Countywide : ‘Vertiport’ Urged for Site Near Disneyland

Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young on Monday proposed placing a “vertiport” for vertical takeoff and landing aircraft atop a planned parking and transit garage next to Disneyland.

The structure, to be built if the Walt Disney Co. proceeds with plans for its Westcot addition to Disneyland, would be one of the world’s largest parking garages.

Under a deal worked out between several government agencies, parking revenue would be reserved for transit projects.

The garage would also serve as a bus and urban rail stop.

“Looking beyond helping the business of one company, we’ll be able to link the bus system with automobiles and” urban rail, said Young, who chairs an 11-city urban rail advisory group. “And we’ll be able to look at putting VTOL on top of it.”

Young said vertical takeoff and landing aircraft would be ideal for trips to Santa Barbara, Bakersfield and San Diego and would fill unmet travel needs of both business people and tourists.

Young’s comments came during a transportation planners’ conference at the Anaheim Marriott.

The mayor, who serves on the Orange County Transportation Authority board, also predicted that studies soon to be completed by OCTA will support construction of an elevated urban rail line that would run between the South Coast Plaza/Irvine Spectrum/John Wayne Airport area and either Disneyland or Fullerton.

With regard to the VTOL pad, Young said he hasn’t formally proposed it to OCTA because Disney officials haven’t yet made a final decision to build Westcot.

VTOL discussions highlighted parts of the conference, which focused on linking various modes of transport.

Several speakers said VTOL technology can contribute to the overall mix of transfer options, relieving existing airports as well as providing new links between various places within the same region.

A VTOL facility is planned for Atlanta, and another was recently built in Dallas.

But Cliff Bragdon of Long Island’s Dowling College created the biggest stir. He urged planners to abandon their two-dimensional land-use thinking in favor of “space planning” that accounts for all human senses, including smell.

He cited plans for a 32-story complex to be build underground in Osaka, Japan, with a park on the bottom floor.

The sense of smell is important, too, Bragdon said, so planners must take “spacescapes” into account, “not landscapes.”

Soon, he reported, airline passengers will be given whiffs that can aid sleep on overseas flights, and new cars will be equipped to emit scents that help drivers stay awake.

“Single buildings for single purposes are archaic, as are the people who design them,” Bragdon said. “Those people should be eliminated.”