Train in vain

Of course the Federal Aviation Administration’s 629-page Final Environmental Impact Statement (and 25,013 pages of appendices) looks favorably on the Port Authority’s proposed LaGuardia AirTrain, a very stupid $2 billion project that mars Gov. Cuomo’s otherwise brilliant rebuild of the miserable landing field: The whole thing was rigged, as just-unearthed documents show.

The records reveal the FAA found that the PA’s determination that its ridiculous out-of-the-way people mover get crowned as the preferred route went too far. The Port so stacked the process that “it also only allows one alternative to possibly meet the criteria.” In simple terms, the PA narrowed the alternatives to one.

This is known as the magician’s choice, in which a performer asks the audience to make a selection, but the outcome is always forced by the illusionist. In a game of three-card Monte, the mark thinks he’s picking, but the hustler is in full control. If the PA was the three-card Monte dealer, the FAA acted as the lookout, when it should have been the cop busting up the scam.

The public should thank the folks at Riverkeeper, who asked the PA turn over communications with the FAA. These records should have been disclosed even without a Freedom of Information Law request. Instead, Riverkeeper filed a FOIL in December 2018, and the Port said no and no again on reconsideration. Riverkeeper then went to court and won in October 2019, so the PA appealed, losing a unanimous ruling a year later. We are sure the Port would have stalled further, but the united bench ended their options. And then it took until last month for the agency to obey the court.

Riverkeeper has written to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg that his “FAA has undermined a review of transit alternatives that might better serve the region while imposing fewer environmental impacts on local communities.”

It’s late, as the FAA could issue its formal Record of Decision endorsing the wrong route very soon, but that doesn’t make it right.