Congratulations YVR and Craig Richmond

[ahramin]

For those of you not from around here, YVR airport opened the McArthurGlen Outlet Mall on Thursday. This brilliant move places an outlet mall right on Sea Island where the airport is located. It's been a great source of jokes over the last few years about how they should just bulldoze the runways and turn the whole thing into an amusement park but now the chickens have come home to roost.

Here is a rundown on how opening day went: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/flights-delayed-af ... -1.2462153

Two days later, it's still a disaster. They still have 10 cop cars and innumerable Richmond cops on overtime standing around making sure no one disobeys the traffic cones they've deployed to INSURE THAT HALF OF THE BRIDGES AND ROADS LEADING TO THE AIRPORT GO ONLY TO THE MALL.

So congratulations to YVR for being the only airport in the world with the chutzpah to tell their customers (the airport customers I mean) to show up early for their flights because they've plugged the bridges and roads with Richmond mall consumers. Congratulations especially to Craig Richmond who, despite being better suited to running a kiosk selling Bob the Builder toys, has completed another step in his vision for making YVR the best airport in world (as long as you don't want to fly anywhere). Congratulations also to the organizations that elect the YVR Board of Directors. Disregarding the small matter of the needs of air travelers, you're electing a fantastic board:

The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia
City of Richmond
City of Vancouver
Government of Canada
Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia
The Law Society of British Columbia
Metro Vancouver
The Vancouver Board of Trade

[complexintentions]

What a total embarrassment to the airport, city, the country, whatever. Just pathetic. People shoving and lining up in the heat to get some cheap shit designer purse or whatever.

Sad and weird. What is an airport doing involved in a tasteless spectacle like this, anyway?

[wallypilot]

Sad and weird. What is an airport doing involved in a tasteless spectacle like this, anyway?

The federal government created this monster. The airprot is now akin to a corporation and, like any good corporation, will do everything and anything in its power to increase profit. Oh, wait, airport authorities are "not for profit" you say? It's just profit by another name. "Not for profit" doesn't mean they don't make a tonne of money.

Now maybe they'll get rid of the AIF and lower terminal fees with all that profit from the mall.

You can bet they'll get right on that.

[Rookie50]

Genius. They blocked off bridges to the airport?

[iflyforpie]

Too bad there weren't some 707s with water injection going off 08L every few minutes.

[Rowdy]

Traffic on opening day was BRUTAL! wait… It STILL IS!

Hopefully someone doesn't plant a twin into that atrocity. Imagine the lawsuits..

[dash8dave]

Genius. They blocked off bridges to the airport?

And don't forget, that airport is on an island!!! Hahahaha

Idiots.

[Conquest Driver]

As I understand it, YEG is next in line.

[moocow]

They didn't block the bridge, it's the bridge that got blocked by mall traffic. Even before the outlet mall opened, the single bridge from Vancouver to the Airport was used by regular people to get in and out of Richmond which is jammed at the usual rush hours. Now that they add in additional mall traffic, it only get worst. Obviously these people never study the traffic at the Seattle Premium Outlet mall, that place is jammed up like no tomorrow and it's already next to an Interstate with a 60MPH limit.

[ahramin]

It'snot that they blocked the bridges. It's that depending on which bridge you take, you cannot get to the airport without a detour and illegal u-turn as they've put out traffic cones to block traffic from going anywhere but the mall.

[all_ramped_up]

*facepalm*

Sure, just cram more stuff on an already congested Island. Brilliant!

[JBI]

Luckily I wasn't working on Friday and started early on Saturday before the hoards of deal seekers descended on Sea Island. That being said, having an opening weekend that was way more popular than expected does not mean that the project is a failure. Just the opposite.

I think the idea itself is brilliant. An outlet mall on the Skytrain with free service from YVR is a great way to bring more money into the airport and the local economy. However, if the Arthur Lang Bridge stays that busy, they'll need to do something to improve the infrastructure and access to the airport. But, I also think that with this surge of shoppers, more people will take the Skytrain to the airport and the mall (which is a good thing).

[delta1]

Is it true that it was the airport improvement fees that funded this?