Couldn’t agree more and same thing here in the downunder.
In Adelaide we have a motorway that built for 50 years and still incomplete. And public transport to the airport is still more than a torture. Sometimes I live alone so no one can drive me to airport and I have to spend $50+ on uber for this.
In Sydney, where I mostly stay for business reasons. The NSW state government literally sold everthing they could and taking a train from Sydney airport will cost you from $20 due to the airport station use fee (you still pay about $10 for simply transferring by train between international & domestic terminal if you don’t fly on Qantas on your next leg). So wanna take taxi? No problem, expect to pay $100 with about $10 paid to airport for picking you up. The best way to do is always taking a bus to Mascot station if you want to save some money, FYI.
In Melbourne there is simply extremely weird back and forth over the airport link train, I don’t have business in Melbourne as of this moment but I think many local people are enough for the drama.
I travel mostly one time to China every year for business reasons (and part of my family are migrants from there). The problem there is that many airports have a massive, cold and very bland atmosphere and most ground service people don’t speak decent English. But if you look at them they are generally well planned and there is no rail station trap like SYD.
I traveled between Changchun city and its airport this July and it cost me only 10 CNY (about 1.5 USD or 2.2 AUD). Even I pay $10 for that distance on a train with a proper seat is definitely better than paying $20+ for a cramped local train in Sydney.
I also travel to Chongqing Airport (CKG), there is a post about this airport in feature request btw. I landed at Terminal 2 but I need to go to Terminal 3 at another side since the person to meet me went to a wrong terminal and I have to travel to another side of the airport. I had the option to take the metro (same thing like Sydney one right?) for just 2 CNY (for 0.3 USD or 0.5 AUD). But I took the free shuttle bus. Well at least this gave me a better first impression on the city and I would be happier if I make a deal in this city.
Don’t get me wrong I am not praising China because first I know there are a lot of issues with the country like internet censorship (many people in China have to play this game with VPN and I know that’s tricky). Second and most ironically, shouldn’t everyone take that for granted? I mean airport is the gateway of the city, where the first impressions are built, and government should do the best to make this as easy as possible for people to navigate around instead of taking the very last pennies out of everyone’s pocket.
And I asked the person on the car how long did that take for the city to build this airport since I found the Terminal 3 has a new satellite terminal connected to it nearly complete. I was told the airport opened in 1991 and it was just 30+ years ago. I can assume each phase was done in no more than 10 years.
Now tell me if you think Heathrow can complete this expansion project in 30 years!
Now back to the 3rd runway options. I did see the option with a shorter runway but I immediately realized it was just another nonsense proposal. Airport planning is very complicated and doing that way will ruin the idea of the expansion.
Heathrow is full of widebodies and a short runway will be just for smaller planes, so very limited use. Don’t tell me you can have all narrowboides on the new runway and how long it would take to taxi to a gate in T4?
When airports expand, roads have to as well or there will be bottlenecks. I saw the video showcasing the expansion and construction proposal for the motorway and I think it works alright.
I would only comment such proposal as lack of vision and simply dumb enough. They claim to save taxpayer money but will cost more in the end of course (and then they got another thing to corrupt and finally sell)!