Second Ave. Sagas

Biden, Cuomo discuss airport future but what of train access?

Written by

Benjamin Kabak

in

Modernize Our Airports…with an amazing handshake. (Photo via Gov. Cuomo on flickr)

A few months ago, Vice President Joe Biden drew some heat when he unfavorably compared Laguardia to third world airports. Considering that Laguardia has terminal buildings that are, to some degree or other, air conditioned, it was an unfair comparison with a bit of hyperbole, but Biden’s criticism rang familiar. Traveling to and from Laguardia is not exactly a pleasant experience, and for millions who see it as their entry point to New York City, it is not a point of pride for New Yorkers.

Yesterday, Biden joined NY Governor Andrew Cuomo in announcing a plan to modernize and revitalize Laguardia, JFK, Stewart and Republic airports. It’s not clear where the money will come from, and the early stages will involve simply a design contest. But after years of lobbying for developers and NYC boosters, someone in DC and someone in Albany appear to be listening. (For more on the announcement overall, check out Dan Rivoli’s coverage and The Times’ rundown of the event.)

From a transit perspective, improvements are on the table. Both Biden and Cuomo mentioned concerns with travel times to JFK, and of course, there is no train to Laguardia. It’s possible that issue could be addressed in these plans, but I’m wary of the statements issued yesterday. Cuomo first talked about a ferry to Laguardia, but it’s not clear how a boat helps people getting to the airport. It will be convenient only for those who are near the waterfront and only if the ferry terminal is within walking distance to Laguardia’s terminals. With the Rikers Island Bridge a physical obstacle and the approach to Laguardia non-negotiable, ferries seem to be a non-starter before we even consider their high operating costs and low ridership potential.

For those of us hoping for rail, Cuomo mentioned the subway as a potential option. But that, as we know, will require some strong-arming as Astoria NIMBYs still leave every politician in fear. The other idea seemed to involve Long Island Rail Road access to Laguardia. It sounds great until you stop to think for five to ten seconds. While the Port Authority has issued a call for vague provisioning for heavy rail access to Laguardia, the LIRR doesn’t work. There’s no nearby routing that would provide direct access to the airport, and running a spur from, say, Flushing would be a engineering impossibility. The operations costs would be tremendous and the time savings minimal.

If New York politicians and DC leaders are serious about rail access to Laguardia, an extension of the BMT line from Astoria would be the easiest and best option. But for now, we’re just hearing lip service, and maybe that’s OK. After all, there are plenty of projects that could use the investment before we send a subway, commuter rail line or even the Airtrain to Laguardia.

Comments

207 responses to “Biden, Cuomo discuss airport future but what of train access?”

  1. Phantom

    I”d love to be wrong but I doubt that anyone here will see rail access to LGA in our lifetime.

    We may see fifty years of ” environmental impact statements ” and a hundred years of lawsuits, but we won’t ride that train. NY is the city where projects like this don’t get done.

    In the real world, I’d like to see twice as many M60 buses, with all the additional runs operating as shuttles fto LGA rom Astoria. Promote the hell out of it. There is very good train service to Astoria now. Finish the loop and make it so that nearly everyone gets a seat. There are many standees now, even early and late. A bus in the hand is better than a train that never comes.

    If the bus tan every five minutes, everyone would take it.

    Reply
    1. lop

      What do you mean by shuttles from Astoria?

      Is a bus from the NQ in Astoria going to be more convenient or get better ridership than the Q70 connecting the EFMR7 and LIRR to LGA?

      Reply
    2. Bolwerk

      Very few people would take it to the airport. Bringing your luggage on public transit is already kind of a bitch. Maybe a transfer is sort of acceptable if it’s cross-platform. Not to mention the Astoria line hardly seems to match that 5-minute frequency.

      Don’t trust a bus to do a train’s job. It will do less and cost more. Most major cities offer rail access to their airports for a reason.

      Reply
      1. Billy G

        It’d seem to me that grade-separated BRT lanes would make the most sense, at least for the airport itself, and for approaches to mass transit. Use the expressway for the bulk of the travel and have BRT ramps on/off the expressway for access to transfer points.

        Reply
        1. Billy G

          There’s what looks like the AMTRAK ROW that goes from GCP to the NQ ROW, perhaps BRT could stack above the unused section of that ROW. Oh, but Penn Central? I’d imagine that’d be a can of worms.

          Reply
          1. Bolwerk

            Dedicated bus ROW above a rail ROW: all the operating costs and service disadvantages of buses, with all the capital cost disadvantages of trains.

            There is no useful context for BRT here. If you want to move people from the airport with buses, use shuttle buses with luggage compartments, not transit buses with limited space that could be seriously disrupted by a single suitcase.

            Reply
            1. Warp

              Low floor buses and raised platforms with handicapped ramps.

              Buses use existing expressway ROW

              More flexible for variable demand

              Lower build cost with greater benefit.

              Reply
              1. Bolwerk

                Low-floor buses improve accessibility, but hardly improve capacity. Using the expressway might be fine, but then it’s not going to be BRT. They only have a lower build cost if you use existing infrastructure; otherwise build cost is similar or could be higher in urban areas.

                And I don’t know what that third claim or the bit about “greater benefit” even mean, but they are not more flexible about meeting demand. Buses are get less cheap the more people need them because labor costs increase quickly.

                Really,the sheer unattractiveness of transit buses for carrying large items over longer distances should put the idea to rest.

                Reply
                1. lop

                  Level boarding is faster, not a capacity issue.

                  Reply
                  1. Bolwerk

                    It does improve capacity a little by giving space to passengers that used to go to stair wells. And faster boarding effectively increases capacity anyway.

                    Both effects are minor though.

                    Reply
                    1. lop

                      If you have wheelchairs the effect isn’t minor. And the space you get from stairwells has to make up for the lost space over the wheels.

                    2. Alon Levy

                      It isn’t that minor; I haven’t computed this myself, but I’ve heard (I think from Jarrett Walker) that it’s twice as fast to board a low-floor bus than a high-floor bus, and on a busy route, it makes a difference. Assume the bus averages 20 km/h not counting boardings and has 6 boardings per km (=120 boardings per hour if boardings take zero time). If each boarding takes 2 seconds, the average speed drops to 18.75 km/h; if it takes 1 second, make it 19.35. And 1- or 2-second boarding is ambitious, and requires prepayment and all-door boarding.

                    3. adirondacker12800

                      Save ten seconds at every stop that’s many minutes over the route. At the end of the shift the driver was able to make another round trip without doing overtime. That’s an increase in capacity. And a decrease in costs per passenger.

        2. Alon Levy

          Okay, so the bus is going to be grade-separated at the airport, where there is the least congestion, and then run into traffic in Manhattan and the urban parts of Queens. What’s the point?

          Reply
  2. John-2

    If you’re going to continue to have two lines serving Astoria after SAS opens (presumably a revived W train after the Q goes to 96th Street), there’s no reason why one can’t go to LaGuardia.

    And there’s no reason why it has to be extended from Ditmars — Split the line off at Astoria Blvd and have it run along the Grand Central Parkway, and you’re far less likely to have NIMBY problems based on an el turning and traveling down regular streets. Widen out the right-of-way enough to duck the line under the Hell’s Gate viaduct, and the N can keep running to Ditmars while the W goes to LGA (and yes, there would still be complaints by people around 31st and Ditmars that they no longer have two lines into Manhattan, but that would be a far easier battle to win, especially if the MTA puts 1-2 stops between Astoria Blvd. and the airport).

    Reply
    1. Tower18

      Astoria-Ditmars is in the top 100 stations by ridership, and the busiest on the Astoria line. I’m not sure cutting its service in half would go over well.

      Also I’m not sure how you pull off splitting off a line at Astoria Blvd without some serious eminent domain. Those tracks are pretty boxed in.

      Reply
      1. sonicboy678

        Thank you. I’ve even seen it firsthand; simply trying to split it off is all but a pipe dream.

        It’s refreshing to see someone else that says the same thing about it.

        Reply
      2. John-2

        You’d need to check on how much of that ridership at Ditmars comes from areas to the east of 31st Street, and could instead use one or more stations between Astoria Blvd. and LGA. An intermediate stop at Steinway or 44th Street and GCP might actually be closer from some people traveling west to 31st and Ditmars to get the N/Q today.

        (And doing a Google Street View of the 31st-Astoria Blvd. intersection, you really would have far less eminent domain concerns routing a spur to the Grand Central Parkway than you would in other places, because of the traffic island between the boulevard and the GCP — You might have to build a bi-level station at Astoria, bringing the LGA route in above the current line and then putting the station above and towards the south end of the existing platform, before ramping down to the existing tracks between Astoria Blvd. and 30th Avenue, but divering bi-level el stations have been done before, and are still in operation in other areas of the system.)

        Reply
        1. sonicboy678

          Tell me, what space exists for all of that?

          Reply
          1. John-2

            Click the Google Earth link I provided — There is no high rise apartment building, or even a multi-story building, on the southeast corner of 31st Street and Astoria Blvd, where the route would turn east to access the Grand Central Parkway.

            Astoria Boulevard’s a three-track station with island platforms. Ramp up the tracks to LGA between there and 30th Avenue, and a platform could either be placed before the curve (above and past the south end of the existing platform) or it could even be after the curve, above Astoria Blvd. and GCP, with a common connection via the mezzanine level of the current station.

            We’re not talking about putting up a new el here above an existing full-access street, with apartments and houses on either side. We’re talking about spurring off the line and running it to LaGuardia along the already-noisy GCP right-of-way, the same way the WMATA Silver line extension runs down the right-of-way of the Dulles Toll Road and connects into the existing Orange line at Falls Church. WMATA is living with fewer Orange line trains to Vienna — Do you really think the MTA can’t live with fewer trains at Ditmars, especially if 1-2 stations are added to the east, where people already may be traveling to Ditmars to access the N and Q trains?

            Reply
            1. sonicboy678

              Yes, but what space exists for all of that? Instead of just looking from one intersection, look at the entire situation. This includes the existing Astoria Line.

              Reply
            2. ajedrez

              Not to mention that you could use it as an opportunity to increase service on the southern part of the Astoria Line. Just send the Q to LaGuardia full-time, and the N to Astoria full-time. (I mean, realistically, there really isn’t another way unless you want to turn one of the branches into a shuttle on the weekends)

              Reply
              1. sonicboy678

                Apparently, 19th Avenue and more of 31st Street to Terminal A is unheard of.

                Reply
  3. Eric

    LGA access is really simple. Build a 2-mile spur of the Port Washington LIRR line, alongside the GCP, to the LGA terminals. Construction would be much cheaper than a subway extension (much shorter, and about half the route at grade). Politics would be much easier (no going through residential neighborhoods). Frequency would be more appropriate (every 4 minutes in the peaks is total overkill for an airport). It would be easier to charge an appropriate airport fare (around $5 rather than $2.50 for the subway).

    Reply
    1. Eric

      “While the Port Authority has issued a call for vague provisioning for heavy rail access to Laguardia, the LIRR doesn’t work. There’s no nearby routing that would provide direct access to the airport, and running a spur from, say, Flushing would be a engineering impossibility. The operations costs would be tremendous and the time savings minimal.”

      The Port Washington line is quite close, and engineering a connection is quite easy. The operations cost would be lower than the current bus service (fewer drivers needed). Time savings would be significant for pretty much everywhere except northern Queens, Harlem, and Metro North connections at 125th street. A one-seat ride to Manhattan would also be more comfortable and have a more reliable schedule, drawing new passengers.

      Reply
      1. adirondacker12800

        Manhattan isn’t Peoria either and most people going to Manhattan aren’t going to Penn Station. If they run trains from Penn Station and Grand Central, most people going to Manhattan aren’t going to Grand Central or Penn Station. They run into the half empty train or half the frequency conundrum if the run trains to both.

        Reply
        1. Eric

          So you run to either Penn or GCT, not both. Right now I’d choose Penn because it has better subway connections. This would be a great improvement not only for Midtown (which is obviously a destination well out of proportion to its size), but to Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, most of Upper Manhattan, etc. Just because it’s not perfect for everyone doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.

          Reply
          1. adirondacker12800

            If you aren’t running to both that screws the much vaunted one seat ride. Most of which will be two seat rides anyway since there aren’t a lot of hotels or apartment buildings at Penn Station or Grand Central.
            Why would someone in Brooklyn schlep into Manhattan when they can take the A or J to get JFK?

            Reply
            1. AG

              Well – there are plenty of ppl in Westchester who go to LGA even though Westchester has it’s own airport. Would this person (without that much luggage) take the Metro North to GCT and an LIRR to LGA – paying less than $20 in fares per se – versus $50 for a taxi. Depending on the time of day – there might not even be a time advantage in taking a taxi (Hutch Parkway and Whitestone Bridge – then the Grand Central Parkway can get backed up). It’s a possibility indeed.

              Reply
              1. bus

                Is that so much better than the existing m60 and q70 buses? Between them you have connections to metro north, LIRR, 1234567 ACEBDMFNQR subways. Why don’t more people take those buses to the airport? Could cheap bus lanes, ‘stations’, signage at bus stops, buses with more room for luggage etc… Be used instead at a fraction of the price?

                Reply
                1. johndmuller

                  For a Metro North rider, the idea of waiting for a bus on 125th St. in Harlem is not a big positive. Changing at GCT might be tolerable, even if it actually required a bit more walking and waiting.

