11/14/02  Where's the baggage space on light rail to Love Field?

Reference the Love Field / Rail Mass Transit blather that transpires in the newspaper.  The planners are off base.  The text below was just sent to my attention by one of the nation's experts in air transport baggage handling requirements.  If DART and the powers to be don't use good judgment on the issue, we will have another debacle on our hands and more cost overruns to the citizens.
  Take a look at the comments below, and visualize what is needed to accommodate the mass transit to Love or any airport.

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Even carry-on baggage needs to be accommodated on any type of public transportation serving airports, to say nothing of actual checked baggage.

One of the most common carry-on items – a garment bag – must have some provision for either being suspended (or, less preferably, folded and placed on an overhead shelf. What the policy makers should reflect on quite simply is that public transportation allegedly designed to serve airports must AS A MINIMUM have equivalent storage provisions as may be found in the cabin of any commercial aircraft – namely, overhead bins and coat closets (for the garment bags). In the case of closets, they must of course be located at the ingress/egress point of any conveyance, so that they may receive the items as passenger board and the process can be reversed on arrival.

Anyone who travels even casually must know that overhead bins and closets are always overfull on aircraft (trending worse since more people will try to carry on to avoid the “100% screening” baggage lines). We should also not forget that items are accommodated under aircraft seats – some type of equivalent space must exist on any public conveyance serving an airport.

Perhaps the simplest way to visualize the need is to think of the public transportation module as an airline cabin: it must accommodate whatever the actual aircraft will accommodate because that is exactly what passengers will be carrying on board.

As to checked baggage, anyone who says a “business airport” such as Love Field does not have a significant amount reveals a high level of ignorance of Love Field’s operations. A half-hour spent at a Southwest or AA ticket counter will show conclusively that business passengers DO often check baggage. It must be therefore concluded that public transportation serving a business airport such as Love must be able to accommodate checked baggage in addition to the aforementioned carry-on array.
 
It is simplistic to think that business travelers do not check baggage. Quite a number of them need to spend several days at their destinations, need to connect to other flights (possibly to a distant location) or need to visit multiple cities etc…. There are a number of circumstances under which businessmen need to check baggage. Again, just a little time spent actually LOOKING AT the Love Field operations should drive the point home.
 
You are correct when you instinctively conclude that adequate baggage provisions will add many $ to public transportation designed to serve airport destinations. Let’s also not forget that if these provisions are to be retrofitted rather that initially procured, the cost will be even greater.