Memphis
surrounding areas, including the aerotropolis corridors. In addition to landscaping efforts, this process includes providing the corridors with common signage and lighting to reinforce to people that they are within the aerotropolis area. A third committee, headed by
FedEx executive Richard Smith and tapping FedEx’s communications resources, is handling the branding and marketing communications efforts for the aerotropolis. A fourth has identified several key infrastructure projects vital to improve access to and from the airport and among the major aerotropolis corridors. “We believe that access is more
important in the current economy than transportation was in the former century,” says Moore, referring both to access within the aerotropolis and logistics- network access to Memphis from the world at large.
Infrastructure projects Three infrastructure projects are near the airport itself, according to Cox. One is construction of a new, freeway-style interchange between Plough Boulevard/ Airways Boulevard – which run as one road north-south along the airport’s western edge – and Winchester Boulevard, which runs east-west immediately north of the airport terminal. A new freeway-style exit from
Winchester Boulevard will provide access 12 Issue 1, Volume 5
directly to the airport terminal and its new, $130 million ground transportation centre, which will be located immediately north of the short-term parking garage and main terminal and will hold all rental-car facilities as well as 4,500 economy-parking spaces. The new centre will eliminate the need for today’s busing of customers to rental-car and economy-parking lots two miles away from the terminal, saving millions of dollars annually in cost. A second key infrastructure project is a new interchange linking the north end of Plough Boulevard with the city’s I-240 ring road, which runs east-west just north of the FedEx SuperHub complex. The first two projects are relatively straightforward, but the third – improvement of US Highway 78, which runs to the east of the airport, and creation of a freeway-style interchange between Highway 78 and I-240 – is more problematic. Highway 78 represents the northern continuation of I-22. A freeway in Mississippi, Highway 78 becomes a local four-to-six-lane road with traffic lights in Shelby County. “It is very inefficient and probably provides the worst level of service of the roads in our county”, says Cox.
However, the planning process for the upgrade isn’t finished and while the project as the aerotropolis partners want it would probably cost $1 billion, Cox says “we’ll probably end up with something substantially less”.
Looking ahead Planning has also been carried out to provide light-rail access directly from downtown Memphis to the airport, via the Memphis Area Transit Authority’s major new regional bus hub (also to be served by Greyhound), due for completion this year. Plans also call for the light-rail network to be extended to Tunica, Mississippi, although Cox says progress probably won’t be made until the US economy rebounds. Further out from Memphis, a vital future infrastructure project is construction of the new I-69 (which is designed to run, eventually, from Toronto to Monterrey in Mexico). I-69 will run down the course of State Highway 385, past the airport to the east, and will intersect with I-22/Highway 78 on its way; a new multi-modal bridge spanning the Mississippi is also planned. The existing two road bridges – one
carrying the I-40 and one the I-55 – and one rail bridge were designed in an era when protection against seismic activity wasn’t taken into account, but Cox says Memphis lies 46 miles from the tip of a fault line. Planning for the development of the airport itself calls for $500 million (in 2008 dollars) of construction over the next 20 years of new terminal and other facilities, including an expanded international arrivals terminal and inspection facility. But while the total cost could reach $1 billion, says Cox, “We will not build it as a ‘Field of Dreams – build it and they will come’. We will build as needed.”
GLOBAL AIRPORT CITIES
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