Airport cellphone lot too costly

It’s the law, and Richard Pratt understood that: It is illegal to chat on a cellphone while driving.

Cruising at a speed of about 5 mph while searching for his daughter who was curbside in the passenger pickup area, he dialed his phone to find out exactly where she was waiting. As he pulled up to her, he said an officer descended upon him and wrote a citation for talking on his cellphone.

Pratt is livid and this is his beef in his own words: “Why is an airport that refuses to create a cellphone parking lot, doesn’t provide any place to pull over to the side of their roads and doesn’t allow people to stop for more than 30 seconds to pick up passengers, have an officer giving out tickets for using a cellphone to locate passengers?”

Other readers have wondered the same thing.

“And I’m not the only one,” Pratt continued. “This so-called officer told me he would probably hand out 40 tickets today.”

Just to clarify, the so-called officer was not an airport traffic officer, but an officer from the Metropolitan Police Department.

For those unfamiliar with cellphone lots, they allow motorists to park for free and wait in their car for a phone call from their passenger to say they are ready to be picked up. They have become commonplace in the past several years. Some airports offer vending machines and restrooms in their cellphone lots.

They have proved to alleviate the logjam created by hordes of vehicles circling through and stopping in the passenger pickup area. That problem plagues McCarran .

Cellphone lots have improved public safety, according to airport officials. Passengers don’t have to wade through two lanes of vehicles to get to their car. They also are environmentally friendly. Think about the all the unnecessary exhaust and pollutants from the cars repeatedly looping through the pickup area.

Airport spokesman Chris Jones said there is no convenient location for a cellphone lot at McCarran and they are too costly to build and maintain. The airport is an enterprise that runs on funds generated at the airport, not taxes collected by Clark County.

“Parking amenities represent a significant investment of airport revenue,” Jones said. “McCarran’s current garage and its accompanying roadways cost nearly $85 million to develop more than a decade ago. Terminal 3’s new, larger garage cost $140 million.”

He noted that the airport’s new short-term parking arrangement in the passenger pickup area essentially serves the same purpose.

Motorists picking up passengers can park in that garage for 15 minutes free of charge, as long as they insert their ticket at the exit gate. If they use the pay machines inside the parking area, it will cost $2. This isn’t explained in the garage and the grace period is not well advertised, perhaps because the airport doesn’t want to give away parking.

“Drivers who intend to wait just a short period of time before picking up arriving travelers are encouraged to use the airport’s short-term garage, where they can park for up to 15 minutes at no cost,” Jones said.

Of the nation’s Top 10 busiest airports, only two do not offer cellphone lots: McCarran and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Airports including Los Angeles, Atlanta and JFK in New York all provide cellphone lots. Some of these eight airports limit motorists to 60 minutes; some have no time limits.

The 15 minutes of free parking in McCarran’s short-term lot are beneficial, but you can unexpectedly have to wait a lot longer than that.

You might do everything possible to time your arrival to the airport, but it’s impossible to predict other factors that could delay the plane. How many times has your flight arrived on time, but sat on the tarmac because no gates were available?

Jones noted that McCarran’s parking fees are far lower than other airports.

That’s true; compare the $2 an hour at McCarran to $6 an hour at San Francisco International or JFK.

The airport’s new international facility, Terminal 3, is scheduled to open in June. That project includes a 6,000-space parking garage — one of the largest in the country — but still no cellphone lot.

Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak, who serves on the board that oversees airport operations, said there have been discussions in the past about adding a cellphone lot.

Locating land is not the issue, Sisolak said, but the cost to provide security and clean up the lot is.

“My understanding is there is a cost associated with it that is higher than people realize,” Sisolak said. “I can’t attest to that; that’s just what the airport tells me.”

He noted that McCarran has had trouble with the parking lot off Sunset Road where motorists can park just off the runway and watch planes land. Sisolak said it has become a meeting place for illicit activities.

A remote cellphone lot could pose the same safety threats.

“If everybody was responsible, I don’t think it would be a problem,” Sisolak said. “That is not the case, unfortunately.”

Here are a few tips for those picking up passengers:

Check out www.flymccarran.com for up-to-date flight times. Find a place near the airport to wait for a phone call.

But whatever you do, don’t enter passenger pickup with a cellphone in hand. If that officer was truly prepared to write 40 tickets in a day, they are obviously looking to shoot a few fish swimming around in the barrel.

If you have a question, tip or tirade, call Adrienne Packer at 702-387-2904, or send an email to roadwarrior@reviewjournal.com. Include your phone number.