                  Reply
                  1. bus

                    Is that empty lot by the SBS stop still there? What if you have a ground floor lounge for people waiting for the bus? Is there any way to make waiting for a bus in Harlem tolerable? Building a rail line so rich people in Westchester don’t have to wait for a bus near black or hispanic people seems a bit ridiculous.

                    Reply
                    1. adirondacker12800

                      Rich people in Westchester drive to the airport and park the car. If they don’t want to do that they call a limo or even a cab.

                    2. AG

                      You do realize not everyone in Westchester is “rich” right?

                    3. Alon Levy

                      It has really high average incomes, nearly twice the US average and 50% more than the metro area average. And I’m guessing the poorer people, the ones who live in Yonkers and Port Chester, don’t fly as much.

                    4. AG

                      High average incomes don’t make everyone rich – whether they fly or not. If that’s the case – Metro North would have many less riders since they would all either have a driver to work or pay for parking downtown.

                    5. adirondacker12800

                      Poor people in Westchester county don’t piss away money on airfares so getting to the airport isn’t one of the problems they face.

                2. AG

                  Have you ever been on 125th street to catch the bus to LGA…? No one who is willing to pay for a taxi would deal with that crush.

                  Reply
          2. Michael

            I really do not see what is the big deal about either Grand Central Terminal OR Penn Station, both are large rail terminals with subway connections that allow travel to many places. Establishing an rail connection to LGA via the Port Washington line seems do-able.

            Just put in the damn rail lines to one of the terminals, and establish the service. There does not have to be “one-size-fits-all” solution. Nothing in this idea stops the running of the M-60 or Q-70 buses for those traveling to/from Harlem, or those traveling in Queens via subway.

            Why does the PERFECT have to be enemy of the good or practical or do-able? Folks hear are already talking themselves out of a possible good idea! Why is that? Perfection is not required!

            Mike

            Reply
  4. subway-buff

    The JFK and Newark Air Trains were built with airport facility charges (PFCs) . Federal regulations prohibit direct connections to an existing non airport transit system.
    BWI, Boston, Philly have a connection outside of airport property.PATH to Newark Airport would connect only to the Airport Rail Station and still require a transfer to the Air Train.

    Atlanta’s was not built with PFCs and is within the airport grounds.

    Rail service to LaGuardia would have to involve a transfer if airport money is used. If airport money is not used then a direct connection would be possible.

    Reply
    1. Eric

      Here is the policy:
      http://www.faa.gov/airports/re…..ctices.pdf

      It seems that much or all of a LIRR/subway extension could in fact be funded by airport money.

      Reply
  5. Ed Unneland

    Perhaps a spur across the industrial park (by Borough Place) and St. Michael’s Cemetery gets you into LaGuardia?

    Reply
  6. Ed Unneland

    Sorry … meant to say “… a spur from the Hells Gate Viaduct across….”

    Reply
  7. Doye

    The airport is what? A few-times-a-year trip at most, if any, for those that are not rich. Fund the RX line first, it helps people besides those who can afford to go jetting off frequently.

    Reply
    1. lawhawk

      There are thousands of people who work at LGA on a daily basis, so having a better connection with mass transit would reduce congestion in and around the airport.

      The airport handles 25 million passengers annually, which works out to 68,000+ a day. That’s not an insubstantial amount, and if you can get even a fraction of those off the local roads, you would greatly improve not only their commutes and airport access, but you’d free up traffic on the local and connecting roads (including the Van Wyck, BQE, and GCP).

      According to PANY stats, the majority of those getting to LGA are by taxi (44%).

      That’s followed by driving by car; only .9% take the subway; and 6% take a bus.

      http://www.panynj.gov/airports…..13_LGA.pdf

      Reply
  8. BoerumHillScott

    On property, LGA is easier to serve with a direct link than JFK with its 3 terminals more or less in a line, but to be effective you would still need two stations to cover all well.

    In discussions, people often act like airports are a single point in space, when in reality most US airports consist of multiple terminals some distance apart from each other.

    Large airports with one central terminal complex are the exception, and even some of those (Atlanta, Orlando) have converted or plan to convert to a multiple terminal set-up.

    The fact is that for most travelers using rail to get to large airports, there will be a transfer of some sort or another, either before security, after security, or some combination.

    Reply
    1. Eric

      A transfer after you’ve checked your bags is not much of an inconvenience.

      Reply
      1. BoerumHillScott

        Most airport users (counting both passengers and employees) do not check bags.
        Looking at other US airports with “direct” rail access as an example, most require at least some passengers to transfer with bags.

        Reply
        1. Eric

          When that happens, it is usually either because the airport is located midway along a busy existing rail line, or because the airport connection was built on the cheap/stupid.

          Reply
          1. BoerumHillScott

            Or large airports that don’t have one central terminal (like all 3 NYC area airports)

            Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Atlanta are all examples where the rail line only goes to one terminal, and some passengers still have to transfer to a bus or people mover with luggage.

            All are also at the end of lines (although San Francisco does not always run like that)

            Even Atlanta, which was always held as an example of how to do rail traffic right, now forces international passengers with passengers to board a bus.

            I am not saying that any of these situations are optimal, but they are also not at all uncommon.

            Reply
            1. Eric

              Chicago has direct subway connections to both O’Hare and Midway, no people mover needed.

              San Francisco: Caltrain is a busy existing through-running line, and the BART connection was built on the stupid.

              Bus connections are a good sign that the connection was built on the cheap. Dallas could have extended their light rail to a second station if they had the money (although I really feel it’s intended for airport workers more than passengers), and whatever reasons Atlanta now has for making international passengers enter separately, they didn’t exist when the original airport planning and building was done.

              In nearly every European city that I’ve been in (where one would expect better planning than the US) there is a direct connection to rail or a connector to a through-running rail line.

              Reply
  9. Phantom

    lop

    I have actually gotten to like the M60 from Astoria. The other thing from Queens Blvd can be really good too.

    The only real problem to me is the M60 is so crowded – a problem of the success that it already enjoys. It is already a winner. Make the buses more frequent and less crowded and bingo you’re better off.

    I see a certain amount of people taking luggage on the M60 now. But an awful lot of LGA passengers don’t have big luggage, since you don’t have real long haul service from there. You get an awful lot of business travelers or others with a carryon.

    Eric

    Can’t see any LIRR solution to this. The trains will always be too infrequent. It would be a kind of replication of the shabby Newark Airtrain thing.

    Reply
    1. Eric F

      The Port Wash line is the most limited of all the LIRR lines. It doesn’t connect to much. The only connection points are Penn and Woodside. If you don’t have regular access to the Port Wash line, using it to get to Shea is highly inconvenient.

      Reply
      1. Eric

        At Woodside you have a connection to other LIRR lines, and at Penn/GCT you have a connection to Metro North or NJT. The only areas not conveniently served are around Flushing, and there’s already a quick bus for them (Q48).

        Unlike Newark Airtrain, this would be quick and comfortable and a one-seat ride to Manhattan. A train to Manhattan every 15 minutes could easily be supported, no more is necessary.

        Reply
        1. AG

          Good point… By the time this plan will come to fruition and built… ESA will probably be open.

          Reply
        2. adirondacker12800

          it’s not a one seat ride if you are changing trains at Penn Station, Grand Central or Woodside.

          Reply
          1. Eric

            For people in Midtown, it’s a one-seat rather than a two-seat ride. For people in many other locations, it’s a two-seat rather than a three-seat ride. For still other people, it’s a quick two-seat ride with few stops, rather than a long two-seat ride with many stops.

            Sorry that this isn’t as convenient as a floo network which instantly takes you from anywhere to anywhere. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth building.

            Reply
            1. adirondacker12800

              They aren’t going to have a one seat ride. They aren’t going to build a second rail system within the airport and the rail system in the airport isn’t compatible with subway or the LIRR. Not that the subway or the LIRR have the capacity to be running trains to the airport.

              Reply
              1. Eric

                You’re not being coherent.

                Reply
                1. adirondacker12800

                  And you haven’t done anything other than look at the pretty lines on a map.
                  The LIRR doesn’t have capacity to cancel a 12 car standing room only train so that a three car train can go to the airport. Neither does the subway.
                  Where, in Manhattan are you going to put the one seat ride? You can’t run LIRR trains or subway trains on the light infrastructure that Air Train uses so extending something to the airport isn’t an option. Unless you want to spend a few billion putting in a second railroad. They can’t get rid of the people mover because it does other things beside ferry people to Manhattan.

                  Reply
                  1. Eric

                    After ESA is finished, there will be plenty of capacity.

                    Obviously, there is currently no rail at LGA, so whatever new infrastructure is built can be built to hold LIRR vehicles.

                    As for JFK, nobody suggested building a second loop there. But you could perhaps run Airtrain-sized trains to Manhattan from the current loop. Mixing them in with regular LIRR trains would be difficult (primarily for political/bureaucratic rather than technical reasons), so I am not sure I would recommend this right now in practice. The main reason I suggested it was as an alternative to the Rockaway-JFK suggestion, which has all the same obstacles and a much higher price tag.

                    Reply
                    1. adirondacker12800

                      Being able to cut 15, 20 minutes off a trip to the Upper East Side from Long Island isn’t going to induce any demand. Amtrak is never going to want to run more than two trains an hour to Boston. Or more than a train an hour to Albany. Or ever run trains through to Springfield. Metro North traffic is never going to increase and Metro North will never get the urge to divert traffic headed to the West Side to Penn Station. Traffic on Long Island including Brooklyn and Queens is never going to get worse. The million more people that are projected to be living in New York City in 2040 are all going to live in the Bronx and Staten Island.

                    2. adirondacker12800

                      I don’t like it because it’s going to cost billions of dollars to make it possible for people to change to Airtrain at on the airport instead of changing to Airtrain at Jamaica.

                      Drag the train from Manhattan all the way to one of the terminals and people who aren’t using that terminal have to change to Airtrain anyway. Just what is the significant difference to them between changing to Airtrain in Jamaica and changing to Airtrain at a terminal they aren’t using?

                      People who use the A train don’t give a flying leap that they there is a train from Manhattan to Terminal X because they still change to Airtrain at Howard Beach. People who take the E train or J train don’t either because they change at Jamaica. Or people from Long Island because they change to Airtrain at Jamaica. Or people who use a bus to get to Jamaica.

                      Just who, besides people who can see Penn Station from their hotel room and are using the terminal the train happens to go to, get a one seat ride?

                      Correct me if I’m wrong but taking any train that isn’t using the Port Washington branch to Jamaica and changing to Airtrain is a two seat ride just like taking the low frequency LIRR train to the airport and changing to Airtrain.

                      It’s going to be lower frequency than “any train not on the Port Washington Branch”

                      How many billions of dollar should we spend so that a few people, who happen to be staying in a hotel that has a view of Penn Station or Grand Central and are using the terminal the train goes to can get a one seat ride? Everybody else is changing to Airtrain somewhere.

                    3. Bolwerk

                      I’ve summarized numerous advantages. Repeatedly. And let’s see some substantiation for your claim about it costing billions$.

                      I’d actually be a bit more sympathetic to your histrionic do-nothingism about the current transfers being acceptable if they were convenient transfers, which are essential to airport service, but they’re horrible.

                      Correct me if I’m wrong but taking any train that isn’t using the Port Washington branch to Jamaica and changing to Airtrain is a two seat ride just like taking the low frequency LIRR train to the airport and changing to Airtrain.

                      It’s going to be lower frequency than “any train not on the Port Washington Branch”

                      What’s the problem? If you want direct access to the selected terminal, because it’s your terminal or for more convenient transfers or whatever, you can wait or time your arrival at the train station to the train’s departure. Those who don’t care and know what they’re doing can still catch AirTrain at Jamaica, no penalty.

                      “Low frequency,” in this context, most likely means half-hourly or hourly service. Maximum wait time + trip time still out-runs most realistic subway-AirTrain transfers.

                      How many billions of dollar should we spend so that a few people, who happen to be staying in a hotel that has a view of Penn Station or Grand Central and are using the terminal the train goes to can get a one seat ride? Everybody else is changing to Airtrain somewhere.

                      That number is so absurdly high that it would appear to have originated in your rectum. It’s a strawman. Substantiate it, or it’s not worth addressing.

                    4. adirondacker12800

                      There’s numerous advantages for people like you who think there is only one origin or destination in Manhattan and one terminal at JFK. There isn’t.

                      And I’ve said more than once that it doesn’t change the trip for people who use the subway or the people who use the bus or the people on Long Island or the people who aren’t using the terminal with the LIRR station.

                      People who use the terminal with the LIRR station are a fraction of the passengers and workers at JFK. Those people have origins and destinations other than Penn Station and Grand Central so a fraction of the fraction get a significantly different ride. How many hundreds of people a day is that and how much should we spend to do it?

                    5. Bolwerk

                      People like me? I never claimed there is only one origin and destination. Stop fucking making things up an attributing them to me. Actually, just stop making things up period. It’s dishonest.

                      Direct railroad airport access still benefits everybody who uses a railroad to the airport if baggage check-in can be centralized at that point. Of course, the ideal route for such a service is Midtown to Terminal 4, if that’s feasible. Midtown has the hotels catering to the business community, and Terminal 4 is where international flights come in.

                      Hell, if our region got its shit together, NJT could terminate some trains there, thereby turning numerous NJT stops into origins.

                      People who use the terminal with the LIRR station are a fraction of the passengers and workers at JFK.

                      Public transportation to the airport remains a poor man’s option. You need to be able-bodied and probably time-unconstrained to use the subway, and by the time you add in LIRR transfer costs the convenience improves only marginally so you may as well use a taxi.

