Light Rail Link To New York JFK Progresses On Schedule
<B>Light Rail Link To New York JFK Progresses On Schedule</B>
By Frank Rosci
AirTrain, an 8.4-mile automated light-rail project, in less than three years will begin off-airport operations, enabling travelers in Manhattan to connect to New York JFK International Airport via a fast, dependable train. On-airport segments of the benchmark $1.5 billion system will be completed in late 2002, and construction is half finished, said Robert E. Boyle, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive director.
In development since September 1998 as part of Gov. George Pataki's Masterlinks program--a comprehensive plan geared toward improving access to the region's airports--AirTrain will form a 3.1-mile link from New York JFK to the Long Island Rail Road's transportation hub in Jamaica, N.Y., and a 3.3-mile link between the New York City Transit station in Howard Beach. There also will be a two-mile light rail loop system circulating in JFK's Central Terminal Area. In addition to stops at Terminals 1 through 8, AirTrain will make stops at Federal Circle for rental cars and Lefferts Boulevard for long term/employee parking.
"No longer will business travelers have to allow two hours or more to reach JFK because of uncertain road conditions," Boyle said. Travel times from Manhattan to the airport via Jamaica will be less than 45 minutes and from Manhattan to JFK via Howard Beach less than one hour, regardless of time of day, weather or traffic, Boyle said.
AirTrain also will put JFK within eight minutes of Jamaica, and it will take only eight minutes for a complete trip around JFK's Central Terminal Area, as opposed to the 20 minutes and nearly 45 minutes, respectively, currently experienced by some travelers.
For the sake of the New York area's exploding transportation crunch, said Patty Clark--program manager at the New York Airport Access, Port Authority--AirTrain had to happen now, had to be developed as designed. "Rather than wait another 10 years for the perfect system to be designed with a direct connect from Manhattan to JFK, the AirTrain system that is being built will offer the area a lot of flexibility and utility," she said.
The system's existence now is in anticipation of the inability of the area's current transportation system to handle the commuting crisis that is expected to peak around the year 2003, said Clark, a time when travelers might just throw their hands in the air in frustration over gridlock and long traffic delays. AirTrain, she added, will mean fewer cars on the road, less traffic congestion and less air pollution.
Initially, about 34,000 people a day are expected to use the system, making it the second most heavily used airport access system in the nation. Washington's Reagan National Airport now operates the country's most heavily used system. In fact, many of JFK's 40,000 employees are expected to switch to AirTrain in favor of driving to work.
Ridership is expected to grow as passenger traffic at JFK increases. At present, 32 million passengers a year use JFK. That number is expected to increase to 45 million by 2013.
An existing $3 surcharge on departing passengers, collected under the Passenger Facility Charge program, and Port Authority capital funds will build AirTrain, which is expected to generate $980 million in sales. The system's 10 stations will be fully enclosed, heated and air conditioned, with platform doors, wide escalators, large glass-enclosed elevators, moving walkways to airline terminals and 240-ft. platform lengths.
"AirTrain will not serve Manhattan alone," Clark said. "Not everyone who will ride it will be going there, but it will be a service that offers a lot of travel opportunity to business travelers."
While AirTrain has been welcomed by city officials and travelers, and lauded as long overdo, members of city government and others have expressed some cause for concern. Since the service isn't direct, pundits said, AirTrain is less convenient and more time consuming, requiring a change to and from a second form of transportation, a so-called "two-seat" ride.
A plan by Empire State Development to create a so-called "one-seat" train ride from midtown Manhattan to JFK is afoot. The service ultimately would provide a 25-minute direct train link between the new Farley-Penn Station and the airport, said ESD chairman and commissioner Charles Gargano.
The service, which would begin in 2004, the same year the Farley-Penn Station will open, would use the existing Metropolitan Transportation Authority's LIRR mainline and proposed AirTrain railroads to create the approximately 17-mile link to the airport.
"Our redevelopment of Penn Station is dramatically improving travel services to midtown Manhattan," said Gargano. "A 'one-seat' ride, similar to the highly successful Heathrow Express in London, would be another monumental achievement.