Duffy said the department would solicit bids for “personnel movers” after a single-vehicle crash on Nov. 10 that injured 18 people.
Dulles car crashes into dock, injuring several passengers
A mobile lounge, also known as a people mover, debuted on the pier at Dulles International Airport on Monday.
Fox – 5 DC
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said at a Dec. 2 Cabinet meeting that the terminals and concourses at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., are poorly designed and plan to overhaul them.
Trump praised the device designed by Eero Saarinen. But he and Duffy said other parts of the airport need improvement.
President Trump said, “Dulles Airport is not a good airport either, so we’re going to rebuild it.” “The building is great, but the airport is terrible.”
The plan will solicit proposals from developers, architects, and engineers to build an entirely new terminal and concourse at Dulles. These structures will replace or add to the existing main terminal and satellite concourses.
Trump added: “We’re going to turn things around.” “We’re trying to make Dulles Airport, which serves Washington and Virginia and Maryland and beyond, really great. We have great plans for that.”
Complaints about Dulles center on aging facilities, a small number of gates in the main terminal, an inefficient system that involves moving half a mile of mobile lounges between the main terminal and the gates, and the smell of jet fuel in the concourse, the Department of Transportation said.
“We have a great design for Dulles,” President Trump said. “It was a poorly designed airport. We’re going to make it as good as there is in this country.”
Duffy said the first step, to be announced Dec. 2, is a request for bids to upgrade the shuttle bus, known as the “People Mover,” after a single-vehicle crash on Nov. 10. A vehicle crashed into an airport dock and 18 people were taken to hospital.
The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which manages the airport, had plans to update the facility, but the Department of Transportation argued it was insufficient. The mobile lounge was expected to cost $160 million and last for at least 15 years, the ministry said.
Once the administration receives proposals for the design, financing and construction of the new terminal and concourse, it will “work closely” with the Washington Metropolitan Area Airports Authority to transform the airport into a “world-class facility,” the agency said.
“Tourists, world leaders, and CEOs from around the world should not be forced to travel through inefficient airports when they visit Washington, D.C.,” Duffy said. Dulles “needs a complete makeover in order to assume its proper role as the principal international gateway to the capital of the world’s greatest nation.”
