Major airports by distance from "downtown"

[plinko]

I had the pleasure of flying into Kai Tak 3 days before it closed. Even got a missed approach in a 747 that actually hit the runway and took off again. So actually landed twice...

Anyway...

Indianapolis is 14 miles from IIA to Monument Circle
Albuquerque is 5.5 miles from ABQ to Civic Plaza
Long Beach is 25 miles from LGB to LA City Hall and 7 miles to Long Beach City Hall
Naples is 4 miles from NAP to Municipio and only 2.5 miles to Napoli Centrale
Beijing is 19 miles from PEK to Tiananmen Square
Santa Barbara is 10 miles from SBA to DeLaGuerra Plaza

[Yuri]

Good Lord! Missed approach there, with a 747?! I’d have a heart attack.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Streamliner

San Diego is the closest airport to any downtown I've seen. If you measure from the runway apron, it's basically across the street from the edge of downtown. Less than a mile to City Hall (in the absolute center) for sure. Landing in San Diego has the most dramatic/scary city views.


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Yikes

[atlantaguy]

Originally Posted by Docere

Yikes

It's actually fun, and the views are amazing (especially from the left side of the cabin).

[pj3000]

Downtown Pittsburgh to Pittsburgh International is about 18 miles driving distance.

Totally annoying as there is no light rail connection.

One of the absolute most frustrating drives to an airport that I've ever experienced when in heavy traffic.

[FromSD]

Originally Posted by Docere

Yikes

San Diego Lindbergh Field's location Downtown makes it very convenient for travelers in much of the city. But the airport has only a single runway and there is no room to add a second. I think San Diego's small airport is one of the things working against the city's economic development. The lack of direct flights out of the airport, among other things, has discouraged a large scale corporate presence Downtown. And though San Diego has actively promoted itself as a tourist destination, the mediocre airport connections make the city a destination that tourists tend to drive to for a long weekend rather than a place where people book major vacations.

And then there are the other drawbacks of Lindbergh Field: the 500 foot height limit downtown and the significant noise impact to neighborhoods under the flight paths--Banker's Hill, Point Loma and Ocean Beach among others. Plus even though the airport is close to Downtown, there is no rail connection or even direct freeway access.

By the time city leaders finally decided that San Diego needed a better alternative to Lindbergh Field, the city had spread out and there were no locations available. MCAS Miramar would make an excellent airport location, but the Marines weren't willing to give it up or even consider the possibility of dual usage. The wealthy residents of Del Mar and La Jolla wouldn't have been happy about a Miramar airport anyway. Brown Field, a municipal facility next to the border, also had possibilities, but in the late '90s a suburban development went in nearby and those residents got the city to rule out any expansion at that location.

The San Diego airport saga is one example of many showing how lack of leadership, nimbyism and overall complacency have held the city back over the decades.

[Steely Dan]

^ it seems like building a brand new, from-scratch large airport in a major US metro area would be pretty close to a political impossibility these days, unless you go the denver route and build it so far out in the boondocks that no one will really care all that much.

hell, it took chicago like a decade to get through all the legal/poltical wranglings just to rearrrange ORD's runways from the former old-school tangled bird's nest layout to the modern six parallel runway airfield. and that wasn't even a new airport, just a runway realignment project, but my how the anti-airport NIMBY's howled about it.

[Double L]

I think airports need to be a midway distance from their central cities, so that they are a close commute to the center of the city, yet they are not so close that they affect the quality of life of those neighborhoods. This under consideration, Houston’s Hobby airport is a good distance, at 9 miles from the downtown.

[BigDipper 80]

DCA has one of the best approaches to any airport because of all the FAA restrictions around the Pentagon and White House. The River Visual is a real treat.

DEN is basically in Kansas. The old Stapleton airport has been mostly redeveloped as a New Urbanist community, but there are a bunch of massive hotels in the middle of a residential neighborhood that are still there because they used to be right across the street from the airport. It's really weird.

Not sure if you can call YTZ a "major" airport but it does have commercial traffic and is Canada's 9th busiest airport. Distance from the airport to the CN tower is only 1.6 km.

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by Docere

Yikes

Whenever I think of San Diego and airplanes, I am reminded of the horrific PSA 182 crash:

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Atlas

Salt Lake doesn't have this problem because the runway approaches are oriented north-south (due to mountains) but downtown is directly east. The highest density zone has no hard cap on building height.

We don't need the FAA's help to have a short skyline!

Yeah!

We have no excuse for our lame downtown.

The airport is about 7.6 miles or so from the heart of downtown. Pretty quick ride.

It sits in an area of the city that is pretty much industrial or undeveloped:



But downtown from the airport:

[Chico Loco]

Downtown, not "downtown."

[TWAK]

Sac is 10.5 miles and Santa Rosa is 7.0 miles. Wikipedia mileage.
What's Santa Rosa (Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport) you ask? The Bay Area's 4th busiest commercial airport!

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Double L

I think airports need to be a midway distance from their central cities, so that they are a close commute to the center of the city, yet they are not so close that they affect the quality of life of those neighborhoods. This under consideration, Houston’s Hobby airport is a good distance, at 9 miles from the downtown.

Hobby is ok if you live near downtown, inside the Loop or along 45 but absolutely terrible if you live anywhere else. I stopped flying out of there when I moved up to Kingwood.

