AirTrain to LaGuardia won’t fly, decides a Port Authority panel
The controversial plan to build an AirTrain link to LaGuardia Airport has been killed after a review by the Port Authority.
Instead, a three-member panel said in a report issued Monday that the PA should improve access through increased bus service — both through increased service on the MTA’s existing Q70 line, and the creation of shuttle bus service.
The panel — consisting of former city Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan; Mike Brown, a former director of London’s Heathrow Airport; and current CEO of Denver International Airport Phillip Washington — said it was unanimously in favor of expanding subway service to the airport along the N and W lines as a long-term access plan.
But any plan to build subway tunnels or elevated lines to the immediate southwest of LaGuardia faces “serious funding and constructability challenges” given FAA regulations and the proximity to Runway 4, the trio said in its summary.
“Preliminary estimates indicate approximately 1213 years to completion at an estimated cost of $5-$7 billion,” it said of a possible subway extension.
In the near term, they called on the MTA to improve Q70 service, including increased frequency and the construction of a bus-only lane on the shoulder of the northbound BQE.
“The MTA looks forward to continuing to work with the Port Authority as it rolls out its new direct airport shuttle service, improving connections to LaGuardia Airport,” MTA spokesman John McCarthy told the Daily News. “We also look forward to working cooperatively on the panel’s recommendations regarding improvements to the Q70 bus service to LaGuardia from Woodside and Jackson Heights.”
The panel also called on the Port Authority to create nonstop express bus service from the end of the N and W line to the airport, using dedicated bus lanes on 31st St. and 19th Ave.
The AirTrain, developed under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, would have run a new automated rail link to the airport from Willets Point. It was put on indefinite pause in 2021 after Gov. Hochul asked the bistate agency to seek “alternatives” to the project. No construction had been started.
The plan was criticized as an inefficient transit option, requiring travelers from Manhattan to overshoot the airport in order to double back on the proposed AirTrain.
Critics also expressed suspicion that the ex-governor had exerted undue influence on the environmental review process that shot down an initial proposal to extend the N and W subway lines.
Following Cuomo’s resignation in August 2021, a group of PA staffers penned a letter in protest of the AirTrain plan, urging its reconsideration.
Transit advocates commended the quashing Monday.
“It’s so refreshing to see government leaders admit a mistake and change course before it’s too late,” Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for Riders Alliance, said in a statement.
“The backward boondoggle AirTrain belongs just where it landed, on the scrap heap of history,” he added. “Much better bus service is the right answer both for Queens riders and the travelers who pass through their neighborhoods on the way to the airport.”
The Sensible Ways to LGA Coalition, a group of community and transit advocates, cheered the Port Authority’s call for increased bus service.
“Ridership on the Q70 bus route to the airport was growing rapidly prior to the onset of COVID,” the group said in a statement. “Further improvements on that route, and the new Astoria airport bus line will provide real transit access improvements to travelers and the airport workforce without a lengthy or overly costly construction process.”