                      Yet, for some reason, we have to make up reasons why we shouldn’t fix that.

                      How many hundreds of people a day is that and how much should we spend to do it?

                      The let-me-make-up-a-number-and-not-substantiate-it game again. Not playing.

                    6. adirondacker12800

                      So lets see, the people who are at JFK to change planes, how much do they care about whether or not there is a train directly to Manhattan and whether or not they can check their bags? It’s somewhere between none and zero.
                      The people who will continue to use Jamaica or Howard Beach how concerned are they about direct service to Manhattan?
                      Just how do the trains get from Liberty Ave. to the airport? It’s not going to be cheap to dig a tunnel because that pesky pesky A train is using the ROW south of Liberty Ave. Elevating the trains over the A train would be cheaper but it’s not going to be inexpensive. Just how much tunnel or elevated will there have to be and how much will it cost? For the people who aren’t at JFK to change planes or still using Jamaica or Howard Beach.
                      Where is the wunderstation going to be at Terminal 4? Hovering over the Airtrain tracks would be cheaper than a deep cavern under the terminal but it ain’t gonna be cheap. Lots and lots of people use terminals other than terminal 4 which is why there are other terminals. How much easier it to change to Airtrain from the platform hovering over Airtrain or deep under the terminal versus changing at Jamaica?
                      If people are still going to use Howard Beach that implies they won’t be using a train that runs directly from Manhattan. Which means you need something less frequent than if all the people used the train directly from Manhattan. And people will still be using Jamaica. How low does frequency drop if you are sending trains from Grand Central and from Penn Station for the people who don’t use Howard Beach or Jamaica?

                      Which of the 8 tracks of the LIRR terminal in Grand Central gets turned over to the low frequency train to the airport? It’s probably two if you want them to have the space to check bags through. It’s shaping up that each LIRR platform at Grand Central is gonna cost a cool billion a piece. I’m sure the people sucking up two of those platforms are going to be willing to cough up the fare to cover that. And the cost of the new tracks between Rego Park and Liberty Ave. And the tunnel or elevated to Terminal 4. And the wunderstation.

                      How many passengers are going find this so much better than existing alternatives and how much do we spend on making a new one?

                    7. Bolwerk

                      Seriously, you’re practically just responding to your own hallucinations now. Who said everybody should care about Manhattan? AirTrain was something like ~$200M/mile to build, so it’s hard to see a half-mile elevated extension needing to cost more than that adjusted for inflation. If it’s subsurface, maybe you start talking about a figure that approaches half of or even most of a billion dollars, but only if the geography and existing infrastructure is particularly complex.

                      I know this may surprise someone who fell asleep in 1800 and woke up in 2014, but platforms can accommodate multiple trains every hour. Turning over a platform is a particularly bizarre and desperate strawman on your part. Try again!

                    8. adirondacker12800

                      Half mile from where? The unused ROW ends all the way out at Liberty Ave. Anything south of that is gonna get really really pricey because unless you want to dig a tunnel somebody is already using the land. I’m not gonna dig out the my paper map of Queens and see how far Liberty Ave is from Terminal 4. Looking at it on Google Maps it’s at least three miles in a direct line and at least four if it wanders around to follow Airtrain and the A train.

                      Yes platforms can be shared. But not if people are arriving well before to check their bags and then waiting for the next train. And the baggage handlers need someplace to collect bags and then shove them onto the train. It’s going to suck up at least one platform and probably a whole island. At a billion a pop.

                    9. Bolwerk

                      FFS, pay some attention. Half a mile from the Rockaway/Long Beach branch, give or take. You don’t check baggage on platforms, and GCT is about as spacious a rail terminal as anyone could need, so that hardly presents a challenge to GCT airport service. I was suggesting baggage be checked at the airport terminal anyway. Baggage is regularly routed between planes, so what airport terminal it’s checked in poses no meaningful challenge. GCT’s LIRR extension probably won’t have the facilities necessary, even if GCT itself kind of does. Not sure that presents a challenge, but it might.

                      Extending IND Liberty Ave. service is fine, but doesn’t exactly make sense by itself. That idea really is too costly unless it is as part of a general system expansion.

                    10. adirondacker12800

                      Um um the spacious parts of Grand Central don’t have railroad tracks that go to Queens. They go to the Bronx. I was paying attention and everybody else is taking about the disused ROW that is between to Rego Park and the A train. Which took over the ROW south of Liberty Ave.

                  2. Bolwerk

                    What happened to you lately? You used to make constructive comments. Lately it’s just been “WE DON’T, WE CAN’T, NO SPENDING, OH NOES A BILLION DOLLARS (again), THINGS DONE ELSEWHERE ARE IMPOSSIBLE IN NYC HURRR” mingled with strawmen and unsubstantiated claims.

                    To wit: I can’t find a way to substantiate the comment about weight. However, it’s unlikely considering the per-axle weight of an AirTrain vehicle is only 7000 pounds less than a subway vehicle. The real reasons to think the subway can’t use AirTrain infrastructure, a strawman I have yet to see any regular poster besides you mention, have nothing to do with weight.

                    Reply
                    1. adirondacker12800

                      Then why do they run trolley cars on it? I’m sure it would be lots cheaper to contract with the MTA to maintain a few subway cars. Or do it in house with PATH. Or use LIRR cars and let the MTA do it that way.

                    2. Bolwerk

                      They don’t run trolley cars or anything of the sort. They run a proprietary technology called “Advanced Rapid Transit,” which is driverless and comes with a linear induction propulsion system.

                    3. adirondacker12800

                      Which are third rail trolley cars with super duper new fangled linear induction motors under them. Which they don’t use on some of the variants they sell.

                    4. Bolwerk

                      Okay, it’s a trolley car with third rail. With high platforms and spacious interiors and larger vehicles bonded together in the form of, uh, trains. And pretty much all the other features that distinguish rapid transit rail from trolleys.

                    5. adirondacker12800

                      Like what trolley cars have been doing since they figured out multiple unit operation in the 1890s.

                    6. lop

                      7000 pounds sounds like a lot. What percentage is that?. Was the airtrain system built to support b division cars? Or was it expected that a modified airtrain vehicle would go elsewhere, not that a heavy subway or LIRR train would come to the airport?

                    7. Bolwerk

                      Evidently the NYC Subway is a trolley too. Who knew?

                      @lop: no. adirondacker12800 was responding to a suggestion nobody made that subway equipment be used on AirTrain. For some reason, direct airport access by rail is so offensive we have to make up reasons to be against it!

                      Yes, there was talk up perhaps to the preliminary study phase circa 2002 and maybe until as late as 2006 of a modified Air Train vehicle using the LIRR. It died with George Pataki’s governorship, and he AFAICT never took it that seriously himself. Presumably such a thing would have needed to meet behemoth FRA weight standards, which greatly exceed the subway. I have no idea if this would have been a problem on the trestle, but linear induction probably prefers light weight, if possible. And even ignoring that, custom-ordered trainsets replete with crew requirements probably make it a difficult proposition at best, contrary to the design goals of AirTrain. And there are lots of other reasons to think it would have been cost-ineffective/impractical, which you can probably figure out yourself.

                      (Note I didn’t say adirondacker12800’s comment about weight was wrong. What I said was it was unsubstantiated.)

                    8. Bolwerk

                      If you really care, 60′ B division equipment tends to bat in at north of 80k lbs/car and AirTrain units are around 50k.

                      Pretty sure all NYC area heavy rail rapid transit vehicles have four axles.

                    9. adirondacker12800

                      Yes, just look at the pretty lines on the map and ignore that people are already using the trains that run on the pretty lines. Or that the trains that run on the pretty lines are ten car subway trains or twelve car LIRR trains. Or that ten car subway trains aren’t an appropriate solution for getting people from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4 or the car rental shuttles or the hotel shuttles or the parking lots. People in Manhattan want to be able to say “I didn’t take the train I hailed a cab” instead of “I hailed a cab”. Or that when they were planning Airtrain, no one looked at sending the A train directly to the airport. Or sending LIRR trains directly to the airport.

                    10. Bolwerk

                      Nobody suggested any of the things you’re raving about, so why keep mentioning them? Most people are trying to discuss the feasibility of one of two basic alternatives: a subway/LIRR station at an airport terminal, which would feed AirTrain more directly and cut transfers for the lucky souls who use that particular terminal (but would not replace AirTrain), or an AirTrain extension to Manhattan. Each have strengths and weaknesses, neither is unreasonable to discuss.

                      What is so hard to comprehend about that? I really don’t care that you’re against airport extensions, but at least react to what people are actually discussing.

                    11. adirondacker12800

                      So instead of changing to Airtrain at Jamaica they’ll change to Airtrain at Federal Circle?
                      Instead of spending 45 minutes on the LIRR and Airtrain with a change at Jamaica they’ll spend 45 minutes on the LIRR and Airtrain and change at Federal Circle.
                      Airtrain is still going to have to go to Jamaica because not everybody is going to or coming from Penn Station. Or Grand Central. Instead of putting them on any train that goes to Jamaica they’ll have to wait for the next dedicated train to the airport. Which cuts frequency. How many billions of dollars is it going to cost to cut frequency and increase travel time?

                    12. Bolwerk

                      Did you take a blow to the head? Your reading comprehension can’t be this terrible. Nobody is talking about LIRR service or subway service to Federal Circle. They would change at whatever location is most convenient for them, whether it be the terminal that receives them, Jamaica, or Howard Beach. Why is this so hard to understand?

                      Airtrain is still going to have to go to Jamaica because not everybody is going to or coming from Penn Station. Or Grand Central.

                      Good, yes. It should. Nobody suggested changing that. You’re responding to things nobody said. Again.

                      Instead of putting them on any train that goes to Jamaica they’ll have to wait for the next dedicated train to the airport.

                      So what? This is, at worst, a lateral move for anybody who doesn’t want to go to the receiving terminal. It doesn’t even rise to the level of an inconvenience for anybody, especially considering they could still take any train that goes to Jamaica and still catch AirTrain there.

                      Also, if it’s the LIRR we’re talking about, said train would probably pass through Jamaica anyway.

                      Which cuts frequency.

                      Frequency is only cut if you take away another service. There is no need to do that.

                      How many billions of dollars is it going to cost to cut frequency and increase travel time?

                      $0. It would cost $0 to cut frequency and increase travel time. Now you’ve used up your straw-man quota for 2014.

                    13. adirondacker12800

                      Explain to us why we should spend billions of dollars so that people can change to Airtrain on the airport instead of changing to Airtrain at Howard Beach or Jamaica. what part of that don’t you understand?

                      You are the one who keeps bringing up one seat rides. Going to Federal Circle and changing to Airtrain is not a one seat ride. Nor is going to Terminal 1 and changing to Airtrain. Or Terminal 2 and changing to Airtrain. What part of that don’t you understand? The train from Manhattan is not going to stop at all the terminals and the parking lots and the car rentals and Howard Beach and Jamaica.

                      If there are 20,000 people a day who want to get to or from Manhattan to the airport by train and there is one terminal in Manhattan there will be 20,000 passengers at that terminal. If there are two terminals there will be 10,000 at each. I assume your third grade teacher taught you how to calculate that. So half the frequency or half empty trains. Pick one.
                      Right now, except for a few rush hour super express trains, any train not on the Port Washington Branch serves Jamaica. If it goes to the airport it’s not going to go to Jamaica.
                      Very likely less than half the frequency they have now. If the people from Manhattan aren’t changing at Jamaica there less reason to send Airtrain to Jamaica. So there’s dramatically less frequency at Jamaica. Or they give up and run a shuttle bus. Or suggest they get on the local bus that happens to go to the airport. Sounds wonderful. Or they are running almost empty trains to Jamaica. What part of that don’t you understand?

                      The 27 people a day who happen to be staying in the Hotel Pennsylvania and are departing or arriving from the terminal that happens to have direct service into Manhattan will have a one seat ride. Everybody else gets screwed. And pays a higher fare because it ain’t gonna be cheap to do anything other than what is already being done with Airtrain. Which parts of all that doesn’t sink into your dense skull?

                    14. Bolwerk

                      Yay, a full-on Gish gallop. You’re seriously just groping in the dark for objections, aren’t you? You can’t think of a good reason, but you don’t like it, so you need to make up objections and see what sticks. You simultaneously believe Jamaica is oh-so-attractive to Manhattanites and would somehow lose precious AirTrain runs to the point of being bustituted, while only “27 people a day who happen to be staying in the Hotel Pennsylvania and are departing or arriving from the terminal.” Spooky! And who the hell is “us”? Unlikely anybody here agrees with you.

                      Reality: AirTrain is driverless, so buses are unlikely to be cheaper even under the most desolate circumstances. With two subways and several other LIRR lines at Jamaica, AirTrain going to Jamaica will always be desirable.

                      Most of the rest has been explained to thee before. Probably more than once. A half mile of elevated/surface rail does not cost as much as several miles of urban subway construction.

                      Assuming LIRR access is employed: the under-utilized Rockaway/Long Beach branch passes between its endpoints and Jamaica almost tangentially to the airport. All these trains seem to pass through Jamaica. You can verify this in Google Maps.

                      Nobody mentioned multiple terminal stops either. An LIRR/subway extension to the airport provides one-seat Midtown access to one terminal, AirTrain access transfers to the others. Nothing wrong with that; people get more options, nobody loses anything. Everyone who discusses this understands that.