[kittyhawk28]

Originally Posted by FromSD

San Diego Lindbergh Field's location Downtown makes it very convenient for travelers in much of the city. But the airport has only a single runway and there is no room to add a second. I think San Diego's small airport is one of the things working against the city's economic development. The lack of direct flights out of the airport, among other things, has discouraged a large scale corporate presence Downtown. And though San Diego has actively promoted itself as a tourist destination, the mediocre airport connections make the city a destination that tourists tend to drive to for a long weekend rather than a place where people book major vacations.

And then there are the other drawbacks of Lindbergh Field: the 500 foot height limit downtown and the significant noise impact to neighborhoods under the flight paths--Banker's Hill, Point Loma and Ocean Beach among others. Plus even though the airport is close to Downtown, there is no rail connection or even direct freeway access.

By the time city leaders finally decided that San Diego needed a better alternative to Lindbergh Field, the city had spread out and there were no locations available. MCAS Miramar would make an excellent airport location, but the Marines weren't willing to give it up or even consider the possibility of dual usage. The wealthy residents of Del Mar and La Jolla wouldn't have been happy about a Miramar airport anyway. Brown Field, a municipal facility next to the border, also had possibilities, but in the late '90s a suburban development went in nearby and those residents got the city to rule out any expansion at that location.

The San Diego airport saga is one example of many showing how lack of leadership, nimbyism and overall complacency have held the city back over the decades.

I mean, it partly doesn't help that most San Diegans traveling internationally will just go to LAX. Brown Field is too close to Tijuana's airport such that operations would conflict, so unless the two city's were willing to collaborate to build a binational airport, it could work out, but considering border politics it would likely be too much of a headache for such a concept to pencil out.

At this point, San Diego's second best bet would simply be investing in improving rail access to LAX to provide residents with more convenient access to international flights.

Regarding the height limit, I've heard reports on this forum that the SD city government is trying to fight for loosening of the height limits in certain parts of downtown to allow for taller skyscrapers.

[nito]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yes, you have to cross through Queens to get to JFK from Manhattan. It's a very densely populated area.

Density isn’t the issue, it is the absence of direct high-capacity, frequent and fast public transport links to the city core relative to pretty much every major international peer city. I did some very lazy quick Google Map searches (from terminal agnostic airport origin to ‘London’ or ‘New York’)…

Heathrow – 22mins (23km)
City – 23mins (14km)
Gatwick – 26mins (62km)
Luton – 31mins (55km)
Newark – 39mins (22km)
La Guardia – 42mins (18km)
Stansted – 48mins (62km)
JFK – 55mins (29km)

[UrbanImpact]

Originally Posted by nito

Density isn’t the issue, it is the absence of direct high-capacity, frequent and fast public transport links to the city core relative to pretty much every major international peer city. I did some very lazy quick Google Map searches (from terminal agnostic airport origin to ‘London’ or ‘New York’)…

Heathrow – 22mins (23km)
City – 23mins (14km)
Gatwick – 26mins (62km)
Luton – 31mins (55km)
Newark – 39mins (22km)
La Guardia – 42mins (18km)
Stansted – 48mins (62km)
JFK – 55mins (29km)

Are there any existing ROWs (or future with the Gateway Link or East Side Access) that could be used for any of the New York airports for a direct connection to Manhattan?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by nito

Density isn’t the issue, it is the absence of direct high-capacity, frequent and fast public transport links to the city core relative to pretty much every major international peer city. I did some very lazy quick Google Map searches (from terminal agnostic airport origin to ‘London’ or ‘New York’)…

Heathrow – 22mins (23km)
City – 23mins (14km)
Gatwick – 26mins (62km)
Luton – 31mins (55km)
Newark – 39mins (22km)
La Guardia – 42mins (18km)
Stansted – 48mins (62km)
JFK – 55mins (29km)

Not another one of these lol. JFK doesn't have a Heathrow Express type of boondoggle, no. Which most people don't use anyway because it's ridiculously expensive and inconvenient. That's the only difference between JFK access to Manhattan and Heathrow access to Paddington Station. However, JFK is well served by public transit. Thousands of seats go between Manhattan and JFK per hour on rail based transit.

[Double L]

Originally Posted by JManc

Hobby is ok if you live near downtown, inside the Loop or along 45 but absolutely terrible if you live anywhere else. I stopped flying out of there when I moved up to Kingwood.

Houston has a second international airport which you can also use.

[Streamliner]

I have a soft spot for San Diego's airport. Yeah SAN doesn't have rail (and it absolutely should), but it has a short shuttle bus that nobody seems to use. I know people in Bankers Hill that take their bike or walk to the airport. An airport expansion is in the works that will modernize every terminal to 21st century standards. It will also increase the number of gates to 60, but will max out the runway's capacity. So the airport is great in its own ways. Plus, you can't beat the views flying in (see below).

SAN is never going to be a major hub, but with the rise of the 787/A350s, long hauls are more convenient and efficient. I just got back from a nonstop to Munich and the flights were completely full both ways. Demand is back.

• Video Link

Speaking of international flights, with the addition of the Cross Border Xpress, Tijuana International is essentially a second San Diego airport at this point, that only serves Mexican destinations. You basically complete your check-in in San Diego, and walk across to your gate in Tijuana. The bridge allows for dozens of nonstop flights accessible to the San Diego region without having to burden SAN. Unfortunately it's a 20-mile drive from Downtown San Diego.



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