Originally Posted by
bennos
I was referring to current T4 and T2. As part of the demolition of the WorldPort, there was originally going to be a connector built between T2 and T4. It's actually referenced in the original
DL press release:
There's a picture at
Cranky Flier, though it's not the original PANYNJ rendering that I can't seem to find anywhere.
Yeah, I was proposing some variation on that. Looking at the picture, I don't think they gained any material hard stand space by not building the connector, so it was almost certainly a cost thing. Though it doesn't look like the previous T2-T3 connector could have been repurposed in its entirety, since it turns towards old-T3 in the wrong direction for T4.
I would guess the T2-T4 walkway got scrapped because it would have been a pretty long hike for passengers, especially if going between T2 and the high B gates, and perhaps Delta realized that a bus service like the current B54-T2 bus would be needed for such connections anyway, so might as well offer the whole thing as a bus service. And/or it was too complicated to build the walkway while the T3 demolition was happening, but T3 has been gone for years now so there would have been plenty of time to get use out of a walkway even if it was only built after the T3 demolition was complete.
The old T2-T3 walkway was fun, though. Its moving sidewalks were of some weird, presumably old design with a bouncy, rubbery surface unlike any other moving sidewalks I've come across. IIRC that passageway was 2 "normal length" moving sidewalks, and then to judge from Cranky's pictures, that was only maybe 20% of the total distance between T2 and T4, so it would have been a very long connecting walkway if it had been built.