-
-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 1
/
airport-walking.html
251 lines (229 loc) · 12.9 KB
/
airport-walking.html
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Blueschisting</title>
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32" />
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16" />
<link href='//fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:400italic,600italic,700italic,400,600,700' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' />
<link href='//fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Merriweather:300' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>
<link href='//fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Code+Pro:200,400,700' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/theme/css/icons.css"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/theme/css/styles.css"/>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
</head>
<body id="index">
<!-- header -->
<header class="siteheader">
<!-- site image -->
<div class= "siteimage">
<a class="nodec" href=/images/escape_of_the_core.png>
<img width="200" height="200" src=/images/escape_of_the_core.png>
</a>
</div>
<div class = "sitebanner">
<h1><a class="sitetitle nodec" href="/index.html">Blueschisting</a></h1>
<h3 class ="sitesubtitle">Thoughts on planetary science, fluid dynamics, transit, and scientific computing</h3>
<!-- nav -->
<nav class="menu">
<ul>
<!-- menu items-->
<li><a class="nodec" href="/pages/about.html">Ian Rose</a></li>
<li><a class="nodec" href="/blog_index.html">blog</a></li>
<!--pages-->
<!-- services icons -->
<li><a class="nodec icon-github" href="http://github.com/ian-r-rose"></a></li>
<li><a class="nodec icon-twitter" href="http://twitter.com/IanRRose"></a></li>
</ul>
</nav>
</div> <!-- sitebanner -->
</header>
<!-- content -->
<div id="main">
<div id="content">
<section class="content">
<h3 class="posttitle">
<a class="nodec" href="/airport-walking.html" rel="bookmark" title="Permalink to Airport Walking">
Airport Walking
</a>
</h3>
<div class="postinfo">
<p class="published" title="2018-08-18T00:00:00-07:00">
Sat 18 August 2018
</p>
</div><!-- .postinfo -->
<div class="article">
<p>I like to walk places (a lot). I also prefer to avoid taking taxis or ridesharing services.
At some point in college, I found myself at the Tweed New Haven airport
at an odd hour, and decided to try my hand at walking downtown rather than
taking a cab. I found that it was surprisingly pleasant, and the distance
was not outlandish.</p>
<p>From then on I have had a quasi-hobby of walking to/from the various
airports that I fly. The general goal is to go between the terminals
and the downtown of whatever city the airport serves (though I will
bend those rules if convenient). Sometimes the walk is fun, sometimes
it is unpleasant, but it always takes me through different parts of the city
than most visitors usually see.</p>
<p>Here are a few tips for having a successful airport walk:</p>
<ul>
<li>Keep the weather and time-of-day in mind.</li>
<li>Travel with only a backpack as luggage.</li>
<li>Usually the most dangerous part is the road network around the airport itself.</li>
<li>If you walk from an airport, nobody has to sit next to you on the plane afterwards.</li>
<li>Plot out a rough route beforehand.</li>
<li>It's worth it to take a less direct route in order to avoid highways and arterials.</li>
</ul>
<p>This post is intended to keep a record of the airports from/to which I have walked,
as well as some reviews, in case anybody reading this wants to give it a shot!
I will try to keep this list up to date as I collect more airports.
There is some low-hanging-fruit out there (looking at you, Burbank,
Las Vegas, and San Diego).</p>
<h2>New Haven</h2>
<p>As noted, this is the first airport I walked from.
This was a fairly short and pleasant, with low hills and a couple of bridges.
It also passed through
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooster_Square">Wooster Square</a>,
home of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%27s_Apizza">best pizza</a> to be found anywhere.</p>
<h5>Distance: 5 miles</h5>
<h5>Would I do it again? Yes.</h5>
<iframe data-city="nh" src=/visualization/airports/leaflet_airport.html?lat=41.2912&lon=-72.9179&zoom=13 width=700 height=700></iframe>
<h2>Boston</h2>
<p>Logan Airport is a tricky place to walk from. It is only about two miles from downtown Boston,
but the only road there is a tunnel under the estuary with no pedestrian access.
So instead I was forced to take the long way around, through Eagle Hill,
the industrial town of Everett, and Charleston.
That route was considerably longer, but did go past
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bunker_Hill">Bunker Hill</a>
and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution">USS Constitution</a>,
and involved three bridges.</p>
<p>Logan Airport is also at the bottom of the list of pedestrian-friendly airports.
