Rocky mountain low

A reminder that most big government projects should never get off the ground | Joel Belz

If you've got any travel plans that take you through the spectacular new Denver International Airport, consider adding a couple of days to your schedule just to get through the huge facility and on to your final destination.

On our way home from Colorado last week, we purposely allowed a full hour and a half between our arrival at the airport and our flight time. It was barely enough. Just as the airport itself was a couple of years late in getting off the ground, now an annoying number of passengers end up late for flights every day at DIA just because the slickly designed facility is so user-hostile.

In a sense, it's a pity the engineers ever succeeded in getting the celebrated baggage system working at DIA. If it had stayed broken, chewing up and spitting out trial suitcases as it did for a year or more, maybe DIA would never have opened. The public would have been better served.