[dionidium]

> Second, we already have a perfectly fine train to O'Hare!

People who don't like or use transit love to talk about trains to the airport. It reveals a lot about how they view transit. To wit: it's a novelty, for special situations, for when you couldn't otherwise use your car to get where you're going.

It's not real transportation, in other words. It's a shuttle for the exceptions in your life.

[peatmoss]

You’re not the only one to note this phenomenon. Airports in general aren’t the biggest generators of trips.

I’ve watched the process unfold in Seattle; the light rail opened first with service connecting the airport to downtown. During this period actual ridership was fairly small. Then they opened the second phase which connects downtown through a major neighborhood to University of Washington. Over night, ridership jumped massively.

I’m not opposed to airport rail per se, but there are generally much, much better places to build rail to and from.

Caveats about Seattle’s airport link: Building to the airport first did in some sense prioritize service to poorer neighborhoods in the Rainier Valley. That’s good-ish, but was made less good by making it a surface train, and cutting local bus service which often better served the local needs of those communities.

[donarb]

But that jump in ridership is also lots of people heading to/from the airport. I live in Ballard and twice in the past year I have ridden cross town to the UW station and then rode the light rail to the airport. Lots cheaper than an Uber. I noticed that a lot of people also had the same idea, quite a few people ride the train to the airport from the north.

[peatmoss]

Certainly connecting light rail to other destinations has also yielded improvements to airport ridership. But that doesn't change that downtown to airport, by itself, was a relative ghost town. We already had a major destination (downtown) connecting to the airport. That tells me that thing on the other end (the airport) just wasn't a very major destination.

Bellevue, West Seattle, and Ballard links can't happen soon enough. I suspect each of those will also generate far more ridership than the downtown-to-airport link as well.

[dionidium]

>twice in the past year I have ridden cross town to the UW station and then rode the light rail to the airport.

Right. But...twice in one year. You're making my point.