Airport Connections

How important is it that a city have a rail link to the airport?Well, frankly, it's not that important, in the sense that there are lots of cities that don't, and the world has not ended.But how important is it that a city have a high quality transit link to the airport? Well, that's a different question. I'd suggest that it's very important--for equity for those who don't have cars, for the reduction of traffic, exhaust, and other factors associated with cars going to the airport, and to reduce the amount of space that has to be given to cars around airports.1. Rail and Transit Aren't the Same ThingWhile transit advocates may sometimes be guilty of acting like a rail link to the airport is the only kind of transit that can work, it obviously isn't. To be clear: if you have a direct, regular stop on an already-useful rail line that stops at the airport, that's basically the gold standard here. Denver does this pretty well from Union Station, for instance. And I'm a big fan of…