Denver International Airport Expansion Projected

Reconfigured terminal, readiness for rail and new hotel are on DIA's wish list

Back in the winter of 1995, I departed for (I think) Honduras from Denver's Stapleton International Airport and returned home several days later flying into the newly opened Denver International Airport. That was more than 14 years ago, but people still sometimes call DIA "the new airport." Since then DIA has added a sixth runway, at 16,000 North America's longest commercial precision-instrument runway, which in allows fully loaded jumbo jet to take off at Denver's mile-high elevation even during the summer. With more than 52 million passengers, it is the world's 10th-busiest airport. It has only closed twice because of exceptionally heavy snows, once in March 2003 and again in December 2006.

There have, however, been some missing elements for a modern world-class airport, notably a hotel right at the terminal and a railroad station or lightrail station for intermodal connections. The Denver City Council has been presented with redesign plans that could include remaking the "Great Hall," as I just learned the main terminal under signature white Teflon tented roof is call, so that it is after rather than before TSA checkpoints. Designers recognize that snaking lines of passengers waiting to be screened is not the best use of this grandiose space. Also included would be a FasTracks train station at the airport, rail bridges for the route into the airport and a new Westin hotel adjacent to the terminal.

The price tag? It could be a billion buckaroos or so, some of which would theoretically be paid for from revenues and recaptured from increased business generated by shops and restaurants in the main terminal that connecting passengers could access without have to go through security again. The timetable? Who knows?

I don't know whether any or all of this will come to pass, but an exciting side note is that Santiago Calatrava, an award-winning Spanish architect, is on the "DIA makeover team." He is a European architectural superstar who has designed transportation projects around the world. I have seen two of them, one in Manchester, England, and the other in Barcelona, Spain (above right). I hope we'll have a chance to see his work at DIA.

Marinas or Mangroves?

Ambitious marina plan scaled back, and to those with environmental conserns, that's a good thing

My colleague, Jimm Budd, a Mexico City-based travel journalist who sends out daily reports about Mexican tourism, today reported that "Escalera Nautica today has 8 marinas open with seven more in planning stage according to Raul Lopez, manager at San Blas. Not exactly what had been dreamed of a decade ago, but still something. A decade ago, when the project was announced, goal was to open more than 30 marinas along both coasts of the Baja California peninsula as well as along the west coast of the mainland. The government would provide the basic infrastructure, and it was hoped that private investors would come in with the amenities. Lack of enthusiasm on the part of private investors had apparently almost killed the scheme, although Lopez said laws protecting mangroves on the coast were more to blame. Eventual idea is to attract boaters starved for marinas in their home states to come to Mexico."

A website called BajaQuest had other numbers but quoted an earlier report on the same concept:

"The plan calls for 22 full-service marinas, 10 of them new. Of the 12
existing, seven will be improved and five are judged as already adequate. The 10
new marinas will be located on sites with natural shelter, or bays, a feature
the peninsula has in abundance. Five of these are to be in Baja California,
three in Baja California Sur, and one each in Sonora and Sinaloa."

"Additionally, the plan calls for an 84-mile highway route for towing boats
from one side of the peninsula to the other. This feature will allow boat
travelers quick access to either body of water for those without time or
interest in sailing around the southernmost tip of Baja California Sur. Further,
the plan calls for improving the road between Mexicali and San Felipe to allow
bigger-boat towing rigs crossborder access to the Sea of Cortes."

The map (above right) was released in 2001, showing the ambitious scale of the project then. Some people probably still support it. Along the Sea of Cortes, tourism officials have been calling it "the mega-tourism project of the XXI century." That in itself is scary -- especially if you're a mangrove tree or a critter that lives in the mangroves. Environmental authorities call mangroves "the nursery of the seas." These miraculous trees survive and thrive in brackish coastal waters. Their complex root systems provide safe havens for hatchlings of all sorts, and birds nest in the dense foliage. Insects and everything above them in the food chain thrive in mangroves.

Miraculous Mangroves

Below is a mangrove swamp near Ventanilla in the state of Oaxaca. The top photo shows a shallow-draft boat taking tourists to an alligator sanctuary on an island amid the mangroves.

Below, a large turtle suns itself on a stump.


Below is a mangrove habitat, seemingly serene but full of life.


Researchers Speak

The early stages of the Escalara Nautica were not encouraging vis-a-vis environmental stewardship. Back in April 2003 (more than six years ago), the California-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation published its "Preliminary Coastal Analysis of Escalera Nautica at Bahia Santa Rosaliita." This first marina did not involve mangroves, but if the Mexican government and/or developers didn't begin pay more attention to what it was doing, it must be bad news for mangroves and everything else along the Escalera Nautica. According to the report,

"The new marina is located in the northwest somewhat sheltered corner of
Bahia Santa Rosaliita (also spelled Rosalillita, Rosalilita, Rosalia)....The new
marina is located in the northwest somewhat sheltered corner of Bahia Santa
Rosaliita (also spelled Rosalillita, Rosalilita, Rosalia)....

