running elevated rail guideway in Tysons Corner. Image from John Cambron.

Using hammerhead pier caps increases the visual bulk of the elevated structure. A few columns integrate the pier into the guideway’s structure, providing a slimmer profile for the guideway:

Support piers integrated into guideway, reducing bulk in Tysons Corner, intersection of Route 7 and Westpark Dr. Image from John Cambron

Other aerial examples: This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive survey, but a look at a few illustrative examples of what aesthetic alternatives are available for elevated rail.

These examples are primarly from light rail and rapid transit systems relatively recently constructed; they do not represent the legacy elevated systems of Chicago, New York, and so on.

WMATA examples: Green Line, southern extension to Branch Ave. This extension of the Green line makes use of several segmented pre-cast concrete elevated structures, similar to the kind of guideway used through Tysons Corner. While the majority of the guideway crosses the green environment of Suitland Parkway, this concrete guideway has the advantage of carrying both tracks in a single structure, both minimizing the bulk of the guideway and the support piers.

WMATA Green Line guideway over Suitland Parkway. Image from Google Streetview.

Near the Branch Avenue station, as the tracks separate for the station’s island platform, each track with its own structure. North of the Branch Ave station, the two guideways are able to share a common pier without a large hammerhead cap.

WMATA guideways near Branch Ave station. Image from Google Streetview.

South of the Branch Ave station, each of the guideways feature their own piers.

WMATA Branch Ave station, looking towards Southern Ave station. Image from Google Streetview.

Seattle Link light rail: Sound Transit’s Link light rail could be called a pre-metro, thanks to extensive grade separation combined with the repurposing of Seattle’s downtown bus tunnel. It features a large amount of elevated rail (with the requisite views along the way) also making use of pre-cast concrete segmental bridges used in Tysons.

Sound Transit elevated rail. Image from Google Streetview.

Support piers feature more detailing than in other examples, with the shape of the pier caps matching the profile of the pre-cast box girder segments. Longer spans introduce subtle arches to the guideway, adding a bit of elegance to the concrete structures. The guideway also makes use of metal railings rather than soundwalls next to the track, reducing the visual bulk of the structure.

Sound Transit elevated rail over Duwamish Waterway. Image from Google Streetview.

View of elevated guideway along arterial street. Image from Google Streetview.

Seattle’s light rail pier in roadway. Image from Google Streetview.

On lower traffic roads, Seattle’s light rail includes several examples of dropping a pier in the middle of a roadway, rather than using a bigger straddle bent.

Bay Area: BART’s elevated guideways don’t appear to use the same construction methods as WMATA, but have the same concrete aesthetic. In this case, the guideway runs adjacent to a residential street, while the area under the guideway is used for greenspace and a biking/walking trail.

BART viaduct, with greenway underneath. Image from Google Streetview.

San Jose: VTA light rail features several grade separations. VTA isn’t exactly the kind of agency you’d want to emulate (good discussion here from Cap’n Transit). However, the basic geometry of their elevated track segments shows what kind of visual impact you can have with center-running elevated rail along wide roads. In this example, center-running light rail turns into an elevated alignment down the center of a wide arterial street:

VTA light rail elevated track above the center of an arterial street. Image from Google Streetview.

VTA light rail aerial station in the center of the roadway, with pedestrian access via normal sidewalk and crosswalk. Image from Google Streetview.

Since VTA uses proof of payment, faregates aren’t necessary and allows for a minimal ‘mezzanine’ area for fare control. Contrast that to the visual bulk of the rather large mezzanines in the Tysons Corner WMATA stations.

Aerial view of the same VTA station. Image from Google Maps.

Any other examples to consider?

Table of contents:

Miscellaneous information and visuals about Dulles International Airport

In the process of scouring the internet for sources for my previous post on growing air cargo traffic at Dulles International Airport, I came across a whole host of interesting documents and information that I couldn’t find a way to fit into the narrative. So, here’s a smorgasboard of some tangentially related items I found interesting.

The image above is one example, showing spacing for wayfinding signage at IAD. Some signage uses the ‘Saarinen’ typeface, designed by Eero Saarinen specifically for the airport. The graphic is from IAD’s extensive Airport Design Standards and Signing Guidelines document, a document that not only establishes standards for the aesthetics of the airport, but also reveals the future plans for expansion at IAD.

The challenge of costs: The cost per enplanement at Dulles has risen above the median for peer airports as MWAA engaged on IAD’s capital construction program. DCA’s constraints don’t provide room for growth, but don’t require large capital expenses, either:

Growth potential: Dulles has room to grow and handle 3x as many passengers as it does today, and with a significant increase in airfield capacity as well.

