HughPickens.com writes:
George Haikalis writes in the NYT that last week, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey put off, yet again, deciding between two proposals for a nearly $4 billion project to rehabilitate the dilapidated Central Terminal Building at La Guardia Airport. But piling billions of taxpayer dollars into upgrading La Guardia, which has been likened to an experience "in a third world country," won't solve its fundamental problems. "It can't easily expand," says Haikalis. "Its two runways and four terminals are surrounded on three sides by water, making landing difficult and hazardous. Parking is a nightmare."
There are precedents for replacing airports close to the center city with modern, more outlying airports. Hong Kong and Denver are two examples; Berlin will soon follow suit. With the consolidation of the major United States airlines and the sluggishness in the global economy, the much larger Kennedy and Newark airports could accommodate La Guardia's passenger load, by adding more frequent service and using larger aircraft, if the F.A.A. were to lift the caps on the number of flights allowed there. Kennedy, with its two sets of parallel runways, could handle many more flights, particularly as new air-traffic control technology is introduced in the next few years. The money budgeted for the La Guardia upgrades would be better used to create a long-proposed one-ride express-rail link between Manhattan and J.F.K., by reviving a long-disused, 3.5-mile stretch of track in central Queens and completing the modernization of the terminals at Kennedy. "By avoiding the costly replacement of outmoded terminals at La Guardia and by creating a new express rail link and upgrading terminals at Kennedy, the increased economic activity could more than make up for the lost jobs," concludes Haikalis. "New York's importance to America's economy demands a first world vision to shutter this third world airport."
MCI
By rfengr
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2015-May-9 09:57
• Score: 4, Interesting
• Thread
It just like in Kansas City where the asshole politicians want to rebuild what is the most convenient airport (for the local traveler) of anywhere in the country. You can be at your car in 1 minute from stepping off the plane. It's not about serving the citizenry, more about leeching taxes.
Small Airports Have Advantages
By psperl
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2015-May-9 10:08
• Score: 4, Interesting
• Thread
As a New Yorker, I much prefer LaGuardia, and strongly disagree with calls for its closing. As a small airport, it isn't burdened with its own size in terms of processing passengers. Everything at JFK takes longer than at LGA strictly because of magnitude.
JFK is literally too big to provide efficient service to individuals. Once the check-in & security hurdle is cleared, one still has to walk nearly a mile to get to their actual gate. Once boarded, the plane has to taxi for minutes just to arrive at the runway, where you will likely have to queue for an additional wait to takeoff. As others have mentioned, I easily save at least 30 minutes by flying from LGA, when adding up travel, check-in, security, walking to the gate, taxi-ing, and runway queuing.
I would love to see these large airports replaced with multiple smaller airports. A larger percentage of the population would have an airport nearby, and average travel times would be reduced significantly. It seems to me that planners are optimizing for everything except your personal experience when they design and advocate for mega-airports.
As a resident of NY...
By ewhenn
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2015-May-9 10:17
• Score: 4, Interesting
• Thread
New York's three airports, run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, made about a half a billion dollars in profit last year. Why not use that money? Oh wait, they use it to pay for loss-making operations like the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown. New York City's mass-transit system is $15 billion short of what it needs to invest over the next five years. The state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority runs permanent deficits and depends on billions of dollars each year in tax subsidies to stay afloat. Personally I feel the rates for the mass-transit system should be raised to meet the financial demands of running that service. We'd have plenty of money to resolve the airport issue, *without* needing to worry about siphoning taxpayer dollars.
Re:Hazardous
By Zocalo
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2015-May-9 10:24
• Score: 4, Interesting
• Thread
Hong Kong is slightly different though. They can justify the expense of building an aritificial island to solve the hazardous approach issues with the former airport on the grounds that there simply was no other viable alternative as there was simply no way to suitably adapt the existing airport to make it safer or any preexisting alternative location. La Guardia has similar problems, but has far more alternative options than the "artificial island" approach, although its convenience to central NYC does make it a good location that makes simply closing it unattractive.
Still, the "all or nothing" solutions being proposed (close it or spending $4b renovating it) do seem a little restrictive though. Perhaps a better option would be to turn it into more of a City Airport for those actually travelling to NYC, while moving as much of the through "hub" and international traffic out to J.F.K and Newark where rapid access to NYC is much less important. You'd still need to overhaul the La Guardia terminal, but potentially on a much smaller scale, even allowing for potential future growth.
Re: No thank you
By antiperimetaparalogo
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2015-May-9 11:00
• Score: 4, Insightful
• Thread
That's really the point' isn't it. This is a plan to steal billions of dollars of land at the expense of everyone flying into and out of New York. The only expansion LGA needs is the subway. Not a stupid light rail that makes you connect to the subway, but just continue the N train and get rid of the cab stand. The stupid light rail, by the way will save no one time, and consequently will not help. But, I'm just a civil engineer, what the hell do I know
I am not a civil engineer/architect/city/transportation planner (but i have met all major Greeks, including associates of those i mentioned earlier) and i don't know the NY LG airport case, but, and excuse me, i find stupid this conspiracy of yours (i.e., "steal billions of dollars of land" - obviously related to what i wrote "And the old airport's area, inside Athens (and next to the sea), is now the biggest free zone for city development in Europe [...]"). Can you answer who is the thief and from who is stealing? Because even if you dont count all the other benefits of a new airport, changing land usage in an expanded/expanding city is something healthy and can not be considered "stealing". I don't doubt that the technical details you wrote are right, nor that you are a good civil engineer, but sometimes other factors are more important in such decisions, factors that are beyong your technical field. As i mentioned i have met all major Greeks civil engineer/architect (some of them you may know them too, even if you are not Greek): once, when all of them together, they discussed (as auto-criticism) how they destroyed Athens in the 50-60-70's decade(s) - the conclusion by the engineer/architect was that city planning is too important to be left to you guys!