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Old Posted Jun 7, 2019, 7:27 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Toronto
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Uber Copter Will Only Make New York Transit Worse

https://www.citylab.com/transportati...copter/591235/

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- The JFK-Manhattan connection is one of New York’s great transit flaws, a major city is unable to offer a one-seat ride from its airport to its central business district. That’s why many New Yorkers and tourists rely on cars rather than trains to get to JFK, making traffic worse and triggering a vicious cycle of mobility frustration. — Starting July 9, Uber users can take to the skies to get to the airport, with the ride-hailing giant introducing a weekday helicopter service between Lower Manhattan and JFK. With a paid Uber to the helipad, the trip, the company says, could take as little as 30 minutes (the helicopter part is just eight minutes of that).

- Except, naturally, Uber Copter isn’t for most people, and in fact, caters to a very specific group of people. The average price will range from $200 to $225, and is only available to Platinum or Diamond Uber Rewards users. In other words: You have to spend between $1,250 and $3,750 on UberX rides in a six-month period to be able to take a $200 helicopter near Wall Street to what is presumably your private jet or first-class commercial seat. — The vehicles that will take to the skies of New York are not the sleek electric sky-taxis seen in the company’s CGI promotional film. Those do not exist. Instead, they’re conventional twin-engined gas-fueled choppers, the type that emit more CO2 emissions than cars.

- Yet the true tragedy of Uber Copter is that it overshadows concrete alternatives that transit planners have put forward for years to make the Midtown-to-JFK connection faster and cheaper for a much greater strata of riders. Take the Rockaway Beach Line, for example. Per a 2017 proposal by the Regional Plan Association (one of the five ideas it released at the time), this defunct commuter rail route could be reactivated, allowing the LIRR to go directly from Penn Station (and, soon, Grand Central) to JFK, bypassing the AirTrain. — It’s a big lift: The price tag for this project varies in the upper millions, and would require building two train terminals in the central airport area. But it would dramatically improve JFK access for an estimated 10,000 passengers per day

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