Future layout: While the planning consistently shows four tiers of midfield concourses, the schematic from the Design Guidelines re-names the terminals to follow the sequence of an Aerotrain trip, rather than the current nomenclature:

Regional competition among Washington-area airports: Dulles handled the most passengers in 2012, but all three airports are very similar in overall traffic levels. Dulles has the most connecting traffic (42% of passengers connect) and the fewest number of origins/destinations in the DC area. Dulles also has (by far) the international traffic:

At the same time, the FAA forecasts for growth show Dulles taking the majority of the incremental air traffic for the region:

Development opportunities: An illustrative example from MWAA’s strategic planning documents showing the land available for development at the airport:

The northern-most of those orange blobs is a potential transit-oriented development project at the Route 606 Metro Station.

Parking symbols: From the Design Guidelines, examples of sky-related symbols for parking wayfinding:

Growing cargo traffic at Dulles – the challenges of realizing the value of an aerotropolis

Dulles International Airport – from Google Maps

In DC’s western suburbs, two related battles concerning growth are at the forefront. One is a plan for a new highway, the other is the desire to expand air cargo operations at Dulles International Airport. Both concepts seem to be hitched to one another, but they ought to be considered separately on their own merits.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has expressed a desire to grow cargo traffic at Dulles. At the same time, sprawl interests are pushing the bi-county parkway, pitching the road as a benefit to Dulles. Jonathan O’Connell’s profile of several road advocates in the Washington Post shows how much of the advocacy is another verse of the same song.

Looking to untie the road interests and airport interests David Alpert asks why MWAA is pushing all things Dulles in a Washington Post op-ed, when passengers seem more interested in DCA:

Virginia and airport officials seem to behave as though their mission is to make more stuff happen at Dulles, whether that stuff wants to happen there or not.

A quick glance through an MWAA powerpoint from their strategic planning exercises explains the logic of focusing growth on Dulles. DCA is constrained (physically, legally) with room to grow only on the margins. DCA can never be the full-service International airport that IAD can; and MWAA fears maximizing value at DCA would hurt IAD’s currently fragile position – the FAA’s recently approved slot-swap gave JetBlue a foothold at DCA, with a corresponding reduction in flights at IAD (slide 16).

Dulles relies on air traffic for approximately 75% of its revenues. While Dulles has tremendous capacity to grow, realizing that potential requires additional capital investment, such as Dulles’ Aerotrain and other elements of the recent D2 program. Now, Dulles finds itself trapped with a higher cost per enplanement than other airports due to the capital program, and a revenue stream overly reliant on aviation revenues.

Increased air cargo has the potential to help on both counts. More freight means more flights, boosting aviation revenues without requiring new airport facility investments. More freight also means increased demand for revenue-generating uses of airport land that currently lie fallow.

The catch is this: it’s not easy creating a freight business out of nothing. Dulles does not have the central location like Memphis or Louisville, the central US hubs for FedEx and UPS, respectively. The area does not have a huge manufacturing base, either – air cargo shipments originating or terminating in IAD would need to focus on consumer goods. Likewise, the airport does not currently have a major cargo presence that would lure the manufacturing that does exist in the area to cluster around the airport. Chickens and eggs are both missing.

There are opportunities, however. Dulles does have huge tracts of land, the ability for 24 hour operations, and lots of airfield capacity. Both FedEx and UPS operate regional hubs in the US to avoid the need to route all cargo through their core hubs in Memphis and Louisville. On the east coast, FedEx operates out of Newark while UPS operates their east coast hub in Philadelphia. Linda Loyd profiled the UPS operation in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Starting at 7 a.m. each day, UPS planes arrive in Philadelphia from Cologne, which is UPS’s European hub, and from England and Paris. International flights from Louisville, Ky., stop in Philadelphia heading to Europe, and planes leave Europe, stopping in Philadelphia, bound for Louisville, which is UPS’s air headquarters. Each afternoon, flights arrive here loaded with packages from Dallas and Southern California.

UPS is the world’s largest transportation company, and the Philadelphia facility – second in size only to Louisville – handles 70,000 parcels and documents per hour. That number reaches 95,000 at peak times like Christmas, with parcels headed to and from 18 states, as far west as California.

