Tag Archives: scale

Perimeter rules – DCA, LGA, and the challenges of regulating both airline and passenger behavior

Recently, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey floated the idea of eliminating LaGuardia Airport’s 1,500 mile perimeter rule. Only two major airports in the United States have perimeter restrictions that ban flights beyond a certain distance: LaGuardia and Washington National.

Both National and LaGuarida airports share a common history: both pre-date the jet age. both were constructed with the assistance of the Works Progress Administration, both later proved too small for jet traffic and the boom in air travel, requiring the construction of newer, larger airports.

Today, there are also several characteristics in common: both National and LaGuardia are governed and operated as a part of an airport system (administered respectively by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, also operating Dulles International; and the Port Authority of NY and NJ, operating Newark and JFK airports), both airports are popular with business travelers, and both airports are subject to perimeter rule restrictions that limit the distance of scheduled flights.

DCAperimeter1

The evolution of DCA perimeter restrictions. Rings around DCA show the 1965 650mi rule, the 1981 1,000mi rule, the 1986 1,250mi rule, and the current beyond-perimeter destinations. Image from the Great Circle Mapper – www.gcmap.com

The rule first appeared with the dawn of the jet age. National Airport had non-stop long-distance airline service via propellor-driven aircraft, prior to the rise of jets in commercial aviation. However, DCA was not equipped to deal with the different geometry required for efficient operations of jet aircraft. Dulles International Airport, purpose-built for the jet age, opened in 1962. Noise from jet aircraft was a large reason behind the perimeter rule, but part of the reasoning for the rule was to drive jet traffic to Dulles as well.

The first version of the rule, put in place in 1965, limited flights to a 650 mile radius of Washington, DC. This range just barely includes Chicago; airports that already had non-stop service into DCA (such as Minneapolis and Denver) were granted exemptions. Long-distance flights, exploiting the rapidly growing capabilities of jet aircraft, were forced to use either Dulles or neighboring BWI airport.

The perimeter expanded to 1,000 miles in 1981, allowing non-stop service to South Florida, Kansas City, Saint Louis, and others. In 1986, the perimeter expanded again, to 1,250 miles, far enough to allow non-stop flights from Dallas and Houston.

In 1999, Senator John McCain of Arizona campaigned to remove the perimeter rule entirely. As a compromise, Senator McCain’s hometown airline, America West (later merged with US Air, and now American Airlines) was granted new beyond-perimeter exemptions to serve Phoenix and Las Vegas.

In 2012, the FAA granted several new beyond-perimeter exemptions for new flights to Portland, San Juan, and Austin. The FAA was directed to allow these exemptions by Congress as a part of the FAA’s reauthorization.

Each successive modification of the perimeter rule involved direction action from Congress. As a quirk of DC’s status as a federal enclave, both DCA and IAD (despite both being located outside of the District of Columbia) were built and operated by the Federal government, acting in its capacity as the local government for the National Capital. Both airports were the only airports directly operated by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Since then, several conditions changed. In 1973, Congress granted limited home rule to the District of Columbia, thereby differentiating local government services from those provided by the Federal government. In 1987, Congress created (in conjunction with DC and Virginia) the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority to operate both National and Dulles. The federal government retains ownership of both airports.

However, despite the move for increased local control for the region’s airports, much of the regulation surrounding them is still codified in federal laws and regulations.

1500 mile perimeter around LGA, with one beyond-perimeter exception for Denver. Image from the Great Circle Mapper - www.gcmap.com

1500 mile perimeter around LGA, with one beyond-perimeter exception for Denver. Image from the Great Circle Mapper – www.gcmap.com

Unlike National, LaGuardia’s perimeter rule is entirely self-imposed. The Port Authority imposed LaGuardia’s 1500-mile perimeter rule (with an exception for beyond-perimeter flights to Denver) in 1984 as a means to manage congestion at the airport and force some traffic to either EWR or JFK.

When looking into additional perimeter exemptions for DCA, the Government Accountability Office argued that the potential loss of flights from Dulles and BWI wouldn’t be catastrophic, and additional competition at the most central airport (in this case, DCA) would be good for consumers.

However, both MWAA and the Port Authority are tasked with managing an airport system, not just maximizing value at one particular airport. Data from MWAA shows a strong correlation between additional capacity for beyond-perimeter flights at DCA with reduced capacity for those same destinations at Dulles.

