There will be no AirTrain to La Guardia Airport.
Governor Kathy Hochul abandoned plans to build a light rail line to La Guardia after an assessment found the cost of the project had skyrocketed to $2.4 billion, more than five times the original estimate.
When Mrs. Hochul’s predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo, first announced pet project in 2015, he put the cost at $450 million. After Mr. Cuomo resign in disgrace in 2021, the plan faces growing opposition from elected officials and community groups. Ms. Hochul halted the project and ordered a review several months after taking office.
Publishing the results of the review on Monday, a group of transportation experts is proposing the less expensive option of increasing public bus service to La Guardia and adding shuttles between the airport and the train station. subway north of Queens to reduce the dependence of air travelers on taxis and private cars.
“I accept the recommendations of this report and I look forward to their immediate implementation by the Port Authority in close coordination with our partners in the MTA,” Ms. Hochul said in a statement on Monday. city and federal government.
The addition of an AirTrain, similar to the one that has served Kennedy International Airport for nearly 20 years, is intended to be the final step in the $8 billion La Guardia renovation. Two major terminals have opened at the airport over the past few years as part of an overhaul designed to integrate AirTrain terminals into them.
Cuomo and his allies often complain that La Guardia is the only major airport on the East Coast without a rail link. Even Ms. Hochul, as deputy governor in 2018, said the AirTrain would provide “easy access and travel options for people in Manhattan and Long Island.”
La Guardia operator, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, has received expedited federal approval for a plan to build an AirTrain between La Guardia and Willets Point, where it could connect to the subway line 7 and the Long Island Railroad. Port Authority officials initially promised that the route could get travelers from Midtown Manhattan to the airport in less than 30 minutes.
Transportation in New York City
Riverkeeper, an environmental group and two community organizations in Queens, sued The Port Authority and Federal Aviation Administration in 2021 to block the AirTrain project, arguing that it would take parkland along Flushing Bay from the historic Negro neighborhood of East Elmhurst.
Rick Cotton, the agency’s chief executive, said the soaring cost of building the project was one reason the Port Authority endorsed the recommendation to abandon it.
“If you invite outside experts to make recommendations, you should accept their recommendations,” Mr. Cotton said in an interview. He said he would bring the panel’s recommendation to the Port Authority’s board of trustees within three months.
Three panelists – Janette Sadik-Khan, Mike Brown and Phillip A. Washington – said in a statement that they were unanimous in recommending that instead build an AirTrain or expand a metro line to the airport. , the Port Authority and the transport authority should enhance the existing Q70 bus service to the airport and add a dedicated shuttle between La Guardia and the last stop on the N/W metro line in Astoria.
The panel agreed that expanding the subway to offer a “single-seater ride” from Midtown was “the optimal way to achieve the best public transit connection.” But they added that engineers who had looked at options could not find a viable way to build a metro extension to the cramped airport, which is surrounded by Grand Central Parkway and the East River.
The analysis concluded that even if a way to extend the metro line could be found without affecting flight operations at La Guardia, it would take at least 12 years and cost up to $7 billion to build. build.
Sadik-Khan, a former New York City transportation commissioner, said improving and speeding up the Q70 bus as well as creating an all-electric shuttle service would cost a fraction of the money. That’s only about $500 million. She said the bus service will carry nearly twice as many passengers annually as the Willets Point AirTrain is expected to handle.
Among the criticisms of the AirTrain plan is its indirect route. Passengers arriving in Manhattan will have to travel in the opposite direction to catch the subway or the LIRR train at Willets Point. The Port Authority chose that route, along the park road, to minimize the need to purchase private property. Community groups are also concerned about the impact on property values in residential areas near La Guardia in north Queens.
“It’s no small thing to steer a state ship off the reef at Willets Point,” said Sadik-Khan, principal of Bloomberg Associates. “Saving $1.5 billion while moving almost twice as many riders quickly and efficiently is pretty good.”
Ms Brown, a former commissioner for London’s Department of Transport, and Mr Washington, a former chief executive of Los Angles Metro, participated in the panel.
Thomas K. Wright, president of the Regional Planning Association, a transportation research group, praised the Port Authority for managing a “transparent” alternative review process. “No one should think there was a fix,” he said.
But Mr. Wright added that the chosen solution would have only modest effect on New York City’s decades-long problem of airport traffic congestion.
“Improved bus service is not a game changer,” Mr. Wright said. “The majority of people flying in and out of LaGuardia will continue to use private cars and taxis,” he said.
Mr Cotton, who served on Ms Hochul’s orders, said he had accepted that “the circumstances have changed” since he campaigned for AirTrain in the face of the Opposition from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other officials representing Queens. The agency, he said, could transfer the rest of the money it should have spent on AirTrain to other planned projects.
A spokesman for the transportation agency, John J. McCarthy, said in a statement that the agency looks forward to continuing to work with the Port Authority “as they launch their new direct airport shuttle service. ” and will work collaboratively to improve the Q70 Service that the panel recommends.
