The two-minute stroll between Detroit’s Concourse A and C is a cosmic departure from the airport norm.
The tunnel between terminals has motorized walking paths on both sides and a wide-opened space right down the middle, for those with the energy to walk the stretch at a normal pace. The curved-in walls are decorated with slightly raised images of different countries around the world and flashing rainbow colored lights synchronized with the pumped in sounds of nature.
As I came to the end of the tunnel after a recent flight, I couldn’t help but wonder how passengers were reacting to the walkway.
Would the tunnel be embraced? Would they be annoyed by it? Would the flashing lights be enough to break their autopilot trance?
I stopped right at the base of the escalator leading up to Concourse A and witnessed the spattering of smiles as person after person emerged out of the fairytale tunnel.
One woman that looked to be in her late-sixties turned to her partner and said simply, “Wow, that was cool!”
With the recent rise of massage kiosks, oxygen bars, and even karaoke bars — all aimed to reduce traveler stress — the cosmic tunnel is perhaps an image of another creative approach for airports looking for a cultural makeover.
It’s a fact: The way we “feel” in an environment affects the way we “live” in that space.
And in Detroit, the feeling is evidently cosmic.
Jason Barger is author of Step Back from the Baggage Claim: Change the World, Start at the Airport.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
O’Hare has a tunnel too!
I have been through this tunnel many times and it always makes me dizzy and nauseous. I understand what they are trying to do, but for me it makes me more stressed because I feel yucky afterwards! I have heard kids make comments and they seem to really like it.
You could have substituted the word “Detroit” for “Chicago” and the article would have almost described the tunnel between United’s Concourse B and C at O’Hare.
There are a few differences, of course. The motorized walkways are in the middle and the walkays on the side. The curved walls do not have paintings on them but are glass. The music is not the sounds of nature, but “Rhapsody in Blue” (aka United’s theme song), and O’Hare’s tunnel was built in the 80′s — so this concept had been around for some time.
We usually fly Northwest to Orlando, and traveling through that tunnel has always put us in a Disney mood if we’re on our way there (reminds us of being at Epcot), and gives us one last memory if we’re on our way home. Even if I’m traveling for business elsewhere, it makes me smile because of that Disney connection in my mind.
Thanks for the heads up. I am going to Detroit in May and will definitely experience this tunnel. I thought the O’Hare tunnel pretty “cool” when I first had to traverse it a couple of decades ago.
It’s not in the same league as a neon tunnel, but a cool thing I’ve seen in an airport is Citi’s “umbrella” ads at Bradley airport in Hartford. At first glance, they just look like a poster of Citi’s (formerly Traveler’s) big red umbrella logo. But on closer inspection, the big umbrella is made up of many tiny umbrellas, but if you walk close enough so that your shadow hits it (or wave your arm in front of it intentionally), the little umbrellas momentarily scatter, and then re-assemble.
My daughter and I had fun scattering the umbrellas on several walks past.