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KCI in 1972 the day it open it's door was probably a beautiful and incredible experience, but it became obsolete immediately. I rather have a new airport with more nonstop flights to cities, than to fly out of it to a hub and deal with connecting. KCI doesn't work for regular flyers. For the KC residents who fly once a year nonstop to a hub city airport it's probably fine. It does feel like being in a communist bus station for those of who fly regularly.
Only issue is other then southwest. All the legacies lean very heavy on the hub and spoke model. Unless MCI were to become some sort of hub it’s hard to picture much more service domestically in terms of destination. Now international. That’s another story. Be nice to add a couple routes there.
KCI in 1972 the day it open it's door was probably a beautiful and incredible experience, but it became obsolete immediately. I rather have a new airport with more nonstop flights to cities, than to fly out of it to a hub and deal with connecting. KCI doesn't work for regular flyers. For the KC residents who fly once a year nonstop to a hub city airport it's probably fine. It does feel like being in a communist bus station for those of who fly regularly.
No it didn't....and I think you know better. I honestly don't know what to make of this comment as it sounds cut and pasted from the gospel according to urbanist "progressives", who are always agenda-driven, sensibility be damned. Your posting history doesn't follow their pattern.
Perhaps you're just a lot younger than I had assumed. KCI was a breath of fresh air when it opened and remained such for decades to come. But for apparent neglect, it still could be today. There's nothing inherently wrong with the airport, but plenty wrong with our priorities - which were turned upside down long after KCI had endeared itself to most KC users.
No it didn't....and I think you know better. I honestly don't know what to make of this comment as it sounds cut and pasted from the gospel according to urbanist "progressives", who are always agenda-driven, sensibility be damned. Your posting history doesn't follow their pattern.
Perhaps you're just a lot younger than I had assumed. KCI was a breath of fresh air when it opened and remained such for decades to come. But for apparent neglect, it still could be today. There's nothing inherently wrong with the airport, but plenty wrong with our priorities - which were turned upside down long after KCI had endeared itself to most KC users.
Now I know that your own interpretation is clouded by your own worldview.
There was nothing "urbanist" or "progressive" about the criticism of KCI. For starters, by their very nature, airports are not "urban" spaces, even though they're necessary elements of any functioning city. They require too much space to fit into any "urbanist" landscape. The proper place for a modern jet airport is indeed on the fringes of an urban agglomeration. It's where you find George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Denver International Airport, O'Hare Airport in Chicago, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta - and KCI. (Many of these locations are no longer fringe because the suburbs overran them.)
And yes, KCI did become obsolete - or maybe "functionally inadequate" is a better term - almost the day it opened. The problem was a combination of a design flaw - those narrow concourses - and a development unforeseen at the time the airport was being designed, namely, the installation of metal detectors at airport gates, a response to the wave of airliner hijackings that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The security apparatus ate into the concourse space and also put all the airport services and amenities outside the secured areas - a problem that fouls airport operations even more now that a more elaborate security theater apparatus has been installed.
The problem caused by the metal detectors was bad enough that TWA, which had asked for this revolutionary design with an eye on making its historic hometown its flight hub, went to the city and asked that the airport terminals be rebuilt to address the issues. The city, noting that it had just spent more than it planned to building the three terminals, refused. TWA then moved its flight hub across the state to older, more conventional Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
Don't get me wrong: KCI was a bold and innovative design; that DFW functions well is testament to that* (and illustrates just how much of a flaw those narrow concourses turned out to be). And Mayor Ilus Davis was wise for having committed the city to build a new airport on the grounds of Mid-Continent International. But events overtook it, as they sometimes do. Don't let your own ideology blind you to legitimate criticism based on the fallout from those events.
*However: note that no new or expanded airport built since DFW employs this design. That should also tell you something about how the airline industry views it.
Last edited by MarketStEl; 08-15-2019 at 06:15 AM..
DFW may be the same idea of "drive to your gate", but the footprint of the terminals is MUCH larger so they can do a lot more with their terminals than KCI can. I don't think DFW is set up quite like KCI is either where you can enter the terminals at so many locations and be so close to specific gates. Also, one of DFW's terminals has way more traffic than all of KCI's terminals combined, so they have enough traffic to support basic airport amenities even with the unusual layout. So while it's the same horseshoe design, it actually functions very different.
Since we will get a new KCI, this is moot now, but:
I note that I never hear gripes of this variety concerning Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
DFW is the only other airport in the country that was built using the "drive to your gate" design Kivett and Myers developed at TWA's behest for KCI. There was a crucial difference, however: the concourses at DFW are wider than those at KCI. This allows for more room for both circulation and service facilities within each terminal.
I'm not sure of this, but I believe also that arriving and departing traffic is separated onto different levels at DFW. They aren't at KCI.
I still remember tossing my suitcase towards an absolutely bewildered-looking baggage handler when I caugt my flight back home from KCI on my last visit last year. There was too little room to handle all the luggage being sent his way for outgoing flights. That (and the smell of the toilet in the one small restroom inside the secured area at the Southwest gates I used) struck me as a metaphor for what was wrong with the airport.
