Once again, JFK raillink falls to the wayside

The Plane to the Train arrives at JFK Airport during a run in late 1978. (Photo by Doug Grotjahn. Courtesy of NYCSubway.org)

Lost to the years of history is the story of the Train to the Plane, the ill-fated JFK-Manhattan raillink. Lost even deeper in the annals of New York City transportation history is the tale of the Van Wyck Expressway and the potential to build a high-speed train connection from Manhattan to JFK Airport along the Van Wyck right-of-way at a minimal cost to the city.

Let’s go back in time to the 1950s. As Robert Caro noted in The Power Broker, an excellent book I just finished, and as NYCRoads.com recaps here, for just $9 million in the early 1950s, the City could have purchased an addition 50 feet of right-of-way rights along what would become the Van Wyck Expressway. While the city at the time had no money to construct what would have been a direct raillink to the airport — and not just the station near the airport as Howard Beach is now — the land would have been a valuable investment.

Instead, Robert Moses would have none of it. He did not want his projects altered one iota, especially for Mass Transit projects. As Caro notes, nine miles of preexisting IND subway track would have taken the trains to within three miles of what was then Idlewild airport. All the city’s transportation czar had to do was use a few million dollars that he had to bring the tracks up to the center of the expressway and straight to the airport. This train ride from Penn Station to JFK Airport would have taken all of 16 minutes. Tell that to someone sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Van Wyck as the minutes before an upcoming flight tick down.

As we know, Moses did no such thing, and New Yorkers traveling to the airport now are paying the price. While some costs — time lost to traffic or an endless A train ride to the new JFK AirTrain — are tangible to commuters, the monetary costs are astronomical. What would have cost a few tens of millions of dollars of a few decades ago now may cost $6 billion — if it’s ever built, that is.

Citylimits, a publication sponsored by the Center for an Urban Future, has more:

[In February], the project got a shot in the arm when U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer announced $2 billion in tax credits – originally promised after the attacks but still unused – toward the estimated $6 billion price tag. He called the link a “once in a generation chance” to create “a big win for all of New York.” …

But some transportation planners say the link being studied is neither the best solution for downtown nor the best use of taxpayer money. “If we already have such a good connection [to the airport] from Midtown, this doesn’t seem to be worth it,” said Kate Slevin, the associate director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, noting it currently takes 20 minutes to get from Penn Station to Jamaica – where passengers can take the AirTrain to JFK’s flight terminals – on the Long Island Railroad. “The problem is we have too many priorities in New York. We need to get out behind a couple of them and get them done.”

And those priorities lie elsewhere, agreed Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign of the New York Public Interest Research Group, an advocacy group for subway riders.

While Chuck Schumer says he has secured $2 billion of the estimated $6 billion, most transportation advocates don’t feel that the $6 billion is a real figure. Instead, it’s one that the powers-that-be have basically pulled out of the air.

Meanwhile, even the MTA authorities admit that the JFK Raillink is hardly a priority. The Second Ave. Subway, Tappan Zee Bridge reconstruction/replacement project, the East Side-LIRR raillink and the 7 line extension are all big ticket items in front of the JFK link on the never-ending line of New York transportation priorities.

Nowadays, we’re stuck with the replacement for the Train to the Plane, an IND express that got riders only as far as a Port Authority bus near JFK. We have instead the A train to the AirTrain. Or miles and miles of traffic jams. We are left with part of Robert Moses’ legacy of roads at all costs and no sight of compromise. It’s too bad; that raillink to JFK would be nice. Just don’t expect it soon. Or ever.