Nonstop Love Surprisingly Unpleasant

Source: Dallas Morning News.

The parking garages at Love Field were filled up on Thanksgiving Day. Even the remote overflow lots were full. Why should this be? After the jump, really, why should this be?!?

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With the expiration of the Wright Amendment, the airport is busier than ever. Southwest Airlines has been ensuring that with its advertising for the better part of the year. No surprise there.

Love Field is finishing up a gazillion dollar renovation of the airport terminal. They knew the people were coming. No surprise there.

DART just opened a new line (Green/Orange) that supposedly serves Love Field. They knew the people were coming. No surprise there.

The City of Dallas is anticipating such a boom in business at the airport that they are considering building a tunnel on Mockingbird Lane to speed traffic past the bottleneck. No surprise there.

So, Southwest Airlines knew. Love Field knew. DART knew. The City of Dallas knew. Yet, when Thanksgiving morning arrived, none of them were ready for the people they all knew were coming.

What now? Stephen Young of Unfair Park assesses the situation accurately:

Love Field needs more spaces -- or a major change in culture that makes people previously unwilling to take the train willing to do so -- as soon as possible.

Source: Unfair Park.

Just one catch. You can't get to Love Field by train. You can get close, but not all the way. When you get off the train at the Love Field station, which is in the neighborhood but not actually at the airport, you then have to go wait for a DART bus to take you the few blocks from the station to the airport and its terminal. It's hard enough to encourage a culture change to take the train even when the train actually takes you where you want to go. When it doesn't, good luck with that.

I don't know who to blame. Planes, trains, automobiles. This is a transportation problem. It seems like everyone was too busy working on their little part of the puzzle to see how it all fit together. So it turns out it doesn't fit together at all. Who knew that nonstop Love would turn out to be so unpleasant?