Say, wasn't CrownVic95 the guy who argued that Kansas Citians would never vote to scrap their oh-so-convenient airport because they knew better than the outsiders? Guess he proved to be the ultimate outsider, and the rest of us born-and-raised-there expats who were pointing out its flaws were right.
Northland KC carried the vote, Jackson counties residents, and the East side were No on new airport. For some reason Jackson county residents thought it would take away from services. I got that information from city hall friend. I think it boiled down to those who used flew frequently voting for new terminal and those who didn't fly frequently or never fly voting no. If the rest of the metro residents, especially Johnson County KS voters could have voted, it would have been a higher percentage of yes voters. In any case, one day we will have a functioning nice airport terminal for flyers.
Since we will get a new KCI, this is moot now, but:
I note that I never hear gripes of this variety concerning Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
DFW is the only other airport in the country that was built using the "drive to your gate" design Kivett and Myers developed at TWA's behest for KCI. There was a crucial difference, however: the concourses at DFW are wider than those at KCI. This allows for more room for both circulation and service facilities within each terminal.
I'm not sure of this, but I believe also that arriving and departing traffic is separated onto different levels at DFW. They aren't at KCI.
I still remember tossing my suitcase towards an absolutely bewildered-looking baggage handler when I caugt my flight back home from KCI on my last visit last year. There was too little room to handle all the luggage being sent his way for outgoing flights. That (and the smell of the toilet in the one small restroom inside the secured area at the Southwest gates I used) struck me as a metaphor for what was wrong with the airport.
Say, wasn't CrownVic95 the guy who argued that Kansas Citians would never vote to scrap their oh-so-convenient airport because they knew better than the outsiders? Guess he proved to be the ultimate outsider, and the rest of us born-and-raised-there expats who were pointing out its flaws were right.
Northland KC carried the vote, Jackson counties residents, and the East side were No on new airport. For some reason Jackson county residents thought it would take away from services. I got that information from city hall friend. I think it boiled down to those who used flew frequently voting for new terminal and those who didn't fly frequently or never fly voting no. If the rest of the metro residents, especially Johnson County KS voters could have voted, it would have been a higher percentage of yes voters. In any case, one day we will have a functioning nice airport terminal for flyers.
Didn't it pass by like over 70%. There is pretty much no way it would have passed by that margin unless it passed in Jackson County as well. The east side may have voted it down (they vote down everything), but I think Jackson County as a whole passed it and probably by a decent margin.
Didn't it pass by like over 70%. There is pretty much no way it would have passed by that margin unless it passed in Jackson County as well. The east side may have voted it down (they vote down everything), but I think Jackson County as a whole passed it and probably by a decent margin.
(emphasis added)
The plight of the East Side does concern me, for reasons that should be obvious to you.
And even though East Siders' sense of deprivation when it comes to City Hall spending money on their concerns may be exaggerated, I do get the increasing impression that maybe the rest of the city might do well to ask itself why they feel that way rather than dismiss the complaining out of hand.
I would, however, go so far as to speculate that lovekcmo is right about the margins among those who have actually used the airport over the recent past vs. those who never have. I'd like to suggest that a certain self-righteous San Franciscan posting here probably falls into the latter category.
The east side has voted down major infrastructure improvements that would have vastly benefited the east side. The city backed light rail proposal had two light rail lines, one on main and another generally following Bruce Watkins. It bombed on the east side. The more recent streetcar proposal would have built several streetcar lines on the east side, but it again bombed on the east side enough to fail it for the entire city. So now, the streetcars will only be expanded west of Troost.
The entire city recently passed a city wide sales tax specifically dedicated to the east side. The entire city needs to make sure the east side is getting taken care of, but at the same time, the residents of the east side could do more as well.
And yeah, people who actually travel more than once a year or two or five and see how third world KC's airport is compared to just about any terminal in the country will be far more likely to support a new terminal that the average voter that rarely, if ever uses the airport. This is why it's so dumb to put the future of the airport in the hands of voters and Missouri is pretty much the only state in the country that requires such nonsense.
The east side has voted down major infrastructure improvements that would have vastly benefited the east side. The city backed light rail proposal had two light rail lines, one on main and another generally following Bruce Watkins. It bombed on the east side. The more recent streetcar proposal would have built several streetcar lines on the east side, but it again bombed on the east side enough to fail it for the entire city. So now, the streetcars will only be expanded west of Troost.
The entire city recently passed a city wide sales tax specifically dedicated to the east side. The entire city needs to make sure the east side is getting taken care of, but at the same time, the residents of the east side could do more as well.
And yeah, people who actually travel more than once a year or two or five and see how third world KC's airport is compared to just about any terminal in the country will be far more likely to support a new terminal that the average voter that rarely, if ever uses the airport. This is why it's so dumb to put the future of the airport in the hands of voters and Missouri is pretty much the only state in the country that requires such nonsense.
So much for government of the people, by the people, for the people, huh? Cause the people are too stupid to know what they should want, so that should be left up to government officials who are sworn to but are NOT representing the people, right?
MCI is far from “third world.”
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