The right train to the planes

COVID-caused flight cancellations are rattling airports around the world. Blame the virus and its omicron version for that. But for the headache of traveling to and from LaGuardia Airport, blame decades of missed opportunities to build a sensible rail connection to the terminals. There should have been a subway stop when the place opened in 1939, but on the cusp of 2022, direct rail access remains a dream as passengers and airport employees have no alternative other than traffic-clogged roads. Gov. Hochul wisely killed the Port Authority’s quite awful $2.1 billion AirTrain project, a pet of her predecessor that would have used the LIRR’s sleepy station at Willets Point. Better options are already emerging.

Scott Spencer of AmeriStarRail has sent Hochul what looks like to us a far superior plan to have a new dedicated rail link from the end of the N line subway in Astoria, with fast service from Times Square. It would also mesh with Amtrak trains between Penn Station and out towards Westchester and Connecticut up to Boston, as well as a new Metro-North route from the East Bronx into Penn. In the near term, Spencer would have a shuttle bus from Astoria and would eventually merge LaGuardia with the existing JFK AirTrain at Jamaica.

There were more good ideas in these pages from architect Jonathan Cohn, who was the design director of the JFK AirTrain and who correctly wants to avoid some of the errors in that project. Like Spencer, he wants to run a train from Astoria.

We hope that experts Mike Brown, Janette Sadik-Khan and Phil Washington, brought in to reassess after the LGA AirTrain’s demise, listen to Spencer and Cohn and not those who came up with the abomination and defended it for years until Hochul mercifully pulled the plug.

Even after that embarrassment, the PA and MTA still refuse to make free the LaGuardia Link Q70 bus, the best current way to the airport. Once again, it’s free for holidays only, Dec. 23 to Jan. 2. They will never learn.