[NYguy]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

Not to be difficult, shouldn't this entire thread be under the transportation section?

The is about the redevelopment of the terminal (a building ) along with the other improvements to the airport.



Here's more information on the redevelopment of the central terminal...
http://www.panynj.gov/business-oppor...efing-book.pdf


And we see at least some planning for the feasibility of some rail in the future...










http://www.nycaviation.com/2012/02/l.../#.Ufs3ynXD_Dd

LaGuardia Airport’s Central Terminal Dilemma

LaGuardia Airport’s Central Terminal Building is overcrowded and outmoded, said Robert Aaronson, then aviation director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), in an interview with Newsday. That was in 1986. It has not gotten much better. The authority, which manages LaGuardia and four other New York area airports, and airlines have invested more than $1 billion in various redevelopment and improvement projects at the airport with little discernable improvement since Aaronson’s comment.

Travelers and airlines still hold disdain for the airport. They face crowded security checkpoints, narrow concourses, limited concession options and cramped gate holding areas inside the terminal. Aircraft operations on the ramp are limited by the narrow spaces between the concourses and gates designed for the 1960s-era McDonnell Douglas DC-9 (the -10 series was in development when the CTB opened). Numerous surveys and rankings confirm these opinions. JD Power and Associates and Zagat Survey have repeatedly called the airport the worst in terms of passenger satisfaction in America. Frommer’s recently said that it would be far better suited for somewhere like Kansas City – a far cry from the global metropolis of New York. And outspoken real estate mogul Donald Trump has called it a “third world airport,” though he still keeps his own private jet there after many years.

The CTB was designed for about eight million passengers per year when it opened in April 1964. Renovations and expansion projects over the years expanded that capacity to about 15 million per year, according to PANYNJ estimates in 1990. It handled 13 million passengers in 2006 but peaked at nearly 19 million in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“[LaGuardia] should fundamentally be town down and rebuilt again,” said Chris Ward, then executive director of the PANYNJ, at a Crain’s New York Business Forum in April 2010. That is exactly what the authority hopes to do.

The PANYNJ released a request for information (RFI) for a new CTB to private firms last month. The building was described as functionally deficient and inadequate for the level of service expected by airlines and passengers today. Interested companies are asked to submit recommendations on how to finance the estimated $3.6 billion project and speed up the proposed seven-year construction timeline. The RFI is the first step of what will undoubtedly be a long process. The proposal outlines plans to demolish the CTB and hangar two in phases and replace it with a new, three-pier terminal. The new facility would have 1.3 million square feet, up to 38 gates and include space for a future rail station at the airport. It would also connect to the US Airways terminal. The existing CTB has 750,000 square feet and 36 gates located on four concourses. Construction is currently slated to begin in July 2014 and be complete at the end of 2021.

Few are likely to miss the CTB. For all of the convenience to Manhattan that LaGuardia offers, a flight delay when departing from the building could be equal to a sentence to hours of often hunger-filled boredom. The wi-fi can be spotty, the majority of food and shopping concessions are located outside security as are most of the airline clubs. This is not to say that the Delta, Marine Air Terminal and US Airways terminals offer significantly better amenities – they simply do not face the same capacity and design deficiencies that the CTB does. But the now derided CTB was not always seen this way. “This building is simply beautiful,” said Marie LaGuardia, the widow of former New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, to reporters at the opening celebrations of the CTB in 1964. The six-block long terminal then represented the epitome of the dawning jet age – steel, glass and a soaring, if international style, future. What a difference 48 years makes.