Rail hard to believe
Midtown to LaG in 26 min. via AirTrain?
Maybe on a helicopter.
Gov. Cuomo became New York’s time-traveler in chief Monday, when he pushed a plan for a new AirTrain to La Guardia that he says could get people from Midtown to the crowded airport in an incredible 26 minutes.
Cuomo — who hopes the new rail link could be built by 2022 — used graphics and charts to back up his claims of Superman-level speeds across Manhattan and Queens.
He calculated a cool 16 minutes for a Long Island Rail Road train from Penn Station to the MetsWillets Point station, followed by a four-minute wait for an AirTrain, which would take just six minutes to reach the airport.
“Seamless transfer at Willets Point,” read one of the images in his presentation to the press.
Worst case, it would all take about 30 minutes, claimed Rick Cotton, executive director of the Port Authority.
“The traveler will arrive at La Guardia within a 30-minute trip that will be reliable and predictable,” he said.
But the cheery talk made no mention of the massive delays regularly gripping the LIRR and Penn Station in general.
LIRR train service is the worst it’s been in nearly two decades, with 21,400 trains late, canceled or terminated mid-run in 2017, according to a March report from State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office.
Commuters Monday doubted the AirTrain’s ability to bend these immutable laws of time, space and slow city train service.
“I don’t believe it would take less than 30 minutes,” said George Patilis of Long Island, who was at Penn Station Monday. “It would probably take them 30 minutes to get to Willets Point and another 30 to get to La Guardia.”
Commuter Roxanne Parnell of Garden City added: “I don’t think that’s realistic, given the problems at Penn Station. I mean, 30 minutes? I doubt that. I say closer to 45.”
The governor said the AirTrain plan is part of an $8 billion effort to revamp La Guardia Airport.
“The new La Guardia Airport will provide an improved customer experience with better access to airlines and public transportation for all passengers,” Cuomo said.
Renderings of the transfer from the LIRR to the AirTrain looked clean and modern.
A depiction of the AirTrain entrance at the airport’s Central Hall featured floor-to-ceiling windows, a tract of grass running along the floor and a giant orange Jeff Koons balloon-dog sculpture.