…

Just before midnight, as passenger terminals and commercial flights are winding down, operations are heating up at UPS. Package sorting largely happens at night. More than 1,000 UPS workers report at 11 p.m. for the “night sort,” which continues until about 3 a.m., or until all packages are unloaded and sorted and put back into trucks, trailers, and planes to leave again.

Cargo moves around the world in multiple stops, not one long journey.

At each stop, planes and trucks are emptied, and packages are sorted and scanned, and reloaded on other flights. The network tracks packages on each leg of the trip, in order to maximize the weight and loads, through constant sorting and resorting. While a lot of the work is automated, it requires an army of people, along with bar-code scanners and a city of conveyor belts that crisscross like freeways.

Philadelphia’s UPS facility might be ripe for poaching: As Loyd’s article notes, the 212 acre site lies in the way of a proposed runway expansion at PHL. The airport’s proffered alternative location is smaller, closer to residential neighbors, and without room for expansion. Unsurprisingly, UPS does not favor the expansion (nor does PHL’s anchor tenant, US Air – fearing the increased fees that currently hurt an airport like Dulles).

In the case that UPS is looking for alternative airports, MWAA Board Minutes show the courtship in progress. Dulles can offer an east-coast location with room to grow and unconstrained flight operations, and hooking an anchor cargo integrator like UPS would be attractive to other air cargo operators, as well as businesses with lots of air cargo shipments.

While increased cargo is one option to grow non-aviation revenues through land development, it is not the only option. Increasing non-aviation revenues is important to provide a counter-cyclical revenue source for airport operations. It also represents a change in MWAA’s practices – while most airports have been increasing their share of non-aeronautical revenues, MWAA has been going in the opposite direction (page 28).

The options under immediate consideration, however, sound awfully uninspiring (if functional): more parking, another gas station, and an additional hotel (page 29). On the western side of the airport, near the proposed highway expansion, MWAA envisions industrial development that can benefit from direct access to the airport’s ramp.

MWAA supports road expansion near the airport because MWAA is not in a position to argue against improvements to airport access. However, that doesn’t mean the shape of development on and around the airport can’t move in a more sustainable direction. There are a great deal of opportunities to green the airport, but perhaps the most promising would be re-thinking the shape of airport development with the arrival of Metro into something akin to other ‘airport city’ concepts around the world – capitalizing on the real estate value Metro will bring, the on-airport location, and the virtuous cycle of improving IAD’s airport experience – certainly more ambitious than a second convenience store.

Part of the challenge is in counting on growth – the accuracy record of forecast traffic doesn’t exactly build confidence, but the future for more urban development, walkable places, and transit-oriented development in the region is promising. The challenge will be in taking the city approach to the airport; thinking beyond just infrastructure, cargo, and agglomeration economies. Airport terminals are already, by necessity, pedestrian-oriented environments between drop-off and the gate. Extending that mindset beyond the terminal is the next step.

Links: iPhones and airports

CC image from Yutaka Tsutano

Rail to Dulles: MWAA Board member Robert Brown suggests eliminating the Dulles Airport rail station and replacing it with a people mover to connect to the Route 28 station as a means to save costs. Yonah Freemark finds the concept intriguing, offering some operational considerations that could make it work.

However, the notion that building an entirely new landside people mover system will save money is ludicrous (IAD’s AeroTrain just clocked in at $1.4 billion). Likewise, while the concept would be an interesting solution to connecting an existing airport to an existing rail link (such as between BWI and the BWI rail station), the fact that the rail line has not yet built is a perfect opportunity to ensure that the airport itself is ‘on the way,’ to borrow Jarrett Walker’s terminology.

Freemark notes that one benefit of this concept would be to reduce travel time to the core and/or Tysons, but several other concepts considered by Metro would probably provide more utility to larger areas of service.

Meanwhile, Dulles offers a connection to the world via it’s ‘accidental aerotropolis.’

iPhones and agglomerations: When I last touched on the Aerotropolis, I noted Aaron Renn’s observation that the book isn’t so much about airports and cities as it is about globalization. One such element is the extensive description of the extraordinary agglomeration of manufacturing infrastructure and firms in Shenzhen.

This weekend’s New York Times contains a lengthy article on why the iPhone and other similar devices are not manufactured in the United States. In his blog, Paul Krugman sums up that article in one word: agglomeration. Some key snippets from the article:

But by 2004, Apple had largely turned to foreign manufacturing. Guiding that decision was Apple’s operations expert, Timothy D. Cook, who replaced Mr. Jobs as chief executive last August, six weeks before Mr. Jobs’s death. Most other American electronics companies had already gone abroad, and Apple, which at the time was struggling, felt it had to grasp every advantage.

