I always loved these schemes and it took me a while to understand why they are inherently expensive and so are not likely to appear soon.
The reason is that a man-made structure on the water is subject to continuous strain and thus continual and so needs continual repair. The larger the structure, the more that this becomes a problem. Bridge and ships fall apart over time and still require continuous maintenance while they're in their lifetime.
It's appealing but like the underwater city, it would be enormously impractical.
Well, the Earth is over 70 percent water. It seems that expanding our habitable space to exist on a marine environment is more feasible than, say, building a colony in outer space.
Grumpy travelers' concerns aside, it could be a really neat concept akin to a destination in and on its own. Like an EPCOT center, but factoring in the economic, environmental and social issues of building a floating city. An engineer's dream . . ..
No mention of expenses for passengers. Given transportation to/from the coast, I'd guess a plane ticket in/out of here would be prohibitively expensive in both time and money.
And building a 4 story metropolis underneath doesn't make sense unless there is a reason to visit. Hotels, conference centers and shopping centers, wouldn't be enough, at least for me.
Nor of the time factor involved. Commercial flights already take the better part of a day, even for short jumps. I can't imagine having to arrive at the ferry terminal 4-5 hours before my flight so that I can get to the terminal in time to spend 2 more hours waiting for ticketing and security and all the other delays.
"And building a 4 story metropolis underneath doesn't make sense unless there is a reason to visit"
I think his comment about "free trade zones" hints at the reason for so much office space. It seems to me that it would be a conveniently located off-shore haven for businesses (especially from Asia) who do massive amounts of shipping in and out of the ports of SD and LA.
They could also build the Duty-free version of the Mall of America; 400-500 stores full of tax-free stuff that would appeal to international travelers.
It's an interesting concept, and in a way it seems like the only viable solution. With the massive sprawl surrounding SD I think you'd have to go a good 2 hours from the central city to find a big enough patch of land to build a new airport.
"With the massive sprawl surrounding SD I think you'd have to go a good 2 hours from the central city to find a big enough patch of land to build a new airport."
Not even close. San diego is not really that big. For example, it is a 30 min drive from downtown to alpine which is a small town in the middle of nowhere, where the more sensible plans put the new airport. That travel time can be shortened with high speed rail and it would still be many times cheaper than that ocean pipe dream.
Oh and 30 min in a car or on a train will be soo much better than 45 min on a shaking sickness inducing ferry.
"Commercial flights already take the better part of a day, even for short jumps. I can't imagine having to arrive at the ferry terminal 4-5 hours before my flight so that I can get to the terminal in time to spend 2 more hours waiting for ticketing and security and all the other delays."
Presumably this airport could be used for flights that are long enough already that it doesn't matter nearly as much. Say, at least most of the way across the country. (And international flights, of course, where a few extra hours on top of 24 is unnoticeable.) SAN would be for the short hops.
The effectiveness of this depends entirely on the current distribution of flights on SAN, though, which I don't know. I've only done relatively short flights from SAN. For everything else I end up taking a commuter flight up to LAX (which is much, much faster than driving).
Why not build the airport 40 miles inland, in the desert? There's no shortage of desert land in California. Wouldn't that make so much more sense (by orders of magnitude) than build a floating airport? Just wondering...
San Diego's downtown airport is comically tiny, so this has been an issue for awhile. The ideas proposed, in order, were:
1. Convert the Marine base at Miramar into an airport -- nixed by the wealthy residents of nearby La Jolla
2. Partner with Tijuana and build a binational airport straddling TJ and San Ysidro on some conveniently undeveloped land there. This stalled for a number of reasons, and then some housing developments sprang up on the mesa where this would have worked, so the idea died.
3. Build a mega-airport in the desert, out towards El Centro, and a superfast bullet train between there and downtown San Diego. Kind of... inconvenient, and reeks of compromise.
4. A floating metropolis off the coast of Point Loma! Well, Singapore's doing something similar.
Notably, most of the flights from San Diego's downtown airport go to LAX or other nearby hubs, and LAX to San Francisco is the most-travelled air route in the country. These are not long distances; a decent bullet train system connecting California's metro areas would substantially ease the congestion at SAN, SNA, LAX, etc. and probably be more environmentally friendly, too. The CA high-speed rail project was proposed about a decade ago, and is progressing excruciatingly slowly -- deets here:
Wouldn't that make so much more sense (by orders of magnitude) than build a floating airport?
Not necessarily. Look at the long-term impact of building a one-road-in and one-road-out solution into the desert vs. a potentially multi-routing solution for something on the water. It's no accident that the coastlines of the USA were populated first, and are currently the most densely populated areas of the country. Logistically-speaking, the multi-variant nature of water trails makes much more sense.
If you look at that topo map, it looks like San Diego is bounded by mountains, just like SF and LA. Flat land in CA tends to be where you can't easily get to it.
"In the midst of this pickle, along comes a fellow named Adam Englund. He’s a local lawyer..."
I wouldn't trust 20 billion of the taxpayer's money to a lawyer's vision. Give half of that to the Dyson vacuum cleaner guy. He'll come up with a design that works.
"By any measure, $20 billion is a lot of money, but Englund claims his group isn’t seeking any government funding all they need from the Washington are airport rights to this swath of ocean."
Although it seems a little unlikely a request for government funding won't materialise in future it would seem that it wouldn't be for the entire amount.
The reason is that a man-made structure on the water is subject to continuous strain and thus continual and so needs continual repair. The larger the structure, the more that this becomes a problem. Bridge and ships fall apart over time and still require continuous maintenance while they're in their lifetime.
It's appealing but like the underwater city, it would be enormously impractical.