DCAperimeter2

Dulles is now caught in a vicious cycle. To deal with growth in the mid-2000s, Dulles began a series of massive capital improvements to increase the airport’s capacity and address some of the inherent flaws in the airport’s design (e.g. replacing the plane-mate ‘moon buggies’ with the Aerotrain APM). Unfortunately, since MWAA took on these costs domestic passenger numbers are down, thanks to the collapse of Independence Air, the Great Recession, and the merger of United and Continental (making Dulles is no longer United’s primary east coast hub). All of these factors are driving up the cost per passenger for each remaining enplanement at Dulles. Add in the increase competition from new slots at DCA, and Dulles is struggling.

In response, MWAA is not only dealing with falling traffic at Dulles, but with DCA’s growing pains. The Authority’s new use and lease agreement with the various airlines that use the airports includes a substantial capital program over the next 10 years at DCA to accommodate additional passengers. Part of the Authority’s response is to argue vociferously against any additional exemptions to the DCA perimeter rule; however, they are at the mercy of Congress.

The Port Authority might not need to protect JFK to the same extent that MWAA would like to protect their investments in Dulles, but MWAA’s current experience should provide a cautionary tale. Removal of the perimeter restrictions at LGA would certainly produce winners and losers among both airline tenants at each airport and for the passengers that use them; it’s certainly unlikely to decrease passenger loads at LGA. In fact, American Airlines’ president argues that any changes should wait until upgrades to LGA’s terminals are complete so that they can handle additional passengers.

First, it’s also worth remembering the reason for the imposition of the perimeter rule in the first place: managing demand for one particular airport. True, it’s a somewhat crude tool to manage demand (many are already predicting that DCA-style exemptions to the rule is where the PA will end up), and even without the perimeter rule, there are still slot rules to contend with (another tricky subject).

A second challenge is addressing uncertainty: with airport funding dependent on revenues from airline traffic, a small change can have a big impact. Dulles’ capital program has been greatly affected by changes in traffic levels and by mergers in the industry that shift the airport’s importance to their main tenant in an instant. The need for several of the projects (as well as Dulles’ unaddressed capital needs, such as a new C/D concourse) stems from the airport’s original design, unable to foresee the changes in security requirements, airline boarding practice (jet bridges instead of plane mates), or airline business models (deregulation, leading to the adoption of the hub and spoke model, requiring large concourses for transferring passengers). Dulles was planned and built for the jet age. The original decisions on runway geometry and airfield characteristics have proven to be very accurate; the decisions based on predictions about the behavior of both passengers and airlines has been less successful.

Finally, there’s the need to manage the behavior of two different kinds of users: passengers and airlines. Look at the comments in just about any thread about DCA’s perimeter rule and you’ll find plenty of frequent flyers arguing against the rule. Yet, MWAA can’t successfully implement any changes to their airports without the cooperation of their tenant airlines, acting based on their own set of incentives and preferences. In asking about DCA’s ideal role in the DC region, David Alpert asks:

Should DCA be a sort of niche airport with smaller planes to many little destinations, or an airport that tries to serve as much of the travel demand, close in to the center of the region, as possible? There’s no obvious answer.

Not only is the answer not obvious, but the question itself is more complicated: an airport’s role is only as good as the service that airlines provide; the economics of the kinds of service airlines can provide at any given airport will depend a great deal on a number of factors: airport capacity, costs per enplanement, demand for travel, location/role in an airline’s network, etc.

Shifting an airport’s role can’t be imposed on the airlines; it takes a partnership.

Transit as a regulated public utility: myopic?

Cap’n Transit looks at my recent discussion of transit governance structures (summarizing a good back and forth between David Levinson and Lisa Schweitzer) and sees transportation myopia:

They were all three suffering from transportation myopia: the condition of seeing transit as a self-contained system rather than as an option in competition with private cars and other modes, and of seeing transit as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end.

The Cap’n defines transportation myopia as follows, complete with this illustration of the bigger picture:

Cap'n Transit's virtuous cycle - a reminder of the big picture.

Cap’n Transit’s virtuous cycle – a reminder of the big picture.

Essentially, transportation myopia involves people forgetting that transit competes with cars. As a result they often forget why they care about transit, and treat transit as a goal in itself.

I both agree and disagree. It can be hard to not be a bit myopic when transit operations fail to meet their potential. On the other hand, the accusation of myopia also strikes me as unfair:

What we need to talk about is how to get full cost pricing for roads, including potential challenges and ways to overcome them. But for some reason Levinson doesn’t talk about any of that, he just goes on to talk about smart cards and land value capture and bond markets.

