B’klyn girl, 11, badly hurt in school bus hit
ALBANY — After traffic jams around LaGuardia Airport led frustrated travelers to start walking on the Grand Central Parkway last week to make their flights, Gov. Cuomo on Wednesday said a logistics team will be brought in to help deal with the problems.
Cuomo called the traffic nightmare “unacceptable,” but said a snowstorm and the ongoing reconstruction of the airport made the situation more difficult.
“LaGuardia is the size of a large postage stamp,” he said at a Long Island event. “The parcel is very small. We’re now building a new airport at the same time we’re operating the existing airport on a very, very small footprint, and that’s the structural challenge.”
He said he spoke with Port Authority officials last weekend and said there will be a new team coming in to “manage the airport better logistically during this difficult time.”
The airport reconstruction is expected to take four years.
Cuomo’s office late Wednesday afternoon said it has directed the Port Authority to get outside traffic experts to help revamp the LaGuardia traffic situation.
In addition, a Cuomo aide said that members of Jacobs Engineering, which has already been advising the Port Authority on LaGuardia traffic issues, will be taking a more direct role, as will Sam (Gridlock Sam) Schwartz and others from his firm, which was recently added to the project.
During another appearance, Cuomo told reporters that “you have this tremendous traffic flow, which we’ve never had before, plus the volume, flow, construction. It’s not all going to fit on high-volume days. It’s not going to work that everybody can just have their car waiting at the curb when they get out there.”
To address the situation, Cuomo didn’t rule out creating new dropoff and parking areas farther away from airport terminals. He also said the state is thinking about more park-andrides and dedicated buses from subway stops.
Looking to reduce roadway congestion during the upcoming Presidents’ Day weekend, the Port Authority on Wednesday announced that, in partnership with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, it would provide free Q70 LaGuardia Link bus service between Thursday and Tuesday. The Q70 link travels between the main terminals of LaGuardia and subway and Long Island Rail Road transit hubs in Jackson Heights and Woodside, Queens. There will also be discounted long-term parking. The Port Authority, which developed the traffic management plan with Sam Schwartz Engineering, said nearly 300,000 passengers are expected to use LaGuardia during the long weekend.
There will be new groundtransfer locations over the weekend, including a relocated taxi stand, at Terminal B. And for-hire vehicles like Uber and Lyft will pick up passengers in front of the terminal on the arrivals level.
NYC Airporter buses will be picking up and dropping off passengers from the outer roadway on the arrivals level instead of the west end of the terminal. A YELLOW SCHOOL bus struck and seriously injured an 11-year-old girl as she crossed a Brooklyn street Wednesday afternoon, police said.
The girl was walking across St. John’s Place and Nostrand Ave. in Crown Heights just before 3:20 p.m., when the bus turned right from Nostrand and hit her, police said.
Medics took her to Kings County Hospital with head trauma and a fractured pelvis, cops said. She was listed in serious but stable condition.
The bus was carrying three young children, cops said. None of them were injured. Police were still investigating the crash Wednesday night.