Lydia Ashanian arrived at Portland International Airport prepared on Wednesday, as federal transportation authorities soft launched its requirement that travelers carry REAL IDs or other REAL ID-compliant forms of identification.
Ashanian brought both her REAL ID and passport “in case something went awry” on her way to Indianapolis, she said. And she said she didn’t understand how others might have missed the repeated warnings about the switch. “Anyone who hasn’t gotten their ID by now has been asleep at the wheel somewhere,” she said.
Many other travelers at the airport seemed equally ready for the change that has been years in the making. The idea for a more secure form of U.S. identification rolled out after 9/11, was put into law in 2005 and was supposed to be implemented in 2008. But repeated delays pushed back the deadline to Wednesday, and even then the REAL ID deadline wasn’t really real…