                      Long story short, you haven’t mentioned a single problem that isn’t trivial to surmount.

                    15. AG

                      http://www.dnainfo.com/new-yor…..of-jamaica

                      You are correct. Airtrain has been benefiting Jamaica very much. It’s amazing how ppl still think everything in NYC revolves around strictly what goes on in Manhattan. Manhattan prices out even most developers – so much of the growth has been in the “outer boroughs”.

            2. lop

              If you start on the 1234567ACEBDMFNQR subways, LIRR or MNR it’s already a two seat ride to LGA with the M60 or Q70. Who is getting a two seat ride instead of a three seat ride with a direct line to midtown?

              Reply
              1. Eric

                Anyone who takes NJT, for one.

                Reply
                1. adirondacker12800

                  People in Northern New Jersey fly out of Newark except in extraordinary circumstances.

                  Reply
                  1. Eric

                    Partly because it’s so hard to get to LGA from NJ. More competition is good.

                    Reply
                    1. adirondacker12800

                      Government subsidies to mass transit isn’t “more competition” it’s subsidies to people who want cheap travel.

                    2. AG

                      adirondack – no it’s not about “people wanting a cheap travel”…. It fosters economic development by keeping people from cloggin the roads – and providing a dense workforce… Then of course in this day and age its importantly benefits by helping keep the air cleaner.

  10. Jon

    “Considering that Laguardia has terminal buildings that are, to some degree or other, air conditioned, it was an unfair comparison with a bit of hyperbole”

    This is dumb writing. How many third-world international airports have you frequented? The vast majority of them are air-conditioned, even in impoverished countries like India. And many of them are orders of magnitude better than LaGuardia. It is not hyperbole to say that LaGuardia is a third-world embarassment.

    Reply
    1. Joe

      Totally agree! I’ve been to third world airports that were, in fact, much much nicer. LGA is a total embarrassment.

      Reply
    2. Alon Levy

      Yes, and the juxtaposition between the wealth of Bangkok’s airport and the shanties on the river is an even bigger embarrassment.

      Reply
    3. tacony

      Many developing countries also have much better mass transit than New York City, along with their airports. American infrastructure in a very broad sense is not, on the whole, in much better condition than it is in some much poorer countries.

      LGA is very crowded and small and doesn’t have a direct rail link to the city but other than that, I don’t think people have any reason to criticize it. Its small size is a blessing and a curse. I love the fact that, if there aren’t long lines, the amount of travel time you have within the airport itself is so small that you can get to your gate quite quickly. I wouldn’t prefer a huge airport where I have to walk around for 15 minutes down long hallways, although apparently most people do.

      I think this article explains a bit of the psychology of why people hate LGA: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08…..wanted=all

      “the airport decided on a new approach: instead of reducing wait times, it moved the arrival gates away from the main terminal and routed bags to the outermost carousel. Passengers now had to walk six times longer to get their bags. Complaints dropped to near zero.”

      When you visit LGA, almost all your time is spent waiting in line, as opposed to JFK, which is a huge airport in which you spend a larger percentage of your time walking around. It’s not that lines at JFK are shorter. Your perception is driven by a relative feeling of time spent.

      Reply
      1. Alon Levy

        Eh. Mass transit in most developing countries is overcrowded to the point of being unsafe, for example the Mumbai commuter trains. Bangkok, unlike Mumbai, is a middle-income city, but it’s horrifically auto-oriented, with double-deck freeways; ten years ago, traffic cops had to wear facemasks from all the pollution, though since then, air quality has improved. In general, public transit in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia is terrible. Some Latin American cities have decent transit (for example, Mexico City). So do the larger Chinese cities. Elsewhere, meh.

        Reply
        1. adirondacker12800

          It sucked in New York at the same stage of development. They built the els and then built the subway and then built more subway. Then tore down the els and never replaced the capacity on the East Side.

          Reply
          1. Alon Levy

            If you’re comparing the US to India, then yes… although Delhi somehow has more cars per capita than New York, complete with an overprivileged class of drivers who sued the city saying bus lanes are discrimination against drivers (after it went through appeals, the judges let the bus lanes stay).

            But Thailand’s GDP per capita is where the US was during and immediately after WW2. It’s not a poor country. It just has a lot of inequality that tourists can see.

            Reply
        2. Eric

          Car transit is also terrible in many of those cities. There simply is not enough infrastructure of any sort to meet the needs of 10-20 million people.

          Reply
  11. Andres

    When the governor talks about NYC infrastructure, I wonder if he’s not been out of town for too long. It’s almost like he doesn’t really know the place…and he’s a Queens native.

    “Transit” to/from LGA can be vastly improved using existing subway, bus and LIRR infrastructure, if they were to upgrade Astoria Blvd, 74th Street and Woodside stations (to a lesser extent, subway stops along 125). Make the bus connections comfortable and easy to find. Elevators, escalators. “Airport quality” finishes and fixtures. One method of fare collection on all lines stopping at LGA.

    Reply
  12. AlexB

    Both elevated extensions from the N or from the 7 over Grand Central Parkway seem buildable (from oppostite directions), although the N would likely have to dip down to grade level where is crosses the flight paths of LGA near 82nd St. Similarly, I could see a LIRR spur over the GCP like the 7 train. Besides the expense of building an elevated structure with rail ramps and all that, what’s standing in the way of these? Frequencies on the LIRR would be a problem.

    For the money, it’s hard not to see how an express bus stopping at only LGA and Penn, operating over new HOT/HOV 3+ lanes on the GCP/BQE/LIE, would be the best solution. It’s least expensive, fastest and allows highest frequency, while also facilitating new bus routes on Northern and Astoria Blvds.

    Reply
    1. Tower18

      The problem with the “express bus from Manhattan” idea is that it already exists, and there’s no reason for the city or MTA to offer that service. Also if you’re using Penn Station as the origin, I’m not sure how you can say that a bus trip via QMT would be any faster than just jumping on the E train to Jackson Heights. MTA schedule has that trip Penn-74th taking 19 minutes. In current traffic, Google Maps has that trip (Penn to Broadway exit on BQE) taking 20 minutes by car outbound, 45 minutes inbound.

      Express bus from Midtown isn’t gonna work.

      Reply
      1. Eric

        Express bus works if you can take a car lane for exclusive bus use. But if you can get enough political capital to do that, there are better places to use that capital. Like the Lincoln Tunnels.

        Reply
  13. Eric F

    Well now that Biden’s on the case the airports are going to be awesome. Maybe he’ll get one of the airports names after himself like he did the train station in Wilmington. Nothing says public service more than taking citizens’ tax dollars and then using it to build a structure to be named after the guy who confiscated the money.

    He looks like a bad soap opera actor playing a bad soap opera actor.

    Reply
    1. BenW

      While we’re on the subject, you do know you can take a direct shuttle flight from Fiorello LaGuardia airport or John F. Kennedy airport to Ronald Wilson Reagan Washington National airport, right? (Though I have to say, I travel through Wilmington every week and I’ve never heard anybody refer to it as Biden Station.)

      Reply
      1. Eric F

        I’m pretty sure that all those guys had the airports named after them after they left office/died. Personally, going back to the National and Idlewild names would be ok with me.

        Reply
        1. Bolwerk

          New York manages a few examples of geographically odd nomenclature. Yankee was probably originally a Dutch-New Amsterdam slang (slur?) for English colonists to the east. New Yorkers are not Yankees – unless you’re not from the Godless north (see first definition).

          So both the names of our airport and our star baseball team probably belong in Boston.

          Reply
          1. Alon Levy

            To Brits, all Americans are Yanks.

            Reply
        2. BenW

          So roughly speaking, your complaint boils down to your not liking Joe Biden’s hair? Since all of the structures we’re talking about were existing buildings, and the only one that actually cost more than a bronze plaque to rename was National. I agree that the rename is silly, not least because nobody knows or cares about it, but your outrage about it seems… selective?

          Reply
          1. Eric F

            You know there’s a good chance he’ll be the next president. You better get used to seeing that hair.

            If you want to go on about re-namings, the re-naming of Newark Airport as “Liberty” drives me nuts, but I think I’m most annoyed at re-naming the Triboro Bridge, Queensboro Bridge and the Battery Tunnel, all after undistinguished officials. If the City had a rule that infrastructure can’t be renamed, and only new, additional infrastructure could be named after a politician, maybe we’d start getting some new stuff built.

            Reply
            1. Tim

              In fairness, RFK isn’t exactly undistinguished…

              Reply
            2. Alon Levy

              Eh. He’s massively behind Hillary in the primary polls, the not-Hillary crowd in the primary either made its peace with her or is backing Warren, and in the general election polls, he loses to most Republicans (Hillary beats all of them).

              Reply
    2. Chris C

      It was also a station that he used twice a day and over 30 years (doing more than 7,000 round trips) so not some ride in ride out just to unveil a plaque.

      It wasn’t even renamed in the timetable and remains as Wilmington.

      And he also said he didn’t deserve the honour.

      “The truth is, I don’t deserve this, unless you reward longevity.”

      http://politicalticker.blogs.c…..-of-biden/

      Reply
      1. Eric F

        He said that as he attended the naming ceremony? Do progressives have any sense of irony whatsoever?

        Yes, he used the station to ride his government subsidized Acela trains to his do nothing job in a government building. Lovely.

        I can’t stand the “Lautenberg” in 1,000 point font on his station, although at least he got the thing built and didn’t simply hang his logo on something built by prior generations.

        Reply
        1. Alon Levy

          The Acela isn’t subsidized; it’s a highly profitable service.

          Reply
        2. Bolwerk

          Wilmington is almost a cow town anyway. I agree with you about most of those things. I really think we should wait until people are long, long dead before naming iconic infrastructure after anyone and even then there should be some logic to it.

          But in the case of a long-serving senator getting an unnoticeable building named after him in a third rate city, why care? Queensboro, Triborough, and even the Battery Park Tunnel have some actual international renown. Airports at least have national or international profiles.

          Reply
  14. Peter L

    There’s no nearby routing that would provide direct access to the airport, and running a spur from, say, Flushing would be a engineering impossibility. The operations costs would be tremendous and the time savings minimal.

    Gimme a break. Money is no object in NYC and you know that. Look at the PATH WTC station. Surely for that amount of money you could a tunnel bored right to the terminals. For what you (and I, really) paid for a couple stairways from PSNY up to the old PO the metro I live in could have an entire functioning commuter rail system!

    Reply
  15. Eric F

    Isn’t the obvious rail route an extension of the JFK Airtrain to LGA via Jamaica? That would allow theoretical connections between JFK and LGA flights, and solid airport access to Queen and L.I. residents. The downside is that it doesn’t do much to speed LGA access from Manhattan, but Manhattan is so close to LGA physically, that the trip by cab isn’t too long or costly anyway.

    Reply
    1. sonicboy678

      Sure, because it certainly makes sense to have airport-to-airport service with almost no access points whatsoever for far more money than simply taking NYCT. After all, there aren’t any connections between Queens Boulevard and LGA in any way, shape, or form as it is.

      Reply
      1. Eric F

        Access points at Howard Beach and Jamaica, and ideally another subway connection Queens, maybe Astoria?

        I’m not saying this would solve everything, but I think the JFK air-train sets are easier to thread through existing infrastructure than a full gauge NYC subway or LIRR alignment.

        Reply
        1. sonicboy678

          Like I said, almost no access points whatsoever.

          Reply
  16. BoerumBum

    I’m looking forward to vanshnookenraggen’s L extension to LaGuardia sometime in the mid 25th century.

    http://www.vanshnookenraggen.c…..elli_b.png

    Reply
  17. Larry Littlefield

    Both of these airports have been rebuilt, at huge expense, over the past 25 years. Why isn’t anyone asking about that?

    At JFK, I think the big problem is getting to the airport and the huge backlog of people trying to get in from other countries, not the buildings or roads.

    At LaGuardia, they rebuilt it and collected a passenger facility charge to do so. What did they do, and what was it worth?

    Reply
    1. AG

      The terminal at LGA is not modern at all…

      Reply
      1. tacony

        The Central Terminal Building is terribly crowded, and not modern at all, and is slated to be rebuilt again. No individual airline cares about its upkeep all that much because no airline has a hub or “focus city” there. Southwest and Frontier and Spirit fly out of there and they aren’t paying to keep things pretty. They’re trying to get into the NYC air market as cheaply as possible to fly people to Florida on a budget. You get what you pay for.

        The other terminals are very nice, I think thanks to Delta. Terminal D is Delta’s baby that they want to keep comfortable, and now that they’ve swapped with US Air for more slots at C, the same goes there as well. The Marine Air Terminal is an interesting art deco relic and does well at serving shuttle passengers, who are heavily business travelers who arrive minutes before their flight in a car service from Manhattan and don’t need to be told to take off their belts by the TSA agents.

        Reply
  18. marv

    Convert the Atlantic Ave Lirr to subway use with a connection to one of the Manhattan subway lines.

    This would then allow the Queens Blvd express service to Jamaica to be replaced with a local (as the atlantic avenue line would be faster to all parts of Manhattan)

    The E train could then leave Queens Blvd via the jamaica yard ramp and travel along/over the grand central parkway with one branch going into/terminating at LGA and the other following the LIE east to eastern queens.

    Each branch could have trains every 7.5 minutes and provide fast effective service into manhattan.

    Reply
    1. BoerumHillScott

      Which subway line would you hook the Atlantic line to, and how?
      Given the complexity of the area and shallow nature of the LIRR line, it is close to impossible without a combination of huge money and huge disruptions, especially if you want the new line to still have easy access to the Atlantic/Barclays station.

