For those of us for whom entire trips are ruined by worrying over the safety of our car in the long-term lot, trains to planes are a godsend. Washington, Boston, San Francisco and other cities have subway lines to the airport. Strangely, New York has two airports within the city limits, but no rail connections. The AirTrain is about to change that.
It's a light rail line that connects JFK airport with the Howard Beach subway station and the Jamaica subway/commuter rail transfer point. This is a colosal waste of money and here's why:
1. It costs $5 and doesn't bring you into the city. No form of mass transit within the city limits costs that much.
2. After you get off the AirTrain, you still have the majority of your trip ahead of you. This is especially true of the Howard Beach subway link, which is 31 stops away from Times Square through some of Brooklyn's roughest neighborhoods. Not a good option for your average Danish tourist. Even the LIRR link requires a transfer.
3. It would have been much cheaper to extend service to LaGuardia. LGA is closer to Manhattan and could have been served by an extension of the N train, eliminating the need for the MTA to build new light rail-only facilities and eliminating a transfer for customers with luggage.
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rj3 | 01:09 PM |
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I get over that worry about my car by parking at the very secure off-sairport Doug Fox Parking where I am even a member of its "Frequent Parker Club."
Yes, you're right. The JFK AirTrain is really a half-baked "solution" to NYC's airport access problems. If you're going to spend over $1B to connect JFK (or any of the other airports) by rail to the city, it should be primarily a 1 seat ride. You'd expect more than the JFK AirTrain.
Clearly there is a jursidicational issue that seems to be common when you have mulitiple agencies trying to do transit projects.
The Port Authority runs the airports (and benefit from the revenue from them) so they have the greatest interest in connecting them to the City. Rather than wait for the MTA to connect LaGuardia, I think the PA just went ahead and did their own, seperate project.
From what I heard, the AirTrain even uses tracks that are sized differently than the MTA trains - so there's really not a great future in the idea of converting the AirTrain into the subway network.
I suspect the PA chose to connect JFK, rather than LaGuardia, to the subway network because there is no room for growth at LaGuardia in terms of air traffic. All the future airport growth in the City (excluding Newark) will have to occur at JFK. Besides, it has always been a bigger pain in the ass to get to JFK than LaGuardia.
On the other hand, the Newark AirTrain is great. You take the monorail to the train station, which hooks you directly into the Amtrak/NJ Transit network.
Ironically enough, the airport furthest away from NYC, which is in a different state, is the only one that truly has the one-seat ride to Manhattan. In about 25 minutes you can find yourself at Penn Station... on a much more comfortable ride than a subway also.
Not unlike the situation on London, where the largest and closest major airport, Heathrow, has poorer rail links to Central London than the Gatwick, which always had the advantage that it was adjacent to an existing rail line.
For years Heathrow was only served by an extension of the Piccadilly tube line (45 minutes and 17 stops to the city centre!) The recently opened Heathrow Express gets you rapidly to Paddington, which is theoretically in central London but still requires a lengthy tube transfer to anywhere you're actually likely to want to go. And the fares are definitely 'tourist prices'.
I'm not sure what transport links London City Airport has nowadays; when it opened they were very poor, but I have a feeling the Docklands Light Railway has been extended out that way now.
What's so great about the Newark monorail? Its not a one seat ride as you have to transfer to NJT. The JFK Airtrain is the same as the Newark monorail as it connects to the Long Island Rail Road in addition to the subways. You get on the Airtrain at an airline terminal at JFK to get to Jamaica station where you get the LIRR. In about 40 minutes from when you left the airline terminal you can find yourself at Penn Station.
The system has been designed to allow for future connections to either the LIRR or the subway. The tracks of the system are standard gauge, and the power is 650 VDC supplied by third rail, which is compatible with that used by the LIRR and the subways. However, the LIRR would have to adopt a new type of 60 foot car (60' is the standard for the B Division subways) that would need dual train control system.
