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Comment by fredley | Hacker News Reader

Flying into America (from Europe) is like landing in an airport stuck in a time warp from 50-70 years ago, it's so strange. The first time I landed in New York (can't remember which airport) I was really struck with how old the place was. It had more in common with fading ancient airports (such as Bangalore's old city-centre terminal—now replaced) than the (mostly) smart and clean airports we have this side of the pond (and we're still outclassed by Asia). It was a feeling that followed me around the whole trip, that America was still stuck in the era of the 80's films I'd grown up with.

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Much like Europe, it really depends on the airport.

New York City has some of the worst (and oldest) airports in the nation. And yet, if you fly into neighboring Newark it's fairly nice and has great integration with the train system.

What's strange about America is you see this phenomenon where the richest cities have the worst infrastructure. As a foreigner, you may think that New York would be this shining beacon on a hill given its wealth. But, nope, the infrastructure is old, grimey and gross. Meanwhile, the facilities in smaller second-tier cities are quite nice.

It's 'strange' because the richest cities were generally also the richest 100 years ago. That meant they were the first to be able to afford it, and used the technologies available at the time. And it's simply not worth the cost of gutting a perfectly functional piece of infrastructure because you're jealous that someone else's is nicer.

Newark Terminal C is nice. Terminals A and B are still stuck with a layout that was designed right before security checkpoints really became a thing, and consequently doesn't accommodate them well.

Not coincidentally Terminal C is the exclusive domain of a single airline (United), who could finance the improvements and realize the benefits of a renovated terminal. Terminals A and B are shared between a bunch of airlines, so no individual airline has much of an incentive to finance renovations.

IMO Newark's integration with the train system is much worse than JFK's, because the Newark AirTrain is slow and unreliable, and there are often 40+ minute gaps between NJ Transit trains at the Newark Airport stop. The JFK AirTrain is speedier and more reliable, and the combined frequency of LIRR and the subway is much higher at Jamaica.

Good point, I've only been in Terminal C.

The AirTrain is handy, but it costs $5 to go a couple miles, which is absurd.

I have been to many places in the world, rich and poor, and Newark Airport isn't fairly nice, even compared to poor places. Terminal C has had a makeover, but the quality of food and service is bad, of course prices being sky high. And the Airtrain from the airport is hilariously under capacity, you get to be crammed into a tiny monorail car that barely has space for luggage, and slowly go down some tracks that are very susceptible to problems due to weather and maintenance. Also, you get to pay $5 for this and you get to pay a crazy amount for luggage carts (which in civilized countries don't cost anything).

Yeah, I recently traveled to (western) Europe for the first time and noticed that I could buy food and other stuff at the airport for completely normal prices. In the US, all the airport prices are inflated.

In addition, it wasn't extra-expensive to take public transit from the airport to the city, again completely unlike America.

To me the issue looks like lack of maintenance rather than being old and antiquated, though some might do with upgrades.

The issue much of the time is accumulated grime and disrepair. If they allowed for constant maintenance (daily, weekly cleaning and monthly repairs and other work) I think much of airport and transport infrastructure would appear better and function better.

I recall in Japan, obviously there are exceptions, but one would see proprietors dusting and cleaning rafters and other typically untouched spaces, to keep their businesses looking new and attended to, no cobwebs, dust bunnies or grime accumulation. Same with transport facilities, you see people with spray bottle and rag wiping things down constantly.

Shinjuku station, for example, is a jumbled mess of a warren with extra low ceilings and so on is not “modern”, but it’s pretty clean given 2MM daily riders.

Japanese are fastidious about keeping things clean, it's not just airports, it's everything.

New York reminded me most of Egypt. The airport, hotels and buildings all seemed to be from another time. Occasionally you'd walk past something amazing which had been well kept - Grand Central station in NYC or some of the beautiful dutch-style buildings in Harlem. Or the big museum in Cairo.

Cities like Paris or London on the other hand seem to be more modern inside but on the outside they're covered in a layer of filth that I haven't seen in the US. I guess that's what you get for having so many diesel vehicles driving around (and is why the transition to EVs is so important).

It's more likely to be soot from coal burning, which was the norm for much of these building's life.

It's diesel. We cleaned our light-grey house four years ago and it's dark grey again. We're nowhere near a coal power plant (or any heavy industry) but are in a country with a lot of diesel cars.

Fear not, petrol direct injection basically gives you the same amount of soot as any ol' non-DPF TDI engine :)

The counter-argument to that is fresh façades and glorious airport atriums are also a bit of a boondoggle.

You're right about poorly maintained public spaces however. Civic Center BART station comes to my mind.

Not entirely. The feeling imparted to you by the space you're in can have quite a profound effect, particularly if it's the kind of space you're reasonably likely to get trapped for hours at a time under stressful circumstances. Yellowing, misplaced ceiling tiles and a general sense that you're in the 1950's chapter of Portal 2 aren't great.

Completely agree. For some public transport in the US it's not just a matter of outdated facades either-- the spaces just seem have gone fully unmaintained and uncleaned for decades. I remember I had to stop and change trains at the Chambers Street station in NYC once, and it was depressing. My connection couldn't come quickly enough (see picture in [1]).

At this point a big improvement wouldn't just come from a facelift, even just a sponge, a broom and some care would make things immensely better.

[1]: https://www.amny.com/transit/nyc-subway-stations-garbage-dum...

> The audit shows that tracks in seven stations -- just 3% of the 276 underground stops -- met New York City Transit's cleaning schedule, once every three weeks. More than half the stations got between four and eight visits from an 11-person cleaning crew a year, according to the audit of cleaning records between July 2013 and June 2014.

This blew my mind. The London underground isn't exactly spotless, but it's cleaned (at least once) every day.

I'm always amazed when the T shuts down a line in Boston because trash on the track has caught on fire. We are talking a subway system that doesn't run trains from 1am to 5am and they can't even afford to hire cleaners.

Maybe not, the article discusses the fact that infra projects are 1/4 the price outside the US.

Heh. The first time I saw the famed BART in San Francisco I had flashbacks of retro-futurist art.

From what I read, they've recently updated most BART wagons, so now they look more modern. But back in 2012 it was quite funny to see them in the tech capital of the world :)

Recently I was in NYC going to the Met Cloisters museum, and I had to take a subway line that I had never been on previously for whatever reason.

The car I ended up stepping in, I recognized as being the same model used on Seinfeld in 1992, with the old orange seats.

You should fly into Berlin (either TXL or SXF, both are remarkible in their own ways), you might find that US airports seem like a futuristic wonderland in comparison.

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