      Reply
  19. AG

    I don’t think ferries make sense to LGA… At least not public ferries. If a private company wants to tackle it that’s fine. Though I can’t see why people would take a ferry over a taxi or black car..?

    As to rail – I think the simplest would be an Airtrain like JFK’s… One to the LIRR and one to the subway – going over the Grand Central as opposed to the Van Wyck.

    As to improving rail access to JFK – well I can’t think of anything unless they go with the plan to run LIRR from Atlantic Terminal to Lower Manhattan. We know that fell short for funding…

    Reply
  20. Ryan

    Why does it have to be an extension? We could instead serve multiple goals (serving LGA, creating new uptown connections, and adding another trans-Hudson tube) by running a new PATH line (or an 8 train, whatever) from Citi Field to LGA (via the GCP) to Harlem (beneath 125th Street) to North Bergen – with provisions for extensions to somewhere else.

    Get the Mets to pitch in some by threatening to axe the Citi Field extension, and milk Jersey for some of the money because it’s going to Jersey and especially if it turns out to be another PATH line.

    Reply
    1. bus

      Arent the mets broke? Also, most airport passengers aren’t coming from uptown, so the mythical one seat ride would remain just that.

      Reply
      1. Alon Levy

        My understanding is that the majority of people who fly out of (as opposed to into) LaGuardia live on the Upper East Side. Since nobody’s building a line under 86th Street, a two-seat ride with a transfer at 125th would be the most convenient semi-reasonable option.

        Semi-reasonable because the only reasonable option is to forget about LaGuardia and focus on future SAS phases, Utica, Triboro, and other projects serving less glamorous parts of the city.

        Reply
        1. adirondacker12800

          Last figures I read were, if I remember correctly, 60 percent of the origin passengers at LGA were from the Upper East Side. It may have been 60 percent have an origin or destination on the UES. Chicagoans who are staying at an UES hotel for instance. People who stay at UES hotels aren’t looking to save 30 bucks on getting to and from the airport.

          There are people who claim that the way to increase capacity at New York’s airports is to close LaGuardia. Another way is to get rid of all the commuter flights where people are changing planes at LGA, JFK or EWR to do things like get from Hartford to Harrisburg. They could get on a train in either and be there faster if there was a moderately good HSR network.

          Reply
          1. Eric

            If LGA is closed, its site will become one of the most valuable redevelopment sites the world has ever seen – a huge area in NYC with no legacy zoning restrictions or NIMBYs. It will be much more deserving of a rail connection than at present, not less.

            Reply
            1. Alon Levy

              Will it? Hudson Yards, too, is an area with neither legacy zoning nor NIMBYs, but the city needs to give developers tax breaks to get anything off the ground there.

              Reply
              1. Eric

                Tax breaks may be needed to get 50-story towers built in Hudson Yards. Without tax breaks, something would get built (how much vacant land is there anywhere in Manhattan?), but likely not anything deserving of a subway extension.

                Similarly on the LGA site, whatever you let developers build, it will almost certainly be denser than the single-family houses that fill most of the outer boroughs. And even those are generally dense enough to support subway lines (i.e. your favorite Utica Ave).

                Reply
        2. Ryan

          Recycle part of 2AS into this by allowing the 2AS tubes to stay underneath 2 Av, because the LGA train connects them and now your T train can have a non-shit connection to the Bronx sometime in the distant future – as things stand right now, it can’t, because right now you’d be forced to split the difference between 125th and any northward extension.

          More (MUCH more) trans-Hudson capacity is infinitely more important than Utica and Triboro. Frankly, we should be discussing new tubes under 86th, 59th, 23rd and 14th as well. It’s just too damn bad that we can’t even get the 34th street tubes built and those are the ones with the supposed federal interests behind them.

          Reply
          1. Eric

            New/extra tubes for NJT and Amtrack are desperately needed. But the building of any other Hudson crossings should be conditional on major upzoning on the NJ side. You don’t want to invest all those billions on tunnels to a low-rise neighborhood that will barely use them.

            Reply
            1. adirondacker12800

              Those low rise suburbs are more densely populated than most American cities.

              Reply
              1. Eric

                Correct, and irrelevant.

                Reply
                1. adirondacker12800

                  So until they are as densely populated as you would like the people who want to take the trains that are already standing room only during many hours of the day should just sit at home?

                  Reply
                  1. Eric

                    That issues is exactly why I said “New/extra tubes for NJT and Amtrack are desperately needed”. A subway from 86th St to the inner towns of NJ doesn’t address that issue in a cost-effective manner.

                    Reply
                    1. Eric

                      By the way, I know it’s spelled Amtrak, I’m just typing quickly 🙂

                2. Ryan

                  Okay, maybe I don’t understand the argument you’re making.

                  Just to clarify, you’re arguing that any new tunneling into Jersey needs to be paired with zoning reform to allow for the potential of increased density, right?

                  Reply
                  1. Eric

                    Yes.

                    Or NJ can pay the entire cost themselves, but I expect they won’t be willing to do that.

                    What’s important is that NY or the federal government do not end up paying huge amounts of money that will benefit relatively few people compared to the cost.

                    Reply
                    1. Ryan

                      Okay, I do indeed understand the argument you’re making, and I do agree to a certain extent.

                      But as I said before, in this particular instance we have three critical transit links, three critical road links, and they’re all single points of failure – the cost per ridership calculus needs to be adjusted to reflect the fact that it’s a national crisis any time any one of these links goes down.

                      I do believe that upzoning would happen as a result of new links (especially 59/86/125 St, maybe less so further downtown), but I’m not so sure we need to force the issue. I’m confident that new links will benefit quite a lot of people compared to the cost and would even if the grand total of Jersey-side development in support of these tunnels amounted to five new municipal parking facilities. (For the record, I don’t think that would happen.)

                      And I certainly wouldn’t argue that we need to wait for further development of Jersey before we establish new links. That would be putting the cart before the horse in a big way.

                    2. adirondacker12800

                      If New York wants a Second Avenue Subway they can pay for it themselves. Or trains to LaGuardia airport.

                      Just like New Yorkers pay Federal taxes and have a reasonable expectation that they get some benefit from those taxes New Jerseyans pay Federal taxes and have a reasonable expectation that they get some benefit from those taxes. While you may never venture outside of New York unless it’s on an airplane there are New Yorkers who would like to go to New Jersey. Or Pennsylvania or Delaware or Maryland.

                      I’m not gonna go look up numbers again. New Jerseyans pay a lot of Federal taxes. If they were able to keep the money they send to Washington DC and never see again they could pay for ARC in 9 months.

                      New Jerseyans who work in New York pay New York taxes. I’m not going to look up numbers again. Last time I looked New York State nets 5 billion dollars a year from people who work in New York but live in another state. A significant fraction of those poor suckers are from New Jersey.

            2. Ryan

              I understand the argument you’re making and to a certain extent I agree with it, but the sheer volume of bodies moving across the Hudson every day and the national crisis that happens any time something goes wrong with any single crossing means I’d call all five of the potential new trans-Hudson subway tunnels slam dunks even without touching the zoning issue.

              Hell, you could build a park-and-ride at the end of one and do nothing else and I’d expect you to be filling a 12-floor municipal garage every single day with people who would rather not deal with the GWB or either tunnel.

              Reply
          2. Alon Levy

            I think you’re underestimating two things here. First, the demand for crosstown service on 125th Street is immense; the slower-than-walking buses already get a ton of riders – about 33,000 boardings on 125th itself (not counting alightings of people boarding off 125th).

            And second, there’s far more demand for travel within New York than from Jersey to New York, so even a branch like Utica or Triboro can get comparable ridership to NJ Transit on much less infrastructure. The Triboro ridership estimate is 152,000 weekday commuters, vs. 250,000 NJ Transit riders, but Triboro requires very little tunneling, all in an easy area, so cost per rider is almost certainly lower; Utica, paralleling three buses with a combined daily ridership of 118,000, can also get high ridership, although at higher cost because of the tunneling required.

            Reply
            1. adirondacker12800

              The XBL carries less buses than 125th St?
              New Jersey is fairly lousy with underutilized rail infrastructure past Taj Lautenberg. Infrastructure that will be cheap and easy to upgrade if it needs it. It probably doesn’t.

              Reply
            2. Ryan

              I’m not at all underestimating the immense demand for crosstown service on 125 St. I, in fact, opened this discussion by arguing that creating a 125 St Subway that connected all of the 125 St stations to each other, to LGA, and to Jersey was a far better play than merely extending or branching the existing Astoria subway lines would be.

              To the second point, I don’t have the passenger counts for trans-Hudson transit crossings readily available, but over 276,000 vehicles daily cross the GWB, nearly 110,000 more use the Lincoln Tunnel (and the exclusive bus lanes on the Lincoln Tunnel during peak hour see a bus about every eight seconds), another 93,000 use the Holland Tunnel; other than these three vehicle crossings you’ve got four tracks for PATH crossing the Hudson and a whopping two more for Amtrak and NJT combined; totaling six tracks and two rush-hour-only bus lanes as the only cross-Hudson capacity for anything other than private auto traffic.

              Each and every one of those tunnels is a load-bearing single point of failure – there are absolutely no redundancies here, nowhere for overflow to go, and now that some of those tunnels are falling apart it’s a huge crisis precisely because of this lack of fallback options.

              And it’s because of how fragile the trans-Hudson connections are that we need far more of them. Utica Av cannot bring the entire metropolitan area to its knees if it floods the same way the Hudson tubes can. Delaying Triboro in favor of doubling or tripling the number of redundant cross-Hudson connections is not risking catastrophe if the Rutgers St Tunnel needs to be shut for emergency repairs.

              However, that’s not to say there’s no numbers argument here either: 152000 weekday commuters divided by 5 is 30400, or about 11% of the daily GWB traffic that you’d need to capture to beat Triboro before even factoring in the immense 125 St demand that’s there right now. New York City’s modal split is 55% transit to 29% driving. I like our chances at soaking up 11% of the daily GWB traffic with a 125 St / LGA Subway, and that’s assuming zero riders board anywhere on 125th or anywhere in Jersey that isn’t the municipal park-and-ride structure built on the Turnpike at the end of the line – which is unlikely.

              Reply
              1. Bolwerk

                Isn’t there literally a creek under 125th?

                Reply
                1. Ryan

                  I don’t know, but that’s irrelevant either way. If there is a creek, it can in fact be moved: cities have moved entire rivers before.

                  And since subway stations span a rrelatively large distance, if you really can’t or won’t move the creek (assuming there is one) – then you can just move the subway tunnels up or down a block or two instead. The 125 St Subway is ideal; a 123/124/126 St Subway is also acceptable.

                  Reply
                2. tacony

                  No, the Harlem Creek, which was long ago filled in some places and put into the combined sewer system in others, basically traveled NW to SE across Harlem. Today it would only roughly follow that angled west end of 125th (which used to be “Manhattan Street” — the main street of the old Manhattanville settlement before the grid reached that far) before continuing south parallel to St Nicholas Ave until reaching what was turned into Harlem Meer in Central Park. It originally continued east to enter the Harlem River at today’s 107th Street across what was the Harlem Meadow, which was a tidal salt marsh/wetland used as a commons by early landholders to the north. There’s now a big sewer pipe at 110th Street on the East Side that the SAS will presumably travel beneath. TL;DR: The old creek wouldn’t pose an issue.

                  Reply
              2. threestationsquare

                Why are you dividing by 5?

                Reply
                1. Ryan

                  “Weekday commuters” is a phrase which suggests to me a Monday-Friday 5 day work week; I don’t know of very many people who jave six or seven day work weeks and I would expect that figure to be given as “weekly riders” instead of “weekday commuters”.
                  That goes for the other direction as well, e.g., I don’t think that 152000 is the daily ridership either because I would expect that figure as “daily commuters.”
                  Still, even at the full 152000 every day instead of every week, that’s still only 55% of the GWB traffic, only 43% if you credit the entire 33000 riders of 125 St buses to the subway option, and these numbers all assume zero new rides created. 43% isn’t nearly as much of a home run as 11% but there’s still a very real demand, I’d still put this up against Triboro every single day and expect it to win, and by the way, the threat of “we are all so screwed it isn’t even funny any time anything happens to even one of these links because there aren’t nearly enough redundant connections” isn’t an idle one and I maintain that that needs to be strongly factored into any equation on the costs and benefits of doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling our trans-Hudson capacity.
                  This is a no-brainer and it’s probably only the fact that too many people are fixated on the Astoria extension to consider cutting a new line from whole cloth that is stopping this from being the preeminent option for rail to LGA.

                  Reply
                  1. threestationsquare

                    No, weekday commuters means the number of people who use the line on an average weekday. 152000 is the projected daily ridership. (Actually it only represents 76000 commuters, each riding roundtrip, see http://frumin.net/ation/2007/06/le_triboro_rx.html .)

                    Most of the people/vehicles on the GWB are coming from a lot further away than North Bergen and would not be served by your proposed subway. Many of them are commuting from places like Paterson or Rockland County and would stay in their buses and cars all the way to Manhattan, and many more are longer-distance trips passing through Manhattan without stopping. So I think 43% mode share is very optimistic. (Currently the Penn Station tunnels carry only 35% as many daily inbound person-trips as the Lincoln Tunnel, despite a much greater reach and more transit-conducive location than your proposal; uptown PATH carries 26% as many.)