It was <em>extremely</em> difficult to leave without getting hit by a car.</p>
<h4>Distance: 8 miles</h4>
<h4>Would I do it again? Sure.</h4>
<iframe data-city="bo" src=/visualization/airports/leaflet_airport.html?lat=42.3714&lon=-71.0584&zoom=13 width=700 height=700></iframe>
<h2>College Station</h2>
<p>Boy, there is not a lot in College Station.
But there is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_A%26M_University">University</a>
and an airport, and a straight shot of a road between them.
There weren't really any sidewalks on the road to the airport,
but there also weren't many cars, so the walk was brief and uneventful.</p>
<h4>Distance: 3 miles</h4>
<h4>Would I do it again? Yes.</h4>
<iframe data-city="cs" src=/visualization/airports/leaflet_airport.html?lat=30.6115&lon=-96.3502&zoom=14 width=700 height=700></iframe>
<h2>San Jose</h2>
<p>Mineta Airport is very close to downtown San Jose,
so the walk from the airport was quick and easy.
It was also boring, and has mostly left my brain.
Next time I'll take the <a href="https://www.grpg.org/">river path</a>.</p>
<h4>Distance: 4 miles</h4>
<h4>Would I do it again? Yes.</h4>
<iframe data-city="sj" src=/visualization/airports/leaflet_airport.html?lat=37.3835&lon=-121.9342&zoom=12 width=700 height=700></iframe>
<h2>Philadelphia</h2>
<p>Philadelphia International was a fun airport to walk from.
The George C. Platt bridge was cool to walk over, if not particularly pedestrian-friendly:
<img alt="platt" src="articles/transit/images/platt.png" title="By Davidt8 - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10874388">
There are also cheese-steaks to be had on the road,
and one can end up at the Liberty Bell.</p>
<h4>Distance: 8 miles</h4>
<h4>Would I do it again? Sure.</h4>
<iframe data-city="ph" src=/visualization/airports/leaflet_airport.html?lat=39.9305&lon=-75.195236&zoom=12 width=700 height=700></iframe>
<h2>Oakland</h2>
<p>Hey, this one is a straight-up nice walk: nice enough that I have done it twice.
The bulk of it goes across the odd estuary community of Bay Farm Island
(formerly, but not currently an island),
and Alameda island (currently, but not formerly an island).</p>
<p>Bay Farm had previously been a known as Asparagus Island (for its principal crop),
but then it was developed for residential use, and was connected
to the mainland via the fill that became the Oakland Airport, rendering both of its names incorrect.
Now it is mostly a sleepy community with some really fun canals criss-crossing it:
<img alt="bay-farm-1" src="/articles/transit/images/bay-farm-1.jpg">
<img alt="bay-farm-2" src="/articles/transit/images/bay-farm-2.jpg"></p>
<p>Alameda, on the other hand, used to be attached to the mainland,
but was made into an island with the dredging of the Oakland estuary.
The walk along it's southern beach is quite pleasant:
<img alt="alameda" src="/articles/transit/images/alameda.jpg"></p>
<p>The only downside of the Oakland airport walk is at the end:
crossing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posey_and_Webster_Street_tube">Posey tube</a>
to the mainland is no fun at all.</p>
<h4>Distance: 10 miles</h4>
<h4>Would I do it again? Definitely.</h4>
<iframe data-city="oak" src=/visualization/airports/leaflet_airport.html?lat=37.7637&lon=-122.2634&zoom=12 width=700 height=700></iframe>
<h2>Los Angeles (incomplete)</h2>
<p>I have not completed the walk from LAX: I got as far as Culver City.
The main takeaways from this unfinished effort are the Westchester is a lovely neighborhood,
and that LAX is (surprisingly enough) among the more pedestrian accessible airports.</p>
<h4>Distance: 8 miles</h4>
<h4>Would I do it again? Absolutely, I want to finish it.</h4>
<iframe data-city="lau" src=/visualization/airports/leaflet_airport.html?lat=34.0236&lon=-118.3530&zoom=12 width=700 height=700></iframe>
<h2>Seattle</h2>
<p>The walk from SeaTac Airport is among the more varied of the airport walks
that I have done. It goes through suburbia, industrial Seattle, and some
surprisingly exurban areas, before ending up downtown.
