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by train to the airport
All Scotland's major mainland airports have a railway running alongside their boundaries, but only Prestwick has a station. It's a bad reflection on our planners' predecessors ability to allow for a more integrated future. At Dundee and Inverness, a station could be provided at walking distance from the terminals along established access routes (admittedly a half mile walk in the case of Inverness). Planners may feel passenger numbers don't yet justify such measures.

Airports are long and thin, and at Aberdeen and Edinburgh the railway is on the wrong side of the airport. Moving walkways in tunnels passing under the runways could provide access from airport stations. The technology to build tunnels cheaply has moved on greatly. At Glasgow, the 1.2 miles of new railway needed to join the airport to the rail network was judged too expensive in 2009. Airport traffic is heading up in the medium term: it would not be unreasonable to require the airport operators themselves to shoulder some of the cost of measures like these.
29.06.11 @ 09:12 PM CST [link]