Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
I don't know if this has been considered, but there are four immediate problems.
1. There will be opposition, guaranteed. The JFK Airtrain was fought, for years, by residents adjacent to the Van Wyck. The Port Authority had to defend multiple lawsuits.
2. The W and N trains have less available capacity than the Queens Blvd. line. You would put airport passengers on a badly overburdened line. You can't add express trains as with LIRR.
3. As with JFK and Newark, the Airtrain is being designed to meet the needs of airport workers as much as airport travelers. LGA workers live in Queens and on LI, so a line connecting to Astoria, in far NW Queens, makes no sense.
4. What about the LIRR? The current project has subway and LIRR access.
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2. I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. The Queens blvd line is the busiest and most overburdened corridor outside of manhattan. Its even busier than some/most manhattan trunks. The Astoria line on the other hand, is over served in terms of TPH. The only reason why the Astoria line has as many TPH as it does is because it serves a major transfer point to the 7. There's a reason why Queens blvd is getting CBTC first and not Astoria.
Astoria can handle the additional airport passengers with its currents peak of 15/16 TPH. Especially if off peak service is increased to closer match rush hour service. Flights aren't scheduled around rush hour, so most passengers heading to the airport will do so outside of rush hour instead of adding to the rush hour crush.
Besides, any extension to the Astoria line will come with a new terminal that can be designed to handle turning around more trains than Ditmars Blvd. The 60st tunnel can easily handle an additional 5/6 TPH bound to Astoria during rush hour, maybe more with CBTC. A new terminal that can handle 20/25 TPH at LGA would be more than enough to handle Astoria residents and airport traffic. But like i said earlier, the current max of 15/16 TPH could handle that service just fine.
3. You are assuming that all LGA workers live in eastern queens and LI. A baseless assumption without any statistics to back that up. If anything, given the population distribution of the city, at least 6/7 million people would be better served from an N extension than a willets point air train. A shuttle bus to Willets Point can cheaply and easily meet the needs for the few people coming from LI and eastern queens.
4. The LIRR stop will be cumbersome to reach from the air train, which will be connecting to the 7. I'm not sure if you've ever been to Willets point, but its a bit of a walk from the LIRR to the 7. Whatever time you save in taking the LIRR over a 7 express, will be reduced by not only the walking distance to the air train, but also the lack of frequency of the LIRR Port Washington Line.
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The only reason why LGA exists till this day is its proximity to Manhattan. JFK would have absorbed it long ago if anyone cared about convenience to LI or eastern Queens. Creating an air train that WILL NOT reduce any travel to Manhattan serves no purpose. No one is gonna take the 7 to Willets Point when they can get off at 74th st and take the shuttle. No one traveling with luggage, kids, or flying for business is gonna take the LIRR for a 5/10 minute walk to the air train. The only reason why this project is going forward is so that Cuomo can toot his own horn regarding transit.
If Cuomo were serious about transit, he would've signed the lock box preventing the state from using the MTA as a piggy bank. Instead he vetoed it. He would have secured dedicated funding for the MTA's capital plan, like he did with Upstate's roads, instead of forcing the MTA to take on more debt. He would throw his weight around projects that benefit the 8.5 million New Yorkers, rather than spending all his efforts on transportation projects that mostly benefit the rich/powerful and visitors.
I won't deny that Cuomo's efforts are better than most, but its hilarious to see people here applauding the little work he's done on transit. Cuomo is not pro-transit, he's just an opportunist.
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