Levinson’s initial post wasn’t an unlimited forum; he noted his word count limit in one of his blog follow-ups. He’s also written extensively on road pricing (including some really in-the-weeds stuff).

These policies did not go unmentioned. Looking to other examples of good transit governance, the cases from Germany explicitly mention the key role of policies that both make car use more expensive, less convenient, and less detrimental to urban life and ‘last mile’ transportation modes (e.g. biking and walking) complimentary to transit. From Ralph Buehler and John Pucher:

Transport, taxation, and land-use policies at all levels of government have helped to make German public transport more attractive compared to the automobile. For example, area-wide traffic calming, car-free pedestrian zones, increased fees for car parking, and reduced parking supply slow down car travel, raise its cost, and make it less convenient. Similarly, federal taxation policies have helped make car use more expensive…

Since the 1970s, most German cities have improved conditions for cycling and walking by traffic-calming nearly all neighborhood streets to 30 km/h or less, pedestrianizing downtowns, and expanding networks of separate bike paths and lanes (Pucher and Buehler, 2008). The vast majority of German passengers access public transport by bicycle or foot…

City planners deliberately connect sidewalks, crosswalks, and bike paths and lanes with transit stops…

German land-use laws and regulations encourage dense and mixed-use settlements, which facilitate transit use…

When considering Boston, I included this parenthetical about the cause of much of the MBTA’s debt and the failures of the Massachusetts decision-makers in prioritizing a massive urban freeway undergrounding project:

(It’s worth noting the decision-making priorities involved in the Big Dig – the massive tunnelling project was only approved because the transit mitigation projects, backed by transit advocates as a way to hitch their wagon to omnipresent highway funding – yet those projects were never fully funded and now play a large role in exacerbating the agency’s stability. Imagine a project that simply removed the Central Artery and ‘replaced’ it with the long-imagined North/South rail link instead; or where the response to the Big Dig proposal was focused on re-defining the project itself rather than just tacking on ‘mitigation’ transit expansion.)

It’s true that I could’ve put more emphasis on the complimentary policies that go with good transit governance. However, that doesn’t address the broader questions of how to better govern, fund, and operate our transit systems. Looking at governance models for transit operators is certainly narrow in focus compared to debates about the bigger picture priorities, but I don’t think it deserves the negative connotations of myopia.

That said, I still welcome the critique. In the Cap’n’s page on transportation myopia, he closes with this:

A lot of transit advocates that I know and respect have demonstrated transportation myopia. If I call you out on it, it’s nothing personal. We’re on the same side, and I’m doing it to help you accomplish a goal that we all share.

I appreciate the reminder. Seeing the forest for the trees can be a challenge, and it always helps to have a reminder about the big picture.

Seeing the forest for the trees, and vice versa

CC image from Vincent Ferron

CC image from Vincent Ferron

As the saying goes, sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. You can’t focus too hard on the details of each individual tree and still get the bigger picture – all of those trees form a larger ecosystem – a forest.

The expression (almost always used negatively) only speaks to one’s perspective, however. No matter that perspective, there is a forest comprised of many individual trees. The phrase is targeted at a person’s perspective, but it does speak to the differences in both scale and perspective about any given issue.

Let’s Go LA used this formulation to discuss the division between two broad schools of thought on urban housing, particularly in constrained markets with rising housing prices: those that focus on supply restrictions and those that focus on community integrity and preventing displacement.

The difference in tactics between these two groups often leaves them at odds with each other. However, these schools of thought are two sides of the same coin, with similar goals but approaching the problem from opposite ends. Call the land use liberalization advocates the “macro” view, focusing on overall regional housing supply, and the anti-displacement advocates the “micro” view, focusing on the stories of individuals affected by rapid neighborhood change.

The challenge in crafting policy is that both schools of thought have a claim to the truth. Crafting policy for a city isn’t a choice between the forest or the trees, as there isn’t a difference between the two approaches.

This isn’t the only dichotomy you’ll find in a city. I’ve written previously about the tensions that rise out of the different views of real estate in cities – it is both a financial investment and a component of a city’s urban design. Tensions between these schools of thought can be exacerbated by policies that conflate the two – is the mortgage interest deduction a policy focused on housing or on real estate investment?

