Quote:
Originally Posted by CharlesCO
There's been a lot of talk on some aviation forums about what to do about DIA.
I don't think a pedestrian tunnel is a great idea. They couldn't put it in between the trains like at ATL because there are all those track switchbacks. Putting it somewhere to the side might be convenient for connecting passengers, but less so for O&D. There's also the distance problem – the concourses are massively far apart, and it could easily be close to a 2-mile walk from the terminal to whatever gate is on the far end of C that they're building.
If the airport does end up building Concourses D and E as originally planned, they've explored the idea of building two extra train tunnels that would hit the outer nodes of each concourse. I really like this idea, but I'm sure it wouldn't be cheap. Then again, one of the biggest costs of building subways in cities is utility relocation. I wouldn't think they'd have to worry about that there.
As of now, I think they're hoping that software changes and new train cars will allow for shorter headways. That should be good, but they also really should think about going from four-car to six-car trains. The platforms were already built to expand that way.
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Yeah, the more I thought about this after reading some of the comments, the more I suddenly realized DIA is facing a huge challenge here.
There isn't an optimal, efficient way to solve the problem of getting people from security to B/C faster.
And train upgrades are only going to get you so far. With the terminal expansions, this means more people are going to be funneling through DIA (whether local or connecting). So.... What do you do?
The terminals are too far apart to build above-ground connections. Pedestrian tunnels would be expensive, and take a long time, even with moving walkways.
You can't simply build roads that go up to the terminals.
So.... you either build new underground train lines, or...... I don't know?
It's a potentially huge problem for DIA that may help cap growth at some point. It has all the room in the world to grow more runways and terminals, but if there if it starts to take people more than 30 minutes to get from security to their terminal, then you have a major problem.