"A new concrete wall (less than one year old) was observed to be heavily
damaged, with extensive cracking, spalling, and exposed rebar. Likely reasons
for this rapid deterioration are poor materials and construction
methods.

"Due to the short jetty length and ample availability of sediment in the
area, it is expected to be difficult to maintain the entrance depth required for
a navigable entrance.... aves will likely break across the marina entrance
during high wave events. Continuous dredging will be required to maintain the
requisite entrance depth and sufficient basin depth.

"Currently, the east jetty extends landward to approximately 10 meters
landward of the vegetation line. It is reasonable to expect the beach east of
the marina to continue to recede landward, likely resulting in erosion behind
the landward end of the east jetty.

"Extensive downcoast erosion has been measured during the first year after
jetty construction. It is expected that some structures will be lost to the sea
within another year. The historic sandy beach that did exist on the east of the
marina has been replaced by a steep cobble and stone berm with some exposed
bedrock and vertical sandstone beach scarping. The downcoast erosion will likely
reach a dynamic equilibrium within a few years."

"The first marina of the Escalera Nautica system is deeply troubled.
The lack of planning and poor selection of location has resulted in a marina
that will be very expensive to maintain. If it is determined that the marina is
essential, we recommend some improvements that will make the marina useful some of the time....

Future Escalera Nautica projects should consult qualified consultants and
perform adequate studies prior to construction."

I sure hope the government and developers have been doing precisely that, but I'm not taking bets.

English Intermodality

Seamless rail and bus transportation makes UK travel a breeze

Last October, I rented a car when visiting Sussex. Ad I blogged then, I hated almost every moment of driving on the “wrong” side of the road, shifting with the “wrong” hand and attempting to be both navigator and driver. And filling up the tank, even of a small, economical car, was painful. My husband and I took advantage of United’s introductory Denver-London fare to come to the UK. We are current in the Lake District in Cumbria (northwestern England), and we decided to rely on public transportation. We traveled from there to here with a seamless chain of intermodel transportation (plane, train, bus, trains and then a taxi). This is how we got here:

1) Boulder to Denver International Airport by car.
2) DIA to London’s Heathrow Airport via United (nonstop). This flight operates on a wonderful schedule, departing from Denver at 8:30 p.m. and arriving the next day at 1:00 p.m. +/-, the variable being how many times the plane is ordered to circle Heathrow (we went around the air loop twice). In any case, early afternoon is a good time to arrive at LHR’s Terminal 3, because few international flights get in then, meaning there are no lines.
3) Heathrow to Paddington Station by Paddington Express train.
4) Paddington Station to Euston Station via #205 bus. The bus stop is a couple of minutes’ walk from Paddington at one end and directly in front of Euston on the other. The fare is £2.
5) Euston Station to Lancaster by on the West Coast line, operated Virgin Trains, a sister company to Virgin Airlines. Our first-class BritRail passes (good four days out of 60) are good on this train service -- and it is the only splurge we are planning for this trip. Complimentary coffee and tea are served (there I am, at right, bleary-eyed but happy with a comfortable seat and a cuppa). Food is available. And passengers are offered a free newspaper.
6) Lancaster to Windermere in the Lake District via Transpennine Express. We had 40 minutes between trains, so my husband stayed with our luggage and I took a quick walk around Lancaster Castle and the priory next door. They were just a few minutes from the Lancaster railroad station.
7) Windermere rail station to our hotel via taxi.

I can’t compliment the train service enough. Not only are the trains punctual but they are clean, the staff is accommodating and the cars well designed. The train even has lavatories spacious enough to accommodate wheelchair users and operated by push button. One button opens the door; two others close and then lock it. The flushing mechanism works, and the sink is equipped with automatic water tap, soap dispenser and hand dryer. How I wish Amtrak could be turned over to Sir Richard Branson or his American counterpart.

TSA Changes Shoe Rules

No, the Transportation Security Agency has not decided that walking through airport metal detectors while wearing shoes does not constitute a security threat. The agency has just tweaked the procedure again -- at Denver International Airport, anway. When I last flew out of here on April 3, passengers had to remove their shoes (of course) and place them in a plastic bin (presumably the one with the paper liner showing a pair of shoes). Today, passengers were instructed to put the shoes directly on the conveyor rather than in bins. This would have been against the rules just a few weeks ago -- maybe even yesterday. The reason, according to the TSAer, is "sanitation. People put food in the bins."

