The Airplane cell phone lot

This is a rant with two parts, actually.

First, I don't really believe in picking people up from the airport if you live in a city with good public transportation. In most cases, it is much easier for the person arriving to take the train or a cab than for you to go pick them up. If I come visit you in a big city, just tell me where to meet you. I'll make it happen. No need for you to have to drive all the way out to the airport and navigate the hideous traffic and gross congestion of people circling around.

The exceptions are, of course, implied: large bags/suburbs,/foreign country/injured/bereaved. What precisely is the difference between greeting someone at their home and greeting someone while they are in the driver's seat of their car slightly harried from the traffic and mean security folks? Why, in the former scenario you can hug and smile and be friendly whereas in the latter it's more of a "hi-shove-your-bags-in-the-back-so-good-to-see-you-ok-stop-honking-now-I'll-merge." One can argue that the person being picked up will be harried by having to navigate the airport-to-home transfer, but to that I say...seriously? Only if there was pre-existing duress or the number of homeless drunks on the blue line is really above average or the cabbie won't shut up. If the traffic is hideous it'll be no more or less hideous in a cab than it would be in my car, and I won't have spent 40 minutes getting through it once already.

Ahem. The above aside, I also respect that most people (at least those in this midwestern city) disagree with me and find being picked up at the airport a basic human kindness and my reluctance to so do selfish and uncaring. Thus, I drive to the airport. A lot. If you come to visit me and expect a ride from the airport please try not to arrive during rush hour.

Here is part 2.

The City of Chicago, in its wisdom, designated one parking lot near O'Hare as the "cell phone waiting lot". Many other airports have these as well, but I'm mostly going to explain the situation at ORD. Just imagine it applying to your home airport. The concept is simple: a parking lot removed from the general airport traffic where you can park and stay with your car while waiting for the person you are picking up to arrive. FOR FREE.

Now, I have heard from many Chicagoans that you haven't seen the signs for this, were not aware of the option, etc. This makes me a little nervous, as there are 3 or 4 signs, all very prominent. The first right as you exit toward the airport (cell phone lot: exit 2a Manheim rd. north), then on the first blinking sign (no curbside waiting / use cell lot / exit 2a / no curbside waiting), and then again right before exit 2a (big blue billboard "cell phone lot this exit"). I think there's even another one after you are past exit 2a, which is a little bit useless. When the first introduced the lot -- 4 or 5 years ago, I think -- there was even more signage and adverts throughout the actual airport.

I mean this with as little snark as possible: people, why don't you use the damn cell lot?

Here's what happens when you take exit 2a: you drive into a parking lot that is mostly empty. you sit there. When the person you are picking up calls to say they have landed, you leisurely start up the car and drive to the terminal. If they have bags to pick up you'll still have to circle the terminals at least twice. If they don't, it'll time out pretty well. And while you were waiting you had your car out of the way and turned off. Heck, they'll never even know you weren't circling the entire time.

You know we have a problem with gas usage in this country, right?

Here's what happens when you don't take exit 2a: you join a crowd of cars trying to break the "no curbside waiting" rule. Some pulled up along the lane, others parked on the shoulder just up above where the security trucks normally troll. On a Sunday night it can take 10 minutes to get from the split where the arrivals area is left and departures right to the end of terminal 1, 50 feet away, because too many cars are trying to merge across all four lanes. There is general confusion, lane merging, honking, and general obnoxiousness. It's the only time when midwestern drivers find their inner Bostonian (though that may be overstating it. Their inner "Bostonian on a relaxed Sunday" more than "Bostonian getting to a plane", which is likely where my aversion to airport traffic comes from in the first place).

If all those cars that were waiting for people still on planes in the air went to the cell phone lot instead of endlessly wasting gas circling the terminal there would be less traffic and confusion, less gas wasted on circling or hovering, and all the arriving passengers would be picked up more efficiently.

So please, use the damn cell phone lot.