DALLAS - With more than $6 billion invested in airport rail links, sprawling metro areas in the car-centric Southwest are seeking to boost their reputations as international business hubs with swift connections to urban centers.
"Many cities in Europe have outstanding rail connections at their airports," said Andrew Goetz, an intermodal transportation expert at the University of Denver. "For business travelers, this is becoming much more of an expectation."
Dallas, Denver, Phoenix and Salt Lake City have either inaugurated rail connections to their airports or are preparing to do so within the next year.
Dallas Area Rapid Transit announced last month that it would open its $1.5 billion Orange Line rail link to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Aug. 18, four months earlier than expected and under budget.
"That gives DFW the distinction of being one of the few U.S. airports with a direct rail connection," said DART spokesman Morgan Lyons. "Los Angeles does not have a direct connection. It gives DFW a bit of an advantage as they are marketing themselves as a resource."
The five-mile Orange Line will link to the 85 existing miles in the DART rail system, expanding access to the more than 60,000 jobs connected to the DFW Airport, Lyons noted.
In addition to the Orange Line to DFW, DART provides access to Dallas Love Field on its Green Line that opened in 2010. With the opening of the DFW line, travelers will be able to connect between airports via rail for the first time.
The downside to the direct rail connections is a loss of business for taxi and shuttle services, rental car operations and parking revenues for the airport and the private lots in the area, Goetz said.
"There has been some leakage from airport parking as there are a number of alternatives in the form of private parking or park-and-ride lots," he said.
"There is an unwritten policy in this country that airports do not want Greyhound buses or trains bringing people into the airport for free," said Gil Carmichael, a former federal railroad administrator, told the airport industry publication ARN in 2010. "Airport managers don't want to lose the rental car business and the parking garage revenue."
In Denver, airlines and former airport director Jim DeLong opposed building a rail line from downtown to Denver International Airport, fearing that airport fees would be used to build the system. Dominant carrier United Airlines said it was not in the business of financing civic improvements unrelated to the airport.
Civic activists in Denver promoted the rail line as a way of bringing DIA closer to the city's hub.
Opened in 1995, DIA, at 23 miles from downtown is 17 miles farther away than the close-in Stapleton Airport it replaced.
Persistence paid off for promoters of the rail link to DIA in 2004 when voters approved the Regional Transportation District's FasTracks plan, which included a $2 billion airport rail line. Now known as the Eagle P3, the East Corridor commuter line from Denver's Union Station to DIA is ranked as the largest public-private project in the nation, combining state, local and federal funds with private equity.
The Denver airport rail line is scheduled to open in 2016, with a depot at DIA under a new airport hotel built by the City of Denver at a cost of more than $700 million.
In Phoenix, Sky Harbor Airport this month celebrated its one-year anniversary of the $1.5 billion automated Sky Train that links terminals, car-rental facilities, and the Valley Metro Rail station that offers light rail service to Phoenix and the suburbs of Tempe and Mesa.
The Sky Harbor station is part of the 20-mile Valley Metro Rail line built at a cost of $1.4 billion and financed in part with a 0.5 cent sales tax approved by voters in 2000.
Utah Transit Authority also celebrated the first anniversary this month of its $344 million TRAX light rail connection to Salt Lake City International Airport. The airport is the western-most hub of Delta Air Lines.
All four airports serve major convention cities, where convention center operators are planning to promote the light rail lines as amenities for meetings and trade shows.
"The ability to make a direct connection to get to the large number of hotels along the DART rail lines, we think is very important," Lyons said.
According to a 2013 study released by the American Public Transportation Association and the U.S. Travel Association, hotels in cities with direct rail access from downtown to airport terminals receive nearly 11% more revenue per room than hotels in cities without a rail airport connection.
"Clearly investment in local rail systems not only benefits residents, but drives significant economic growth in the travel and hospitality industries," said APTA President and CEO Michael Melaniphy.
The study showed that higher revenue per room translates to a potential $313 million in revenue per year for "rail cities" - cities which have direct rail access to airport terminals. In the post-recession period, rail cities commanded 16% higher revenue per room than hotels in non-rail cities.
"Rail cities" represented in the report included Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Portland, and San Francisco. The six "rail cities" were compared to hotel performance in popular convention cities that lacked a direct rail connection to the airport terminal: Las Vegas, New Orleans, Orlando, and Sacramento and Tampa.
Moreover, rail systems have had a major impact on transit-oriented development, which includes residential, commercial and mixed-use projects that take advantage of transit access, officials said.
A study by the University of North Texas found that more than $5.3 billion in private-capital transit-oriented development projects have been built, are under construction, or are planned near Dallas Area Rapid Transit's light rail stations since the debut of DART Rail in 1996. Additionally, office properties located within 0.25 mile of a station command an average 13.9% higher lease rate.
The latest study from the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas examines DART Rail's impact on property development and extends the research to consider the effect on commercial lease rates.
"Even through difficult economic times, DART has demonstrated its ability to boost the North Texas economy through its daily operations, capital spending and attracting private investment," said Terry L. Clower, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas.
While a few northern cities such as Chicago have relied on airport train connections for years, the South and Southwest are new arrivals. The often massive downtown train stations represented one era of travel, while the airports on the urban fringes represented another, Goetz said.
"Only recently have transit planners seen the benefits of plane/train connections, at least at the local level, and have begun to connect the two modes of transport," he said.
Only 12 U.S. airports that have a direct on-airport connection to a local rail transit station, there is only one that connects to a national rail network, as do many of those in Europe. Providing similar service at other airports would be a tall order, as even the newer airports are surrounded by development, Goetz noted.
"One way around this is to place the station away from the terminal on the periphery of the airport property but by doing so, it decreases the quality of the air-rail connection," he wrote in a research report.