  • Trees v. forest
  • Micro v. macro
  • Neighborhood v. region
  • Building v. neighborhood

DC’s debate about pop-up development similarly pits two competing views about the same city against one another: is the city an urban design forest being altered by the trees of the individual property rights of owners? Are those pop-ups representing a healthy regional housing market responding to demand, a forest ecosystem regenerating itself; or a metastastizing growth that threatens ‘neighborhood character?‘

Both are lenses we can use to look at the city. The challenge is finding a policy that can thread the needle without ignoring the bigger picture goals that can be more abstract: not the forest or trees, but a desire for a healthy environment (as an example). Let’s Go LA makes the case that finding that common ground and realizing that the trees make the forest while the forest comprised of the trees is critical in moving forward:

See the forest for the trees, or see the trees for the forest.

The key is to realize that we all share a common goal – a city that is affordable and accessible to all those who want it. When land use liberalization advocates and anti-displacement advocates argue with each other, we let the truly responsible parties – wealthy neighborhoods that stifle any and all development – off the hook.

Too often, the conversation turns into a debate about which perspective is ‘right.’ The reality is that both (all?) perspectives have value. The debate can obscure areas of agreement; it can also foster a misunderstanding of how cities evolve. The only constant is change.

Scale, urban design, and architecture

CC image from MV Jantzen

Last week’s City Paper cover story, a profile of DC architect Eric Colbert by Lydia DePillis, contains several jabs at Colbert’s not-so-daring designs:

You may not remember precisely what they look like, though. They form a background blur in neighborhoods where much of Colbert’s work is clustered, blending together quietly in the mind of people walking down the street—just the way the neighbors, developers, and bankers intended.

Throughout the article, there’s an undercurrent of disappointment about this blending in that Colbert accomplishes, as if the lack of a bold design is the sign of a bad design.  What’s missing in this conception, however, is the difference in scale between architecture and urban design, between the scale of a building and the scale of a city.

Colbert is now a major influence on entire neighborhoods, not just individual blocks. Nowhere is this truer than greater 14th Street, where Elinor Bacon had accorded him the status of the Creator. But unlike his more imperialistic architectural predecessors, who knew they’d get to design large chunks of the city at once (and often had their own money in the deal), Colbert doesn’t think about leaving an imprint on the built environments he’s played a huge part in shaping.

“You know, it’s hard, because each project comes to us individually, with a different client, a different set of neighbors,” he says, when I ask whether he thinks about molding a place like 14th and U. “We really look at the block. It never occurred to me that we would be doing four projects on 14th Street, with potentially two more in the wings. So it wasn’t possible to know in advance, and say, ‘This is how I’m going to shape 14th Street.”

“Not that I would want to be that controlling,” he adds.

Even the more “imperialistic” predecessors DePillis mentions (Harry Wardman, for example*) weren’t really ‘shaping’ their areas of the city so much as they were styling it.  The shape of the city is a product of urban design and the way that the buildings frame public spaces, as opposed to architecture that operates at a smaller scale.  In unpacking Colbert’s appeal, DePillis hints at the real forces shaping that design:

In Washington, where knowing local zoning codes and historic districts saves time and angst, hiring an architect remains a model of shopping locally. With the exception of Georgetown-based Eastbanc and local heavyweight JBG, who are willing to spend a bit more on a name-brand architect from out of town, most developers have a stable of local architects and rotate through them. “It’s a small town feel to it, and nobody likes outsiders,” says Four Points Development’s Stan Voudrie, who retained Colbert for his Progression Place project in Shaw. “D.C.’s a little bit of a closed loop.”

What’s Colbert’s competitive advantage? In large part, it’s that Colbert isn’t just an architect. He’s a development partner through all stages of a project, from conception to interior design to city review processes to working with contractors through the mundane details of construction—which a snootier designer might consider beneath him.

Emphasis mine.  In short, the codes shape the built form of the city, if not the architectural style of the individual buildings.  Building a narrative about an individual’s style and his ability to shape the city accordingly is enticing, but the more important forces are legal ones. Now, whether those codes are shaping the city as intended or not is another question.

The other question is if bold architecture is wanted. Every city needs the kind of urban fabric that provides the bulk of the buildings but tends to blend into the surrounding context (more often, it is the surrounding context). That Colbert aims to contribute to this shouldn’t be a negative. Jahn Gehl has repeatedly noted how Dubai’s emphasis on monumental architecture with no surrounding context (“birdshit architecture“) fails to create a sense of place.  If every building tries to be unique, then none of them are.

*I’ve been meaning to link to this map from Park View DC, showing the development of various tracts of land over time in Park View. The key takeaway is that almost all of our cherished residential neighborhoods were once created via for-real estate development. Too often, NIMBY attitudes seem to denigrate developers, but this is merely the process of city building in action.  These old rowhouses are no different, they’ve just aged over time.