The reason light rail has difficulty gaining access to airports isn’t because of any “taxi lobby”. The reason is becuase the airport authorities or county/city governments that run airports don’t want them.
A major source of income comes from parking revenues and taxi/executive car contracts. Even off site parking lots have to pay a fee to pick up and drop passengers. It isn’t just the airport’s revenues, it’s campaign contributions to county executives that come from protected taxi/executive car contractors.
I just love the Air Train at JFK. I used to take the Metro to National (now Reagan) and Bart was great for getting to Oakland.
The problem with rail whether it is light rail or AMTRAK, is it goes where it wants to go, which is not necessarily where you want to go. It is very inflexible.
