I would love to see these large airports replaced with multiple smaller airports. A larger percentage of the population would have an airport nearby, and average travel times would be reduced significantly. It seems to me that planners are optimizing for everything except your personal experience when they design and advocate for mega-airports.
There is a challenge with replacing all large airports with smaller ones, when using a hub and spoke model. If you have smaller airports, you have fewer destinations, and fewer connecting flight options. NYC (DC, LA, SFO, Boston) as a gateway to the US from overseas makes some sense - lots of O/D traffic, and for those that want to continue onward, they can. I fly from my local smaller airport, which I love. And whenever I can, I use my smaller regional airport. But it doesn't always reduce travel time - it often increases it due to the need to connect for most destinations. In fact, it'll be faster for me to drive to JFK (two+ hours) for an upcoming trip to eliminate a nearly three hour flight and one hour connection - in the "wrong" direction.
self-driving cars using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2I) crash-avoidance technologies
I only have a passing knowledge of the space, but my understanding is that V2I is vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, and V2V is vehicle-to-vehicle communication.
Watching the animated
I had the exact same reaction, FWIW.
For power, each vehicle carries eight automotive batteries. Of course, these batteries need to be recharged frequently so within the attraction’s two turntables are “charging plates” that contain electromagnets. The magnets work in conjunction with onboard magnets that create an electric current that is transferred to the vehicle’s batteries. No actual physical connection is made between the charging plates in the floor and the onboard magnets. This technology, although improved, can also be seen on the Great Movie Ride and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney's Hollywood Studios.
The backscatter machines were pulled three weeks ago from New York's LaGuardia and JFK, Chicago O'Hare, Los Angeles, Boston, Charlotte and Orlando airports. The move was designed to speed up security lines at checkpoints there.
Sanders said it's worked and that lines at those airports are now moving 180,000 more passengers each day.
I find this confusing. Were the TSA lines the gating factor in keeping 180,000 passengers from flying each day? According to A4A, 2.4 Million Passengers will fly on 11/25/2012. 180,000 passengers is 7.5% of that figure. An average travel day in the US looks to be roughly 1.8 million passengers. 180,000 is 10% of that figure.
What did those 180,000 people do? Wait in line until it closed/they missed their flight, then try again another day? Decide not to fly?
Or not, if these companies go out of business, which is extremely likely to happen in the next few decades or centuries.
or years. or months.
"No, no, I don't mind being called the smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn't this one." -- Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, WATCHMEN