UNESCO to Inspect a Pair of National Parks

Mining is threatening International Peace Park; UN agency to look into the situation

When it comes to global warming, ice is the canary in the mine. The shore-fast ice along the north coast of Alaska and Canada has been thinner and breaking up earlier every spring. Huge chunks of the Ross Ice Shelf and other tracts of frozen water have been breaking off the Antarctic continent. And glaciers all over the world have been visibly shrinking -- not just measurably in scientific terms but visibly in this lifetime. Glacier National Park in northern Montana, with its shrinking and disappearing glaciers, has been a the poster child for climate change.

But there is another threat to Glacier and its neighbor to the north. Coal mining could be a greter problem for Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, composed of contiguous Glacier National Park in northern Montana and Waterton National Park (above right) across the Canadian border. National Parks Traveler reported that UNESCO's World Heritage Committee voted unanimously to look into the "threat posed to the two parks by [coal] mining proposals for the headwaters of the Flathead River just to the north of Glacier and just west of Waterton Lakes." A dozen US and Canadian conservation and environmental organizations "asked the World Heritage Committee to declare the two parks a 'World Heritage Site In Danger' due to the mining possibilities that Canadian officials so far seem to have supported," according to National Parks Traveler.

"While U.S. politicians ranging from those in Montana counties all the way up to the U.S. secretary of state's office want Canada to block Cline Mining Corp. from scraping away mountaintops in the headwaters of the Flathead River to reach millions of tons of coal, Canadian officials so far have not been keen on the idea," National Parks Traveler had reported earlier.

The UNESCO report is supposed to be completed in 2010, but pardon me if I note that this issue has been around for several years. U.S. and Canadian officials were supposed to be dealing with the mining proposal since at least 2007. The North Fork Preservation Association has been keeping tabs on the situation, including the appearance of the North Fork of the Flathead on an increasing number of lists of endangered rivers, Check out Toronto-based Cline Mining's website to see images of the kinds of mining infrastructure most of us don't want to see in the backyard of our precious national parks or in pristine river valleys. The Cline map shows two coal projects in southeastern British Columbia, where the Flathead River originates: Sage Creek and Lodgepole. I'm not sure whether one or both are what UNESCO will be studying.

In any case, while the inspection team is in the neighborhood, perhaps they might take a look at the remaining glaciers too.

Dreamliner Becoming a Nightmare for Boeing

Production of 21st-century airliner delayed for a fifth time



It isn't exactly news we can use for immediate travel, but the much anticipated Boeing 787 Dreamliner has been delayed yet again. The plane's ultra-modern materials are supposed to make it lighter and therefore more fuel efficient aren't standing up well in pre-flight tests. This mid-size, long-range airliner has gone back to the drawing board, or at least the lab. The concept was announced in 2005 and planes carryinbg 223 passengers in three cabin classes were supposed to be in commercial service last year.

The Wall Street Journal reported that "postponed the first flight of its much-delayed 787 Dreamliner due to a structural flaw that executives said was small, but which further dents the company's credibility and could hurt the new jet's future profitability." Nobody would want an airplane with "a structural flaw" to take off, even on test flights, but it is noteworthy. The Dreamliner's potential profitability was enormous, since well over 600 aircraft had been ordered -- the largest commercial aircraft sale in history -- but some orders have already been canceled or delayed.

Overpackaged Travel Accessory -- on Earth Day

Bad enough to be in the air, leaving a carbon control, but extra waste galls

We're leaving soon for England and Scotland, feeling a twinge of guilt for flying and probably a pinch in the purse because of the dollar-to-pound exchange rate. To make the long Denver-London nonstop a tad more bearable, I just got new Sony MDR-NC40 noise-cancelling headphones that plug into a plane's sound system.

I can't swim or row to England, but because it's Earth Day, I'm particularly aware of the un-green packaging for these lightweight, made-in-China headphones. The cardboard box encasing the product and its protective plastic cocoon is about 10 by 6 1/2 by 4 inches. The black background means that in many places, the box cannot be recycled, and it appears not to have been made from recycled material either.

Inside, the headphones are encased in a plastic clamshell box secured with with one transparent plastic tape, with another compartmented plastic tray inside. Four strips of adhesive foam are on these plastic parts. I do not see a recycling code on anything. The bilingual instructions were printed and warranty -- seemingly not on recycled paper -- in Malaysia. I realize that an electronic gadget needs to be protected.

It might seem hypocritical or hair-splitting, given that they are designed for use on airplanes, but I do wish that my new headphones had left a smaller carbon footprint. Now, I'm going to have to toss all that packing material that could have been made from recycled materials and itself be recyclable.