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I’ve ridden the local trains from JFK to midtown Manhattan (subways) and SFO to downtown San Francisco (BART). Just anecdotally, both seem to be mostly younger tourists, with a sprinkling of folks who appeared (at least in New York) to be locals. I saw very few children, older people, or folks who looked like business travelers.
In NYC it can be a very long ride of an hour or so, so I suspect that’s why many people choose other ways to get the airport. Transit time to downtown San Francisco is half that, but trains seem to run less frequently, so maybe it’s a wash.
Cleveland pretty much fits the profiles noted, above: airport Rapid Transit passengers tend to be mostly airport/airport-related workers -- pilots, flight attendants, etc., as well as 1-suitcase (usually smaller ones of the carry-on type).
There is a significant college crowd, mainly Case Western Reserve Univ. students, since Case is Cleveland's most prestigious college (outside of nearby Oberlin) with student drawing power well beyond Ohio. The Red Line Rapid provides a cross-town, 1-seat ride to CWRU in University Circle from Hopkins Int. Airport; of course, you see extremely large numbers of student Airport Rapid riders during the holiday season as well as at the beginning and ending of school year. John Carol University, Cleveland's (Cuyahoga County's) 2nd most prestigious school, but quite a bit less so than Case, draws some out-of-state students, too, and sometimes you see them riding the Green Line LRT Rapid, which stops generally near their University Heights campus, to/from Tower City transferring to/from the Airport Red Line Rapid.
Speaking of Oberlin College, SW of the City in Lorain County, the College provides shuttle buses to Hopkins Airport since Oberlin is on the opposite side of the Airport away from Cleveland. Apparently, many Oberlin students use this service, not to fly out of Hopkins, but to transfer to Red Line trains into downtown Cleveland or Ohio City or University Circle/Little Italy, among other Cleveland destinations.
On oddity of airport travel is a result of Cleveland's large Rapid parking situation. It seems many airport day workers drive all the way to the Brookpark Rapid stop; park their cars there, and hop the Rapid for a 1-stop, 4-5 minute ride into the Airport terminal. I see a number of TSA and airport baggage workers doing this, as well as some FA's and even pilots, sometimes.
As I'm the sort of person who stubbornly seeks out rail transit, on my one visit to Milwaukee city I used the Amtrak Hiawatha to travel from Milwaukee airport downtown.
As it happens, the MKE rail station is actually slightly further from the airport terminal than the Middletown, PA Amtrak station (as recently relocated) is from the Harrisburg International (MDT) airport. However, unlike in Milwaukee, there is as yet no dedicated shuttle van at Harrisburg. A workaround could be to shuttle to the long-term parking lot at MDT which is close to the rail station, about half a mile walk (would be considerably shorter in a straight line but the sidewalk is extremely indirect, they don't have a direct entry to the station overpass to the island platform like Metro-North stations tend to). I do know of one airport worker who took the train from Lancaster city to the Middletown station and the airport in the event of a vehicle breakdown. There is bus service from Harrisburg airport to downtown Harrisburg (or to the rail station, schedule not coordinated with either trains or flights) but the trains are close to as frequent (more so on Sundays, as the city bus doesn't run Sundays). I do not know if someone would be determined to take an Amtrak Keystone Corridor train into the city from Harrisburg airport but it's at least within the realm of possibility.
Sea-Tac is the airport. With a hyphen. SeaTac is the city and station. Had to say it.
I ride Link when I use the airport. It seems well used though I concede it's a small percentage of the total passenger count (46,995,830 through November 2023).
It seems like most riders are going Downtown. My impression is it's mostly urban visitors plus locals that use transit.
Post-Covid, the train comes every eight minutes most of the day and every 10 in off hours. I'll take that any day over waiting 30 freaking minutes for a commuter rail type train.
I'm a stubborn airport transit user too. Went to Boise recently. The bus showed up on time per the schedule, but the driver said she wasn't leaving for 20 minutes! I took an Uber.
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