Direct access road to Worcester airport? It won't fly
A lack of quicker access from the interstate highways in and around the city isn't preventing travelers from using Worcester Regional Airport, according to industry experts and local observers.
The airport's precarious position — atop Tatnuck Hill and reachable only through clogged city streets — has stumped city planners and airport operators for decades, as they have searched in vain for an easier way to get passengers from Interstate 290 or the Massachusetts Turnpike to the terminal.
The most recent push comes from Steven Zieff, owner of Eden Management in Wayland and developer of the Legacy Farms mixed-use project in Hopkinton. He was cited in a March 30 Banker & Tradesman column as advocating the conversion of prospective temporary haul roads between the MassPike and the airport into a permanent six-mile-long connector road, with sites adjacent to the road open for new development.
But Zieff is not sure how airport access should be improved, or when.
“The airport could be a greater asset going forward by increasing its access to major interstates,” he said.
Zieff said access to Worcester's airport needs to be brought up to the level of Manchester and Providence; each offers an interstate link using a limited-access connector road. Such a road would eventually pay for itself through increased airport usage, he said.
But to Sujatha Mohanakrishnan, a transportation project manager at the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission, the projected usage for a better airport link wouldn't justify the construction costs.
A 2011 commission study looked into adding a MassPike interchange at Route 56 in Oxford, which would provide passengers with access via Stafford Street in Leicester and Webster Square in Worcester. The interchange would attract about 30,000 vehicles a day, the study found, but only a fraction would use it to get to the airport.
Cars using that connection would likely see less traffic, Mohanakrishnan said, but they'd also be traveling roughly eight miles out of their way. That's unlikely to appeal to people living in Worcester — which made up 47 percent of the airport's passenger load as of a few years ago — or north of the city, for whom traveling to the MassPike would be particularly circuitous.
In addition, the surface roads leading to the airport are usually most congested during the morning or afternoon rush hour. But Mohanakrishnan said flights often take off in the early morning, midday or late at night, making road congestion largely a non-issue.
“Not many commuters will face peak-hour traffic going to the airport,” she said.
The most convenient access route would be formed by extending Hope Avenue (exit 10 off Interstate 290) westward to connect with Goddard Memorial Drive. But Mohanakrishnan said studies from the mid-2000s indicated this would significantly harm existing residential areas and wetlands.
Three years ago, the commission also examined building a train station in Leicester and extending commuter rail service there to help facilitate more trips to the airport, but concluded that not enough people would use that service to justify the cost, Mohanakrishnan said. However, train commuters who want to get to the airport can take a bus from Union Station in downtown Worcester.
Massport: No need for roads
The Massachusetts Port Authority said airport improvement design plans — which include the installation of a $35 million Category III landing system, allowing plans to land with virtually zero visibility — have been scaled down in recent months, meaning there won't be any need for fill or haul roads.
“We're in the airport business; not the road business,” Massport spokesman Richard Walsh said.
Airport director Andy Davis noted the access situation wasn't an impediment to attracting a record 350,000 customers in the late 1980s, before there was even a better link between the MassPike and Route 146.
“The people who know Worcester realize how convenient it is,” Davis said.
Worcester Airport Limousine primarily services people living along the Route 9 corridor between Shrewsbury and Southborough, according to its CEO, Maureen Raillo. She said the company has no trouble getting its customers to the airport and doesn't think a direct access road would have much impact on passenger demand.
“People feel that, because of an expressway, they're moving quickly,” Raillo said. “But you can be sitting in traffic for quite some time.”
Is it really necessary?
Bill Randell, president of Worcester-based Advantage Benefits and operator of the unofficial airport website www.flyorh.com, said a direct access road would be great in theory, but he doesn't see it as a deal breaker in getting people to use the airport.
“I don't think it would be feasible or possible,” Randell said, “and it would take forever to get.”
Randell said he hasn't heard a single complaint about access since JetBlue launched its flights to Florida in November.
Robert Mann, an airline industry analyst with R.W. Mann and Co. in New York, said municipalities have become very wary of spending on infrastructure such as access roads in an era of perpetual budget shortfalls. He said Worcester Regional Airport needs to significantly boost its passenger load before people will begin seriously discussing alternative transit schemes.
“Ultimately, there has to be a reason to go to the airport,” Mann said. n
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