In part, Asia was attractive because the semiskilled workers there were cheaper. But that wasn’t driving Apple. For technology companies, the cost of labor is minimal compared with the expense of buying parts and managing supply chains that bring together components and services from hundreds of companies.

For Mr. Cook, the focus on Asia “came down to two things,” said one former high-ranking Apple executive. Factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what’s in the U.S.” The result is that “we can’t compete at this point,” the executive said.

Since we’re talking about iPhones and not cheap Christmas ornaments, the availability of materials and the skill of the labor is more important than the cost of that labor – all benefits of the large agglomeration of technology firms in Shenzhen.

For years, cellphone makers had avoided using glass because it required precision in cutting and grinding that was extremely difficult to achieve. Apple had already selected an American company, Corning Inc., to manufacture large panes of strengthened glass. But figuring out how to cut those panes into millions of iPhone screens required finding an empty cutting plant, hundreds of pieces of glass to use in experiments and an army of midlevel engineers. It would cost a fortune simply to prepare.

Then a bid for the work arrived from a Chinese factory.

When an Apple team visited, the Chinese plant’s owners were already constructing a new wing. “This is in case you give us the contract,” the manager said, according to a former Apple executive. The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day.

The Chinese plant got the job.

“The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.”

More thoughts on iPhones, agglomerations, and jobs from Matt Yglesias and Tyler Cowen.

Likewise, an interesting set of charts looking at market share for various computing platforms – starting from more traditional personal computers, but eventually adding in smartphones and tablets. While smartphones and tablets aren’t yet substitutes for a personal computer, they’re getting closer.

Station Domination: via Tyler Cowen, an interesting post from Matt Glassman on the cost of Metro station advertising and the linkages between national politics and the local transit system.

In need of a good decongestant: Housing Complex takes a look at slight optimism from COG staffers on de-congestion pricing, and makes note of a lengthy Washingtonian piece on the subject.

Links – burrowing, tunneling

WaPo infographic on NATM for Dulles Metro

Curious about the tunnel progress for the Dulles Metro line? I ran across a WaPo infographic on the Dulles Metro line’s tunnel under the intersection of Routes 123 and 7 in Tysons Corner. This tunnel is being completed via the New Austrian Tunneling Method – the graphic explains the process and shows the tunnel’s path under the highest point in Fairfax County.

Similarly, there’s tunneling in Russia. The English Russia blog has some great shots of new station construction for the St. Petersburg Metro. Thanks to the geology of the city (built on fill, swamps, etc) the nearest reasonable strata to tunnel in is quite deep, making the Metro the deepest in the world.

Unhappier Hipsters? Matt Yglesias’s twitter feed is apparently feeding the beast.

Not in the erogenous zone? Ah, there’s nothing quite like the unintended consequences of land use law.

Paul Pickthorne, of Merrimack Park, has been hosting kink parties in his house for some time, and has been charging admission to defray the costs of hosting. His non-kinky (that we know of, anyway) neighbors complained to their county council representative, Roger Berliner, who responded that the county “has moved aggressively to put an end to this blight on your community.” This swift action took the form of a warning from the zoning inspector.

Charging admission might be a commercial use, eh? Either way, it’s worth taking note of this particular case study of how zoning laws are used for all sorts of nitpicky regulations and impositions.

Streetcar wires and trees – not a problem. Streetcars 4 DC collects some case studies of how DC’s potential streetcars can get along just fine with neighboring trees.

The new Times Square will be around for a while. The folks at StreetFilms put together a nice piece showing off the transformation of Times Square in advance of Mayor Bloomberg’s decision on making the changes permanent.

Today, they did just that. Streetsblog has the story:

After weighing a dramatic decline in traffic injuries and data from millions of taxi trips showing an average seven percent increase in west Midtown traffic speeds, Bloomberg characterized the results of the trial as very encouraging. Safety improvements alone, he noted, were “reason enough to make this permanent.”

In a rather extraordinary Q&A session that followed the announcement, Bloomberg fended off several questions from reporters who expressed skepticism that overall traffic speeds had improved. The mayor did not shy from the chance to frame pedestrian, bicycle and transit improvements in a way that New Yorkers rarely hear from their elected officials.

“Are the roads for pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists,” he asked, “or are they just for motorists?” When it comes to streets that safely serve all users and create vibrant public spaces, he suggested, New York has fallen behind its competitor cities around the globe.

Great news. The final report and data that was evaluated is available here (PDF).

City Block

a work in progress…