                    It seems bizarre that you’re going on about “single point of failure” in the same sentence as mentioning that there are three independent rail crossings and three independent road crossings; that’s not what “single” means. Yes, they’re all fairly crowded, people use the capacity available to them. If you built more “redundant” crossings they would also be crowded. If you removed some of the crossings, people would to cram more into the existing crossings (PATH has less than half the rush-hour CBD-bound ridership per track of the Lexington Lines; the Holland Tunnel carries less than a quarter the rush-hour inbound passengers per lane of the Lincoln Tunnel, which could in turn carry even more if made bus-only…) and find ways to take fewer trips. Disruptions would of course be disruptive, but bearable, and small risks of bearable disruption should not dominate our cost-benefit analysis when comparing proposed new lines.

                    Reply
                    1. Ryan

                      We actually have the ability to determine whether there’s any factual basis to the claim that “Most of the people/vehicles on the GWB are coming from a lot further away than North Bergen,” if we don’t have that data already.

                      As part of the song-and-dance concerning I-84 in Hartford, we got the data there. A lot of people were claiming, as you are, that most of the vehicles on the Aetna Viaduct were coming from far flung places and continuing on to distant lands, but it actually turned out that only 27% of the peak traffic on that viaduct was through traffic (meaning 73% either got on or got off in Hartford) and furthermore that 38% of all traffic had both an entry point and an exit point within Hartford.

                      38% is awfully close to 43%, isn’t it? So I hope you don’t mind if I wait patiently for the data on NJ Turnpike / I-95 traffic origin and destination pairs to come out, which I’m sure it will if and when we get serious about a 125 St Tunnel.

                      (And, of course, if you’re going somewhere reasonably close to a subway station and I tell you that you can park your car on this side of the river for $5 and you don’t have to spend $11 to cross a bridge plus who knows how much to park in Midtown, you might just decide to park in Ridgefield instead.)

                      To your other point, single is absolutely the wrong word since, yes, technically speaking you have six links.

                      For all practical intents, it’s still a complete disaster and an utter shitshow every time something bad happens to any of those links which is why we absolutely need more of them.

                    2. threestationsquare

                      Data on GWB destinations (pdf page 27) says 54% through-traffic, 46% Manhattan-bound. (It’s less clear where exactly in NJ they’re coming from, though the bus and jitney routes over the bridge are mostly oriented towards Paterson.)

                      Look, midtown PATH connects dense parts of Jersey City to the heart of the Manhattan CBD, but still only carries 123,000 riders under the river per day. There’s no way your proposed crossing far from the CBD would carry more than that. TriboroRX would manage to carry more because it serves a variety of overlapping markets and would have a lot of turnover; even so it’s only worth building because the ROW is already there with no tunnelling required.

                      And yes, it’s a “shitshow” when any major piece of infrastructure is disrupted, at least until people adapt to the disruption. If that’s ever not the case, you have /way/ too much infrastructure.

                    3. Ryan

                      See, that’s where you and I come to our fundamental disagreement: I don’t believe it’s ever possible to have “too much” infrastructure and even if I did, ten or eleven or twelve separate crossings of the Hudson River between Manhattan or the Bronx and New Jersey doesn’t even come close to meeting that definition given the sheer volume of traffic over the Hudson.

                      The goal here is for disruption to be bearable when it occurs. No, I don’t consider having to go to single-track operation through the North River Tunnels to be “bearable” even if you fall back on ‘best practices’ from Europe and Asia and manage to squeeze 10 or 12 tph through there (and quite frankly, I’d be shocked if these people manage 6 tph). No, I don’t consider it anything less than an absolute crisis if you ever have to shut the Holland Tunnel no matter how many packed buses you can jam through a bus-only Lincoln Tunnel for the duration of the crisis.

                      It isn’t bearable when bad things happen to any of the Hudson crossings today. It would be bearable with twice as many of them.

                    4. AG

                      “I don’t believe it’s ever possible to have “too much” infrastructure and even if I did, ten or eleven or twelve separate crossings of the Hudson River between Manhattan or the Bronx and New Jersey doesn’t even come close to meeting that definition given the sheer volume of traffic over the Hudson.”

                      Funny – I just left some ppl visiting from Baltimore… They come up often – but the thing that makes them dislike visiting: traffic at the Hudson River crossings. They were talking about driving – but same thought process.

                    5. adirondacker12800

                      The Holland Tunnel was closed for months in 2001. And the downtown PATH tubes were closed for years. We survived. Sending trains from Suffern to Port Chester doesn’t get people to Midtown or Wall Street. Nor does sending trains to 178th Street. Or even sending buses like they do now.

                      Buses are expensive to buy and expensive to run. If there are so many buses that they need exclusive lanes it’s time to think about train-stituting them. And the buses have to go someplace when they get out of the tunnel. Give the suburbanites clogging the buses a faster more reliable train trip they’ll use the train. like what happened when Midtown Direct service opened. Instead of building more PATH tubes build tubes the suburban trains can use to get to Wall Street. PATH doesn’t have to carry suburbanites to Manhattan freeing up capacity for local passengers. Penn Station doesn’t have to cope with Long Islanders who want to go to Wall Street if the tunnel burrows out to Flatbush Avenue.

                    6. Ryan

                      Fine. It doesn’t have to be PATH tubes, it doesn’t have to be subways, it doesn’t even have to be rail. All I want is more redundancy in the form of more Hudson crossings.

                      Whether that’s a 125 St Subway, 23 St PATH line, tunnels from Hoboken Terminal or even a four-lane road tunnel from 59 St makes no difference to me. What matters to me is that the cross-Hudson capacity doubles or triples relative to what we have now. I don’t care how we get there.

                    7. adirondacker12800

                      Every time somebody studies getting more capacity for Manhattan they come up with rail as the solution. Buses don’t have the capacity and automobiles even less. Neither does anything else you might come up with.
                      Building tunnels, it would have to be new tunnels because there isn’t any capacity on existing routes, is going to be spectacularly expensive no matter where it’s put.
                      The biggest employment center in the country is Midtown. The second biggest is the Loop in Chicago and the third biggest is Wall Street. Where should we spend the money building new tunnels? Wall Street or Tremont Ave? Wall St. or 125th? Wall Street or 86th?

                    8. Ryan

                      Does it have to be Wall Street? Like, really, seriously, no compromise must-go-under-Wall-Street?

                      I think people – the same people who today walk from WTC – could handle walking down from Chambers Street and I think you stand a much better chance at running NJT trains from 2 St in Jersey City to Chambers St in Manhattan.

                      Chambers St lines you up pretty directly to cross under the Brooklyn Bridge and end up more or less straight on into Atlantic Terminal, too. Resolve the pissing contest between NJT and LIRR and you’ve got the makings of a pretty good through service from who knows where in Jersey to who knows where on Long Island.

                      Again, though, as I’ve said and will continue to say – one tunnel isn’t going to cut it. We need another five or six.

                      So, sure, I guess if you’re asking me to prioritize them, I’d put 34 Street (Gateway) first and Chambers Street second, then a toss-up between 14 Street (L to Secaucus) and 23 Street (7 to Secaucus), then 125 Street, then whichever of 14 and 23 you didn’t build third, and then your choice of 53, 59, or 86 Street.

                      They’re all worth spending money on even if two of them are more worth it than the others. And they should be built eventually. The sooner the better.

                    9. adirondacker12800

                      Wall Street the neighborhood not the place where the wall used to be. Fulton would work. Or something peculiar that runs diagonally. Merge Metro South trains in, ones that run from Staten Island to Westchester.

                      What is so fascinating about Secaucus? It’s a swamp and will be a swamp since we decided that it’s not a swamp but a valuable wetland ecosystem. The only reason someone would want to go to Taj Lautenberg is to change trains. It would be much easier to get on the train in Penn Station or Wall Street. Or Brooklyn or Jamaica. If you are gonna run the subway out to New Jersey it should run to someplace where there are passengers.

                    10. threestationsquare

                      @Ryan: I know you’d love to see dozens of new “redundant” lines all over the map, but it turns out that tunnels and river crossings are really expensive, and compete for scarce resources with other priorities like treating sick people, educating children, and building lines to places that don’t already have rail service (e.g. Utica). If your Hudson-crossing building spree significantly undermines those priorities (as it surely would) then it absolutely would be too much infrastructure.

                      Some additional cross-Hudson capacity would be worthwhile, to allow regional rail trains that currently end in Newark or Hoboken to continue to Manhattan and thereby benefit more riders; this should be a lower priority than SAS/Triboro but higher than most other projects. Redundancy doesn’t enter into it; the new tunnel would very rapidly become crowded and indispensable, like any multi-billion-dollar tunnel worth building.

                      @AG: And thank goodness for the bottleneck of those road crossings discouraging people from driving into the city, or there’d be even more cars on the streets threatening the lives of innocent pedestrians. Rail crossings may have diminishing marginal value in the quantities Ryan is proposing, but additional road crossings would have negative value.

                    11. Ryan

                      What is so fascinating about “Taj Lautenberg” is that pretty much all passenger rail service runs through there – and most of it even stops! Since we made a collective decision that connecting all of our terminals to each other was a stupid idea and why would anyone ever want to take a train from Penn to GCT, the next best thing is having a whole bunch of distinct routes from Secaucus to the various places you might want to go. Maybe you’re living in Suffern and working on Wall Street and enough people just like you exist that somebody decided to regularly run Bergen Line service through the Chambers St Tunnel and then on out to Ronkonkoma. That’s real good for you, except for when you miss your once an hour train to Ronkonkoma via Downtown Manhattan. I guess you’re pretty much screwed, because the next three trains are all going to Hoboken or Trenton via Newark.

                      But wait! All of these trains have to pass through Secaucus Junction! And, there’s a whole bunch of other trains coming from places like Pascack Valley or Montclair, and they have to pass through Secaucus too! Boy, you’re sure glad for “Taj Lautenberg” now because you can just hop on one of the Hoboken trains and change for Downtown Manhattan in Secaucus instead of sitting on the platform in Suffern with your thumb up your ass for an hour.

                      Similarly, maybe you’re trying to get to the UN or the Mets game or something, and there’s no train that runs from Suffern to Flushing because we again decided collectively that building a connecting track to allow for Midtown Directs off of the Main Line was stupid and who would ever want a one-seat ride from Passaic to Penn Station anyway? Nevermind Passaic to GCT via Penn – that would just be a double whammy of nonsensical routings.

                      Fortunately, since we decided on the 7 to Secaucus, you can at least hop off your train there and have a one-transfer ride over to wherever it is on the 7 that you’re trying to go. Similarly, maybe you’re one of those unfortunate souls who works on 14 St or something, and wouldn’t it be nice to be able to connect to the L in New Jersey?

                    12. Ryan

                      As it turns out, tunnels and river crossings – while expensive – are not typically as expensive or as monolithic as they are here. It should be possible to throw these things down not necessarily on the cheap, but at least for costs of $500m~$750m per mile of tunnel for the actual crossing (and maybe another $1b for what happens on either side of the tunnel.)

                      For $11b, we should absolutely be able to get five or six crossings. Instead, we can’t even manage one damn tunnel for which half of it was pre-existing legacy infrastructure and that was the half with the actual river crossing.

                      I believe we can solve our runaway cost issue, I believe we must solve our runaway cost issue or else you can kiss every single new subway project including the rest of 2AS goodbye.

                      That having been said, induced demand only takes us so far. I’m not going to be satisfied that we have enough crossings until they’re all working at something less than near-capacity. There is a point at which we have enough cross-Hudson capacity where new tunnels WON’T fill immediately through pure demand, and where existing demand has everything at a nice 67%~80% capacity utilization. Six new tunnels is probably what it takes to get us there.

                      PS: There’s room for another road bridge connecting the Palisades freeway to Yonkers. That might fuck over Yonkers, but it would have positive value for New York City by pulling some of this GWB through traffic up a few miles and out of the city. It’d be up to the state to decide whether the negative impact on Yonkers outweighs the positive impact on who am I even kidding the only reason there hasn’t been a bridge there for 50 years is because of political dickwaving by several parties including PANYNJ, which is also the only reason why the Tappan Zee ended up where it is.

                    13. adirondacker12800

                      We didn’t decide to not run trains to Grand Central governor Christie did.

                      Trains run to Hoboken so people can change to PATH and go downtown. If the train goes directly downtown, Hoboken becomes obsolete.

                      If NJTransit is running 50 trains an hour to Manhattan people can change from the uptown train to the downtown train in Rahway or Summit. Ridgewood or Newark. Newark Penn or Newark Broad. They don’t need to do it in Secaucus. And if the LIRR is running 60 trains an hour people can change from the Penn Station train to the Grand Central train in Valley Stream or Hicksville. Cross platform transfers in an uncrowded suburban station are much easier than changing trains in Jamaica or Secaucus.

                      If being able to transfer to the subway is such a fabulous thing how come more people don’t do it at Jamaica. Or 125th? or Marble Hill? Or Woodside? What makes New Jersey so much different?

                    14. Ryan

                      Gosh, you’re absolutely right! There’s literally nobody and nothing in Hoboken worth going to. It is 100% people transferring to PATH, and a literal deserted wasteland outside of this one fixed route from train platforms to PATH station and back again.

                      People don’t switch to the subway at Jamaica or 125th or (and I haven’t been to either of these places but I’m guessing it’s true here too) Woodside or Marble Hill because there’s no transfer in any of those stations. The transfer’s a block or two away, and certainly in the case of 125 St and Jamaica it’s not exactly a pleasant walk to make, especially in inclement weather or when bogged down with “stuff.”

