Parking in The Parking Garage
 

After traveling through a handful of airports, it has become apparent that we have taken hundreds of thousands of perfectly good parking spaces out of service. I know there is some 300nft rule or something like that, but... I am talking about parking spaces in garages that across 6 lanes of traffic from the terminal.

Does anyone out there understand why these are closed down?

I don't get it?!

(Warning: Skip this post if you don't like math!)

Well, if you consider that the average traffic lane is around 12 feet, a six-lane road would be 72 feet. That leaves another 228 feet unaccounted for. Let's add in 28 feet just for kicks to round things off at 200 feet that need to be accounted for.

The average parking space is between 6 and 10 feet wide (we'll use 8 for the heck of it). At 8 feet wide, 25 parking spaces need to be blocked off from the ends closest to terminals.

So while 300 feet doesn't seem like much, it easily extends into most parking structures that are right across the roadway from terminals.

Okay, let's buy your math.

What does this mean and why are those spaces blocked off?

It's part of the "we don't want a bomb parked near our airport" scare.

So, if bombs are the concern, are they then saying:
Place car bombs in row 15 or higher.
or
Drive to the curb and use a short timer
or
Put in in your bag and take it into the terminal building

Or are they saying that the first 15 rows of parking are a very important national resource, much more valuable than tunnels, highways, etc.

Oh, now I see.

At IAH, they have reopened the parking garages that are within 300 feet of the terminal building. They got approval to do this by having every vehichle inspected as it enters the garage. They basically look in your back seat and look in your trunk. It doesn't take very long, as they appear to just be looking for things like a trunk full of fertilizer, rather than anything small. A reasonable compromise, I think, as it does provide for some amount of increased security, yet allows for normal use of the airport facility.

The destruction of a bomb relates to the size of the bomb and the distance from the target. So somebody did the math of packing a car with explosives, and figured that past row 15 it wouldn't be a threat, and inside of row 15 it would be.

It's sort of the same thinking on some of the area bridges, they won't let any commercial vehicles on the lower levels, only the upper ones, so that if a bomb did go off, it would cause less damage.

Could you carry one into a terminal? Certainly load up the luggage cart full of explosives and wheel it in, but it probably still isn't enough to do much structural damage, though certainly people damage.