Originally Posted by
tdracer
Exactly! People tend to forget that many of these airports have been there for 80 or 90 years. Out in the boondock's when they were built, but now completely surrounded by urban development making any runway expansion somewhere between horrendous expensive and impossible.
tdr, you are usually on point. But not this time. The two examples you cite are (were) land-locked airports, which certainly present expansion challenges. That is not the case with SFO as San Francisco Bay presents almost unlimited potential for expansion. In fact a significant portion (50%?) of the existing SFO footprint is built on bay fill. Oakland’s long runway is built on bay fill as are portions of the various military facilities along SF Bay.
The technology for such expansion is well established; e.g., HNL reef runway, Hong Kong, Chubu, etc. Plans for this type of expansion at SFO were floated in the 90s with the #1 obstacle being environmental groups. If the bay area governments can toss a couple $B at new sports stadiums, they can certainly pony up some dollars for a new SFO runway. What is lacking is the political will to buck the greenies.