                      Meanwhile, if you extend to Secaucus, you’ve got all that real estate inside of the Taj Lautenberg and your transfer is going to be much more pleasant as a result. See also people connecting to the subway from trains at Back Bay in Boston (which is truly damning because – oh my god – have you been inside Back Bay? That places is a goddamn referendum on why you don’t run diesel trains underground, that anyone gets off there who has any other choice in the matter is a miracle) or New Carrollton, MD or Greenbelt, MD or any of the other places in other cities where trains connect to subways inside of the same station complex because engineers in those places figured out that people really don’t like walking outside if they can avoid it!

                    15. adirondacker12800

                      Why would somebody who can get a train at their suburban station that goes directly to Penn Station or directly to Wall Steet want to take a train to Hoboken and transfer to PATH so they can get to Penn Station or Wall Street. Once people can go from their suburb directly to Manhattan the need for Hoboken evaporates. Just like the need for the Central of New Jersey terminal evaporated. Or the need for Long Island City has almost evaporated.

                      During rush hour, compared to Wall Street or even downtown Jersey City there’s not a whole lot to go to Hoboken for. The people who live in Hoboken and work in Midtown or Wall Street don’t care that they can get a train to Linden or Passaic. It’s going to have all the demand that Long Island City or Hunterspoint Avenue has. The suburban trains can stop at Newport and people who want to go to Hoboken can use PATH. And people who want to get to Journal Square or Exchange Place. Or even Grove Street. The ones who want to get to Newark either got off in Newark or Secaucus.

                      It’s not going to be a pleasant transfer either. Drag it out to Secaucus and it can’t be on the upper level because that’s busy with trains on the upper level and it can’t be on the lower level because that’s busy with trains on the lower level. Which will only get busier once people can get on the train in their suburb and go directly, without changing trains, to Penn Station in New York or wherever the deep cavern station is around Wall Street.
                      Even if you did it’s not going to be an easy transfer to the other level. It looks really good on a map. There are other tunnels that could be built that would get people to the places they want to go faster and with a one seat ride. Or a cross platform transfer out in the suburbs.

                    16. Ryan

                      So you can dig out the basement and have people transfer up or down one floor to get from their Hoboken/Wall Street train on the lower level to their Penn Station train on the upper level or their subway on the basement level, or you can put the whole damn train on a bridge and plow it straight into the upper upper concourse level because there’s no residents around there to incite moral panic over ELEVATED RAILWAYS!!!

                      Either way, remaining inside the building to move from one train to the next is going to be worlds apart from having to walk a block down 125 in the pouring rain at 8 am on a November Tuesday. See also: transferring through Penn Station.

                      And you’re not going to be able to run trains to everywhere from everywhere else. That pesky crosstown line under 42 St doesn’t really play well with commuter rolling stock and never will, so how are you going to run your train from Suffern to Queens Plaza? Or 14 St?

                      And, sure, maybe the need for Hoboken itself becomes diminished, so now you’re running half your trains to Penn Station from wherever and half of your trains to Wall Street from wherever. If there’s four trains per hour per branch that’s still a half hour’s wait on your suburban platform because you missed your train by ten seconds. You’re telling me you’re seriously going to wait there? I don’t think you are – I think you’re jumping on the next train and transferring closer in where there’s more service.

                    17. adirondacker12800

                      Spending 5 minutes on escalators isn’t an easy transfer. Walking across the platform in Valley Stream is an easy transfer. Or walking across the platform in Rahway.

                    18. johndmuller

                      I’m not really against any of the various tunnels and new caverns, etc that are being bandied about, but if I had control of the agenda, I would begin the process by talking up the idea of taking back a couple of lanes on the GWB and running an branch/extension of the A/C IND line into New Jersey. The line would head out toward Patterson; in the beginning, there would be a stop in Ft. Lee and a mammoth park and ride where the junction between I80 and the NJ Turnpike feeder meet. Additional stations could be added at leisure.

                      Obviously, this would be a political hot-button with NJ commuter-drivers, but this would not be all bad. First, the dialog, once the vocabulary got beyond 4 letter words, would bring out the reasonable probability that it would actually reduce congestion on the GWB, not to mention congestion in Manhattan or air pollution. At the same time, the mere possibility that this might actually occur could create a new constituency for some of the other crossing options in the hopes of appeasing those who would take away their GWB lanes.

                      As we know, a lot of the necessary track and tunnel work in Manhattan is already in the ground, and that the Bridge was in fact designed for something like this. Obviously there would be disruption on the Bridge during the transition a Ft. Lee station might be difficult, but the park and ride and the NJ track work should be quite doable. I think it is time to fire a shot across the bow and serve notice that taking back some road capacity is on the table.

                    19. threestationsquare

                      @Ryan: Okay, what’s your plan to solve NYC’s crazy infrastructure cost problem?

                      Also I don’t understand your complaint about the subway transfer at Jamaica, the subway station is right there, it’s easier in my experience than transferring between NJT trains at Secaucus (which requires going pointlessly up and back down).

                      @adirondacker12800: I think a fair few people actually do transfer from LIRR to subway at Jamaica. As of 2006, there were 7500 westbound alightings a day there, and most of those were probably headed to the subway? (I can’t tell if those transferring between LIRR trains are counted in that data or not.) And plenty of people change from NJT to PATH at Newark. But of course there are other reasons for the subways to run to Jamaica and Newark; the transfer market is nowhere near large enough to justify the expense of building a subway to the middle of the swamp (especially as a tunnel to bring more NJT trains into Manhattan could be built for similar costs).

                      @johndmuller: Park and rides are bad. They cost a lot to build, generate highly peaked demand that is hard to serve efficiently, and effectively subsidise and encourage inefficient car-oriented development patterns further out. Land around subway stations should be used for homes or jobs, not parking spaces. I actually think bus lanes would be a better use of space on the GWB than a subway extension, since they could serve buses from all over Northern New Jersey (whereas none of the obvious corridors leading to the GWB are really dense enough to merit a subway until you reach Paterson or North Bergen, and those already have faster routes to Manhattan).

                    20. Ryan

                      Spending one minute on an escalator, maybe two, is absolutely an easy transfer. So too is using the ADA compliance elevator. I’m not sure where you’re getting five from. The stairway to hell in DC’s Wheaton Station is the longest escalator in this Hemisphere, crosses over about as much space as a 23-story elevator, and even that takes less than three minutes standing from end to end. You’re seriously going to tell me it takes you nearly twice as long to go up or down three flights total than it takes my elderly grandmother to go from one end of a 230 foot escalator to the other?

                      And by the way, the obnoxious “go up to go down” setup of Secaucus circa 2014 is correctable. If we’re already ripping parts of it up to add a basement-level set of platforms for the 7 or the L or both, we can actually pretty easily go in and add new escalators and elevators for the express purpose of enabling level-to-level transfers without going through the concourse at the top.

                      These would be the sorts of things I’d expect to have solved as part of the conversation about fare control zones, passenger egress, et cetera.

                    21. Ryan

                      Part of me actually likes John’s suggestion regarding the GWB and the IND 8 Av Line.

                      The larger part of me doesn’t like it for two reasons:

                      First, because the A is already too damn long, the C is pretty close to “too damn long” as it is (and the express service fallacy doesn’t help the C’s perceived length), if you extend the A and run the C out to Inwood you get those guys bitching about lost express service, if you extend the C you get Jersey Park-and-Riders bitching about no express service, and if you revive the K as an Eighth Avenue Express the only place you can really send it is to WTC, which means the Canal St crossovers just became even more of a bottleneck than they already are AND now you’ve also got to do something about terminal capacity at WTC.

                      And second, because I’m interested in creating new connections, rather than reconfiguring what’s already there. If the goal is to use it as the stick to the carrot of “support a new crossing downriver and maybe we don’t start taking space away from you on the GWB,” then that’s one thing – and if we’ve already got the five or six new crossings I want online I’m open to revisiting the idea at that point.

                      I don’t like it as something we do instead of, say, the 125 St Subway, but as something to do in addition to a 125 St crossing and with the caveat that you have to either find somewhere else to send K trains or solve Canal St and WTC before they become problems, it’s absolutely fine by me.

                    22. Ryan

                      If I had the keys to solving NYC’s (and really, the US in general’s) infrastructure cost crisis, I would not be commenting on this website or devoting myself to advocacy efforts and I wouldn’t be working at my current day job, because I would instead be living life and loving life as NYC’s infrastructure czar, the richest goddamn man in Manhattan.

                      Regrettably, I can’t unlock this problem. I don’t think any one person can. All I can do is help press for more and better infrastructure investment, which includes investing into finding the solution for runaway infrastructure costs.

                      In the meantime I don’t think raising the high pure-cash cost of new crossings is a good argument against them because I really don’t believe that anything is getting built unless and until we solve that problem. I’ll accept the high relative cost of new crossings compared to other projects or non-infrastructure spending as an argument against them, but frankly, I have no reason to believe the other phases of 2AS aren’t going to cost $7b+ each, I have no reason to believe this place can get Utica delivered for under $5b, I have no reason to expect East Side No Access to ever be completed because the trend line you can draw through all of its many setbacks and budget overruns suggests that the true cost is $? and its expected completion date is never, I have no reason to expect Triboro to do anything but experience the same runaway cost balloon that everything else does, and because I don’t expect anything to get designed-built-delivered on a budget that can be described with words like “reasonable” or “practical” as opposed to words like “clown money dumpster fire,” I don’t think it’s appropriate to claim that the river crossings are going to cost too much without acknowledging that literally every other project you put up against another river crossing is also, in fact, going to cost too much.

                  2. adirondacker12800

                    They don’t have any need to drive to the park-n-ride in Ridgefield if they can go a mile or two the park-n-ride in Suffern. Or take the bus to the station in Paterson and be in Penn Station in 30 minutes. Especially since most of them don’t want to go to 125th Street.

                    Reply
                    1. Ryan

                      That’s the point.

                      When you have about fifty different options spread out over a dozen different crossings up and down the Hudson within five miles of each other, it doesn’t matter if Chris Christie decides to shut a few lanes on the GWB because those trips can divert to the 86 St PATH, or hop on the 8 at Ridgefield, or just keep driving through on the lanes that stay open.

                      You can shut half of the 34 St tracks when there’s six of them and not have it be quite so much the disaster it’s about to be when we have to go to one.

                      Maybe I’ll take the bus one day, and ride PATH the next day, and take the subway on another day, depending on which one shows up first relative to when I expect to have arrived and parked my car at any of the NJ park-and-rides.

                    2. adirondacker12800

                      I have a feeling most people in North Bergen are not headed to Washington Hts.

                      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N…..sportation

                      I have a suspicion that the reason the other PABT, the one up on 178th, has a lot less buses going to it is that a lot less people want to go to 178th St.

                      If I lived in Suffern and worked on Wall Street, on Monday I’m are going to take the bus to Tarrytown go to Grand Central and the 4 or the 5 to work, on Tuesday drive to the park-n-ride in Ridgefield Park and take the uptown cross town train to the A and get downtown that way and on Wednesday get on a train in Suffern, go to Hoboken and take PATH to get to work? Or am I going to use the train to Hoboken unless there is some disaster? Like the World Trade Center PATH being closed for years?

                    3. AG

                      Thousands of ppl work at Columbia Univ. Med. Center. Though the admin. – doctors – nurses that do live in Jersey – the majority probably drive.

                    4. adirondacker12800

                      I understand that you have no friggin clue about New Jersey. NJTransit has 164 train stations. 163 not called Paterson. Almost all of them underutilized. And almost all of the rails connecting them underutilized. And that before we go carving new ROW and building new stations it makes more sense to figure out ways to get more use out of the stuff we already have.
                      Bellmouths someone thought would be a good idea 80 years ago is not “stuff we already have” it’s a mediocre idea someone had 80 years ago.

                  3. threestationsquare

                    Regarding GWB subway: If you send the K (8 Av Express) to Brooklyn replacing the C as Fulton Local, and terminate the C (8 Av Local) at WTC, then nothing has to use the Canal St crossovers at all. Fitting the K in between the A and D on CPW would be a bigger constraint. And even express it works out to a rather long ride from Paterson to Midtown (likely close to an hour). Taking away lanes from cars on the GWB is definitely a plus though.

                    Regarding construction costs: SAS, Utica, and Triboro would have such ridiculously large benefits that they’re worth building even if they cost ten times as much as they would elsewhere in the world, as would some plausible variant on Gateway. The same cannot be said for your proposed extra Hudson crossings.

                    Reply
                    1. threestationsquare

                      (This threaded wrong, was in reply to Ryan.)

                    2. Ryan

                      At the rolling stock’s present top speed of 55 mph and assuming frankly absurd 120 second(!) penalties each for stopping in Saddle Brook, Lodi, Ridgefield Park and Fort Lee, you’re looking at about 24 minutes from Paterson to 175 St. The scheduled time of travel from 175 to Penn Station is 26 minutes, so 50 total assuming absolute garbage time happens in Jersey. (I’d expect the actual trip time to come in about 45 minutes, not 50.)

                      It takes eight minutes to ride the E from Penn to WTC, so you’re still on the inside of an hour from Paterson to Wall St; the same trip is currently 1’05” plus a transfer to PATH on the Main Line, assuming that the Chambers St Tunnel gets built, FiDirect (that one’s free, cynical NYC marketing types) trains probably make the same trip in about 50 minutes so you’re probably looking at somewhere between 3 and 10 minutes faster than the subway over GWB, in other words, “a rounding error” or “no time saved by waiting for the next NJT train in 10 minutes instead of hopping on board the K right now.”

