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Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Monday that his plans for an AirTrain raised at La Guardia Airport were going forward, but transportation experts quickly raised concerns as to whether it would be safe. was the right way to make travel easier at the airport.
Mr Cuomo said the AirTrain would offer a 30 minute trip to La Guardia from Midtown Manhattan and that it would open its doors by 2022.
There was just one catch: the riders had to first cross the airport, to the east until Citi Field – the Mets' house – to catch the AirTrain and then go back. The diverted road was encountered ridiculous sure social media.
The current trek in La Guardia is notoriously unpleasant. This usually involves a taxi or bus ride through the obstructed roads near the airfield. For decades, elected officials debated the merits of building a rail link to the airport, but the logistics and costs were discouraging.
Enter Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who has launched a vertiginous series of infrastructure projects in the region and proposed the AirTrain three years ago. After state lawmakers passed legislation this month allowing the state to use the eminent domain for the project, officials are moving forward with an environmental study for the AirTrain.
"How not to have a train to the city from New York Airport?" Cuomo said before signing the law. "I mean, it's just incomprehensible."
The La Guardia air train, which could cost more than $ 1.5 billion, fits into Mr. Cuomo's broader plans to improve the airport, a dubious complex that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. equates to an airport "in a third world country. Cuomo hopes to start building the AirTrain in 2020.
But transport experts have criticized the road and Cuomo's commitment to helping users get to the airport in 30 minutes or less. Mr. Cuomo said it would take 16 minutes to get on the Long Island Rail Road from Manhattan to Willets Point Train Station in Queens, near Citi Field, and six minutes on the Willets AirTrain. Point at the airport. The AirTrain would be run every four minutes.
The estimate does not take into account the time spent waiting on the platform between the trains, said Yonah Freemark, a doctoral student in urban planning at M.I.T. who runs a transport site. The use of the AirTrain could actually take longer than existing express buses, said Mr Freemark.
"I think it's a trip of 30 minutes or less for the very small number of people who arrive at Willets Point as L.I.R.R. the train arrives," said Freemark.
Runners could also take the # 7 subway line to the Mets-Willets Point station to take the AirTrain, although this option could take longer as local trains do a lot of work. stops.
The Long Island Rail Road could increase rail service to Willets Point Station on the Port Washington line, said Jon Weinstein, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state-controlled agency that supervises the metro and the subway.
The expansion plans will allow the railway to "meet growing travel needs and provide more services to major centers," including Willets Point and La Guardia, said Weinstein in a statement.
The Authority is building a new station under the Grand Central Terminal and a tunnel linking it to Long Island Rail Road, which currently serves the Pennsylvania Station. The project costs, known as East Side Access and whose opening is scheduled for 2022, have inflated to over $ 11 billion. Mr Cuomo suggested that runners could reach the AirTrain using the new Grand Central Terminal Road.
Yet Mr. Cuomo's emphasis on the AirTrain proposal has frustrated experts who believe that this should not be a top priority when the transit system in the region is in crisis, from subways to railways. suburbs. Kenneth Lipper, a former Port Authority board member appointed by Mr. Cuomo, said the AirTrain was among the "poorest designed projects" that he has experienced in government.
Last week, state legislators approved AirTrain legislation on the last day of the session. The law allows the state to acquire public lands along the Grand Central Parkway and Line No. 7. It seems that Mr. Cuomo liked the road because it did not require not take private property.
Seth Stein, a spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, said the mayor wants to ensure that "community interests are respected, including the protection of the parks." This will remain our priority as the project progresses. advance. "
The cost of AirTrain nearly tripled from $ 450 million when Mr. Cuomo came up with the idea in 2015. (The Port Authority's Capital Plan for Port last year Some public transit advocates have criticized Cuomo for making the AirTrain Bill approved as a law allowing re-authorization of safety cameras in New York schools.
The other two major airports in the region – Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport – both have AirTrains, although the Newark train is known to be chronically unreliable.
Mr Freemark said that proposals for a train to La Guardia airport could benefit more passengers, including a plan in the early 2000s to extend the N subway line into Queens until At the airport.
"It's disappointing," he said, "that we have not had a public conversation to discuss whether or not it's the right project."
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