All the while, you get glimpses of Mount Rainier, and the various
Seattle waterways are never far. All in all a pretty fun walk.</p>
<h4>Distance: 12 miles</h4>
<h4>Would I do it again? Sure, given enough time.</h4>
<iframe data-city="sea" src=/visualization/airports/leaflet_airport.html?lat=47.5330&lon=-122.2730&zoom=11 width=700 height=700></iframe>
<h2>San Francisco</h2>
<p>This one took two tries to get right.</p>
<p>The first time I tried to walk from SFO
I tried to go along the Bay, past Brisbane. Unfortunately, none
of the handful of roads that go that way have sidewalks, and all have
extremely fast traffic. It was hot out, and eventually I got tired of cars zooming past me
by the Brisbane Lagoon.
I hopped on Muni in Visitacion Valley.</p>
<p>The second time I tried to walk from SFO, I decided to go the more pedestrian-friendly route:
over San Bruno Mountain. This involved no cars, but did involve climbing over
a 1000 foot peak (which is more than one typically does in these airport walks):
<img alt="san-bruno" src="/articles/transit/images/san-bruno.jpg" title="View from the top towards downtown SF"></p>
<p>On the other side of the mountain, it's pretty straightforward to pick up Mission Street
and take it the whole way downtown.</p>
<p>Overall, the walk from SFO is challenging but rewarding.
Take San Bruno.
Also, there are good burritos to be had in South San Francisco.</p>
<h4>Distance: 15 miles</h4>
<h4>Would I do it again? Yes, given enough time.</h4>
<iframe data-city="sf" src=/visualization/airports/leaflet_airport.html?lat=37.7126&lon=-122.4076&zoom=12 width=700 height=700></iframe>
<h2>New Orleans</h2>
<p>Okay, I screwed this one up.
I walked from Carrollton to New Orleans International,
across miles and miles of suburbia. It was mostly hot and boring,
although Lafreniere Park was enjoyable:
<img alt="lafreniere" src="/articles/transit/images/lafreniere.jpg" title="Lots of ducks"></p>
<p>And then when I arrived at the airport, I learned that I had walked to the
wrong <em>side</em> of the airport.
And so it came to pass that I walked around the airport, on a grassy strip
between a highway and a runway. I do not recommend this.</p>
<p><img alt="msy" src="/articles/transit/images/msy.png" title="An unpleasant walk"></p>
<p>The worst part is this: you could do this entire walk along the levees of the
Mississippi. There is a nice pedestrian path, and people walking their dogs,
and New Orleans ne'er-do-wells. It is really nice!
<img alt="bywater" src="/articles/transit/images/bywater.jpg" title="A pleasant levee walk"></p>
<p>Anyways, the moral is: walk along more levees.</p>
<h4>Distance: 13 miles</h4>
<h4>Would I do it again? Only along the Mississippi.</h4>
<iframe data-city="no" src=/visualization/airports/leaflet_airport.html?lat=29.9690&lon=-90.1624&zoom=12 width=700 height=700></iframe>
<h2>New York (JFK)</h2>
<p>This one also took two attempts.
In the first try, I started at the Jamaica AirTrain station and walked towards midtown
Manhattan. The roads I took were arterials, and I ran out of time, so hopped on the subway.</p>
<p>On my next attempt, I started from JFK proper, and spent most of the time
in Brooklyn. It was mostly...uneventful.
The Jamaica sewage plant smells bad. I had avocado toast in Crown Heights.
Tourists on the Brooklyn Bridge made the last 30 minutes exceedingly slow.</p>
<h4>Distance: 15 miles</h4>
<h4>Would I do it again? Yes, given enough time.</h4>
<iframe data-city="nyu" src=/visualization/airports/leaflet_airport.html?lat=40.7194&lon=-73.9000&zoom=12 width=700 height=700></iframe>
</div><!-- .content -->
</section>
</div>
</div>
<!-- footer -->
<footer>
<p>
Copyright © Ian Rose.
Generated by <a href= "http://docs.getpelican.com/">Pelican</a> with
<a href="http://github.com/ian-r-rose/pelican-blueschisting">blueschisting</a> theme.
</p>
</footer>
</body>
</html>