                      But because this hypothetical K comes very close to an hour from Paterson Terminal to World Trade Center, I don’t like switching the C to terminating at WTC and running the K out to Euclid Av or beyond because that would mean it quite handily knocks the A out of its top spot as “longest end-to-end train ride in the system;” and since we’ve established that the A is too damn long, it isn’t really a winning strategy to create a service pattern that runs even longer instead of fixing Canal St.

                      (Running both of the Eighth Avenue Express trains into Brooklyn also takes away the local-local service option, but I’m not sure there’s a legitimate market for people riding from Brooklyn to Spring St, 23 St, 50 St, or the Upper West Side; anyone making this trip presently is probably fine with a transfer – especially the UWS people, because nobody’s bothered to make 86 an express stop.)

                      To your other point, I agree that there’s benefit to 2AS even at price points that Mr. Monopoly would consider excessive. This is because the Lexington Avenue Line is quite literally maxed out, much like what the Hudson crossings are well on their way to becoming, and so as I said back towards the beginning of this discussion – 2AS is the only project I’d place ahead of new trans-Hudson capacity on the importance scale.

                      Unfortunately, I’m not the one you have to convince of the merits of 2AS.

                      And we don’t agree on the importance of trans-Hudson capacity, but that’s fine. Reasonable people can disagree. We also don’t agree on the importance of projects like Utica or Triboro, both of which I would absolutely consider to be far far far less important than 2AS or additional trans-Hudson capacity – and in Triboro’s case particularly it has negative value if you consider that what we’d pay for it right now absolutely sets the narrative for how much cost overrun we’re willing to accept for new transit in any form.

                      Much like I’m not the person who needs to be convinced of the merits for the rest of 2AS, I’m also not the person who needs to be convinced that new transit has merit and I’m not the person in charge of whether it has so much merit that it’s worth shoveling cash money into a roaring bonfire just so we can say TRANSIT IS EXPANDING! And hey, maybe the people of NYC and the decision makers have all agreed that incinerating billions and billions of money for no legitimate reason is worthwhile. If that’s the case, then we can all just accept that the price tag attached to any new infrastructure has zero basis in reality and proceed on with our lives caring nothing for how many zeroes we can squeeze onto the bill for a new subway.

                      I still maintain that the Hudson crossings have more value than anything other than 2AS.

                    3. adirondacker12800

                      Rumor has it the trains are much slower in Guernsey than they are in Jersey.
                      Build tracks from the east side of the bridge to Paterson people can get from Paterson to Washington Heights. Build a tunnel from the West side of Hoboken to Brooklyn and people from every line in New Jersey except the Princeton Shuttle can get to Wall Street. Everybody on Long Island except for people on the Port Washington Branch can get to Wall Street.
                      People who use the train from the park-n-ride in West Winsdor to use the Princeton Junction railroad station won’t be using the subway stop in Paterson. Neither would the people who use the park-n-ride in Ramsey. They might consider changing trains in Ridgewood from the downtown express to the midtown express or even to a local but changing to the subway in Paterson wouldn’t be very high on their list. Someone who schedules their trip to use the Wall Street train isn’t going to be changing to PATH so that relieves crowding on PATH. Suburbanites are very very wily creatures and if there’s half hourly service to New York they look at this thing called a schedule and get to the station a few minutes before the train is going to arrive. They can even figure out that if the train arriving in a few minutes it going to Penn Station and they want to go Wall Street they can look at the line for Rahway ( Or Valley Stream or Ridgewood ) and change trains across the platform.

                      The people east of the East River or north of the Harlem River are even less concerned about subway service to Paterson than the people in Hamilton or West Orange. Long Branch. Cateret. High Bridge. Gillette….

                    4. Ryan

                      Because nobody ever needs to go uptown, or to the Bronx. It’s like a scene from Mad Max once you go north of 60 St.

                      Oh, wait, I actually meant the opposite of that.

                    5. adirondacker12800

                      Compared to the amount of people who want to go to Midtown or Wall Street, almost no one needs to go uptown. Before we start sending subway trains to Paterson via the George Washington Bridge there are many more useful things that could be done.
                      Explain to us why going to 125th Street via the bridge from a few places in Bergen and Passaic counties and changing to a train that goes to 72nd St. is more useful than letting everyone in New Jersey choose between Midtown, where they can change to a train going to 72nd Street and Wall Street?

                    6. Ryan

                      You’re not real good at following discussion threads and keeping track of people’s positions, are you?

                      Let’s review: this whole time I’ve been arguing for new river crossings. I’ve said we need another six, and I’ve said reconfiguring any existing crossing doesn’t count.

                      I’ve stated what priority order I think new crossings should be built in: 34 St Tunnels to Penn Station first, Chambers St Tunnels to Wall Street second, new subway tubes third through sixth.

                      I’m happy to discuss the technical merits of a K Eighth Avenue Express in a vacuum and as a way of determining whether it’s even doable, mostly in response to a suggestion made by someone else. That doesn’t mean I’ve changed my thought process at all, and I’m struggling to figure which of my comments could be misconstrued as support of this instead of any new crossings.

                    7. lop

                      Triboro’s case particularly it has negative value if you consider that what we’d pay for it right now absolutely sets the narrative for how much cost overrun we’re willing to accept for new transit in any form.

                      Does that not apply to your new transhudson tunnels too? If it is possible to get costs under control after SAS1, 7ex, path terminal, ESA etc…why would it be any different after an overpriced triboro?

                    8. Ryan

                      The PATH terminal also has a tremendous amount of negative value, and it’s the sort of mistake I’d really like to avoid repeating if at all possible.

                      As for the other examples you mention, the difference between Triboro and the rest is that almost all of Triboro’s infrastructure, right-of-way, et cetera is in the ground today. Triboro in a sane universe is a relatively simple refurbishment job requiring not much construction at all compared to the 7 extension, any 2AS phase, and the half of Duke Nukem Forever East Side Access that isn’t/wasn’t recycled infrastructure from the previous century. All these projects (and yes, new trans-Hudson crossings too) establish a narrative that we can’t and/or won’t control cost for infrastructure projects in NYC. It shouldn’t be any real surprise, then, that new infrastructure inevitably turns into a black hole of incompetence that sucks in all funding and from which no actual improvements can escape.

                      As big of a problem as this is, though, all of these projects have fairly sizable new-build components and so the excuse, however flimsy, is still there. Triboro, which shouldn’t require nearly as much new build relative to any of those projects, has no such excuse built in, which makes it that much worse than its costs start completely running away from us.

                      As I mentioned previously, I can’t solve the NYC infrastructure cost problem on my own, and if I could I’d be cashing in on that instead of posting on this website. But I want to advance the idea that at least part of the problem is a feedback loop between the high historical costs of infrastructure, the low expectations regarding cost of new infrastructure, and the relative ease by which scope creep, mission creep, cost creep, or other creeps can happen in huge projects when not carefully controlled for. Right now, the narrative is largely about which narrow set of projects we can “afford” to try and get done in this sort of climate and which we cannot. Instead, we should solve the problem first, and in so doing, open ourselves to a much broader set of projects that we could then “afford.”

                      Triboro is a perfect example of this. Because of the relative simplicity of it, owing to the fact that the tracks are all there already, if we’re operating from a position of security where we’re controlling our costs and getting things designed-built-delivered on time and on budget, Triboro’s a cheap way to make the system better by better distributing passenger load and taking some pressure off of Manhattan’s trunk lines. If instead we are operating from a position of weakness where projects keep running out of control and schedule creep is both assumed and accepted, Triboro’s a particularly offensive money sink for how simple it should have been, and for how it ends up reinforcing the aforementioned feedback loop of low expectations leading to runaway budgets owing to high historical costs that are at least partially a product of low expectations. Triboro would probably have a bigger effect on future project cost than even 2AS simply on the basis of “look how much Triboro cost, and most of the tracks were already there. How could we ever deliver [X project] for less than [Y multiple] of that, when you consider [Z challenge not faced during Triboro’s construction]?”

                    9. threestationsquare

                      HBLR already demonstrated that a Triboro-like project costs a lot more near NYC than it would elsewhere. Heck, if you’re just worried about expectations, than studies and projections can do almost as much damage as real projects; the cost estimates for EWR PATH have definitely done their part to spread the idea that even existing-ROW rail in the NYC area is hopelessly unaffordable. The ship of keeping people’s cost expectations sane has sailed.

  21. Jason

    It’s too bad the Simpsons made it impossible to have a serious conversation about monorails. When I was in Seattle the monorail there was basically silent. I think having an in-system transfer to a monorail that takes you to the airport would be, although not as good for riders, probably the easiest way to overcome NIMBYism regarding noise issues.

    Reply
    1. sonicboy678

      Meh, I’d still take an Astoria Line extension to Terminal A over that. I doubt it would really make sense to add yet another special set of vehicles with just about no relation to others. At least an Astoria Line extension would make use of existing equipment that can be swapped out fairly easily in a pinch.

      Also, the Q48 and PA buses on the premises would help to shuttle people between Terminal A and the other terminals.

      Reply
      1. Jason

        As stated, I recognize that a monorail isn’t the best option from a transit perspective, and it would definitely be better to just extend the N to the airport. But a big part of why that hasn’t happened yet, AFAIK, is because elevated subways are LOUD so nobody wants to have the elevated tracks added to their blocks. A monorail averts this by being practically silent. So yes, a N extension would be a lot better than a monorail, but considering that continues to seem unlikely to get past NIMBYism, would you rather have nothing than compromise and take a monorail that you can transfer to at the Ditmars Blvd stop?

        Reply
        1. sonicboy678

          If we factor in practicality, I’d bet that the monorail would be more of a flop than an actual Astoria Line extension. Unfortunately, it simply seems like agreeing on better connections to LGA is impossible past the basic concept.

          Reply
    2. Eric

      The 100-year-old steel viaducts in NYC are loud, but modern rail lines can be very quiet, not only monorails. For example:

      “From a photographic point-of-view the elevated section is not a perfect shot as the viaduct is flanked by sound-absorbing walls which cover at least half the train. For neighbours along the line, this is, of course, good as you can hardly hear the trains roll by”
      http://schwandl.blogspot.co.il…..-tram.html

      Of course, you have to convince the NIMBYs that it will actually be this quiet.

      Reply
    3. Bolwerk

      What Eric said. Noise is basically not an issue. If you find a way to negate that issue, they’ll make up a new one.

      Reply
      1. Phantom

        Is there any plan to make the existing elevated lines in NYC less noisy?

        They can be unbelievably loud now – no wonder the possibility of elevated rail to the airport scares the hell out of the residents.

        Reply
        1. Alon Levy

          I don’t see how this can be done without prolonged shutdowns of entire lines. It looks like a huge undertaking to replace e.g. the steel viaduct of the 1 over 125th with a noise-absorbing concrete structure.

          Reply
          1. Bolwerk

            Away from stations, it can probably be done in bursts using prefabricated segments. At some point over the next century, that will probably be desirable in a lot of places anyway. However long their lives are, I imagine els do have a limit to how long they can safely be used. The way steel prices have been going, perhaps it could even make the MTA a little money and cut maintenance costs in the long run.

            OTOH, maybe I don’t understand the challenges. Ever notice how much of the demolished Myrtle El still exists as you approach Broadway from the west? A significant flyover trackbed then follows Myrtle eastward until the trackbeds merge.

            Reply
  22. marv

    Build a cross platform subway to bus transfer from a station either along the #7, the N, or new station based off a Queens Blvd IND local extension beyond jamaica yards. Have futuristic looking buses then follow the parkway into LGA.

    While requiring bus ramps connecting the station and the parkway in both directions as well as a turn around loop, the option would be cheaper, flexible and usable to by both airport and non-airport users.It would/could provide:

    *easy and desired cross platform transfers meaning that users will not have to locate the next departure point or have to loose time and safety of reaching for their wallets while carrying luggage
    *with slight modification could also be used by commuters who presently loose 5+ minutes exposed to the elements while trudging up or down 2 flights of stairs to make their bus to train connections – this could be ADA at its best.

    Reply
  23. Ryan

    “Weekday commuters” is a phrase which suggests to me a Monday-Friday 5 day work week; I don’t know of very many people who jave six or seven day work weeks and I would expect that figure to be given as “weekly riders” instead of “weekday commuters”.

    That goes for the other direction as well, e.g., I don’t think that 152000 is the daily ridership either because I would expect that figure as “daily commuters.”

    Still, even at the full 152000 every day instead of every week, that’s still only 55% of the GWB traffic, only 43% if you credit the entire 33000 riders of 125 St buses to the subway option, and these numbers all assume zero new rides created. 43% isn’t nearly as much of a home run as 11% but there’s still a very real demand, I’d still put this up against Triboro every single day and expect it to win, and by the way, the threat of “we are all so screwed it isn’t even funny any time anything happens to even one of these links because there aren’t nearly enough redundant connections” isn’t an idle one and I maintain that that needs to be strongly factored into any equation on the costs and benefits of doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling our trans-Hudson capacity.

    This is a no-brainer and it’s probably only the fact that too many people are fixated on the Astoria extension to consider cutting a new line from whole cloth that is stopping this from being the preeminent option for rail to LGA.

    Reply
    1. Ryan

      Please delete this comment as it was misthreaded.

      Reply

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