AirTrain LaGuardia is a proposed 1.5-mile-long (2.4 km) people mover system and elevated railway in New York City that would provide service to LaGuardia Airport in Queens. It would connect with the New York City Subway and Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in Willets Point in a similar manner to AirTrain JFK. It would be built and operated under contract to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the operator of the airport, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Construction is expected to begin in 2019, and it is projected to open by 2023.
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Context
LaGuardia presently has no rail service. The only public transportation is by bus via the Q47, Q48, Q70 SBS, Q72, M60 SBS routes, which connect to the subway and LIRR in Queens; the M60 SBS also goes to Harlem and Morningside Heights in Manhattan, and connects with the Metro-North Railroad in East Harlem. In 2014, 8% of LaGuardia's 27 million passengers took the bus, compared to the 12% of the 53 million passengers using John F. Kennedy International Airport who took Airtrain JFK. Similarly, in 2008, 75% of LaGuardia's passengers took a taxi or car service, but only 16% rode a bus or van.
The New York metropolitan area's other two major airports have rail connections. AirTrain Newark, the monorail at Newark Liberty International Airport, has connected that airport to commuter trains since 1996. AirTrain JFK, the people mover at JFK Airport, opened in 2003. AirTrain LaGuardia is proposed to be a people mover like the one at JFK.
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Description
As currently planned, the AirTrain Laguardia would run from LaGuardia Airport with two stops within the airport, before running over the Grand Central Parkway for 1.5 miles (2.4 km) before terminating in Willets Point near Citi Field and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, and would connect there with the New York City Subway's 7 <7> trains at the Mets-Willets Point station and, via an existing passenger bridge, with the Long Island Rail Road's Mets-Willets Point station. The Mets-Willets Point subway stop would be rebuilt, and $50 million has been allocated toward planning and designing this work in the 2015-2019 MTA Capital Program. The LIRR stop, as part of that Capital Program, would be rebuilt for $75 million. The subway station and the LIRR station would be integrated with nearby buses as part of the overhaul for greater intermodal connectivity. The station could also possibly hold ancillary airport functions, employee parking, and a Consolidated Rent-a-Car facility.
To allow for the AirTrain station in Willets Point to be built, the Casey Stengel Bus Depot will need to be relocated. $50 million was allocated in the 2015-2019 MTA Capital Program to acquire property for a replacement depot.
History
A rail link to LaGuardia Airport had been proposed since 1943, when the city Board of Transportation proposed an extension of the New York City Subway's BMT Astoria Line (currently served by the N W trains) from its terminus at Ditmars Boulevard. The need for a rail connection to LaGuardia continued to be a discussion point since at least the mid-1990s. In 2003, $645 million was budgeted to extend the Astoria Line to the airport, but the extension was never built due to community opposition in Queens.
On January 20, 2015, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a plan to build a people mover similar to AirTrain JFK. It would follow the Grand Central Parkway for one and a half miles, similar to how the AirTrain JFK runs along the median of the Van Wyck Expressway between Jamaica and JFK. The line would terminate in Willets Point near Citi Field and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, and would connect there with the New York City Subway's 7 <7> trains at the Mets-Willets Point station and, via an existing passenger bridge, with the Long Island Rail Road's Mets-Willets Point station. The governor's office estimated the cost for the project would be $450 million-however this cost has ballooned to $1.5 billion.
The first contracts for the AirTrain itself were awarded in May 2016. A pair of contracts, totaling $7.5 million, were awarded for preliminary engineering work at the two Willets Point stations and is expected to be completed in 2017. One contract, costing $4.6 million and awarded to STV Inc, was for studies of the LIRR station's platform lengthening and an ADA-accessibility retrofit. The other, a $2.9 million contract given to HDR Architecture and Engineering PC, was for studies regarding the subway station's complete renovation and ADA-accessibility. The airport renovation as a whole started construction on June 14, 2016. $1.5 billion was allocated for the construction of the rail link as part of the introduced 10-year $29.5 billion plan for the Port Authority. New York Commissioner Kenneth Lipper tried to have the plan amended with all funding for the AirTrain removed, citing concerns that the project would leave the agency in financial difficulty.
In January 2017, the PANYNJ released its 10-year capital plan that included AirTrain LaGuardia funding. Construction is projected to start in 2019, with passenger service in 2023. On February 6, 2017, the PANYNJ announced that it had opened a four-week-long request for proposals. The firm that is awarded the RFP would design three AirTrain stations--two inside the airport's new terminals and one at Willets Point--as well as plan the right of way from Willets Point to the airport. In May 2017, Parsons Brinckerhoff was hired to design AirTrain LGA.
Criticism
The proposal, which is estimated to cost $450 million, has been strongly criticized by transit advocates as being slower than existing transit modes and likely to increase loads on the 7 <7> trains, already operating at full capacity. This will be alleviated somewhat when the IRT Flushing Line is automated. However, the proposed AirTrain transfer at Willets Point would still be 20 stations away from the 34th Street-Hudson Yards station, the western terminus of the 7 <7> trains (10 stations away via the rush-hour peak-direction express).
According to one critic, even with a capacity increase, the new route might not be worth the trip due to its distance from most of the rest of the city, as "transit travel times from LaGuardia to destinations throughout New York City--from Grand Central in Midtown Manhattan to Borough Hall in downtown Brooklyn to Jamaica in central Queens to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx--would be longer for passengers using the AirTrain than for passengers using existing transit services already offered by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority." Another critic called the project itself "dumb," saying that the project was a pet project for Cuomo and an "egregious misuse of money and initiative, in a city whose everyday transit functions are at capacity, to extend such a gift to airport travelers, of all people."
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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