La Guardia Airport to Be Rebuilt by 2021, Cuomo and Biden Say

[traininthedistance]

Of course they're going to shower money on La Guardia, and leave Penn Station (which receives more travelers than all three metro airports COMBINED) and a desperately-needed new pair of tunnels under the Hudson to rot.

Thanks, Cuomo.  And as for you, Biden, I'd have expected better.  Sigh.

[traininthedistance]

How about connecting the airports to the subway system?

This is part of the deal.

Yes, and Cuomo's proposed alignment will not only not save a lick of time compared to taking the bus, but burden an already-crowded 7 train in really perverse and ACTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE ways.  If we were extending the subway from Astoria, that would be great: but Cuomo doesn't doesn't give one flying f**k about normal subway-riding people and doesn't care to listen to anyone who knows what they're talking about.

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2015/01/21/for-laguardia-an-airtrain-that-will-save-almost-no-one-any-time/

Rebuilding La Guardia in place is a lot easier to do than renovating Penn Station or building a pair of new tunnels.

This is going to cost $4 billion.  Those other projects aren't that much more expensive, and would not only serve roughly an order of magnitude more people, but would provide proportionately more improvement.  We're talking about expanding capacity in an area where capacity is full with new tunnels... LGA might be a dump but it, y'know, does actually allow enough people to fly in and out, safely.

[traininthedistance]

Either way, sh--ty infrastructure getting fixed is sh--ty infrastructure getting fixed. Here are some pictures:

Yes, pretty and misleading renderings make it all better.

Oh my sweet Jesus, that f**king ferry (which is, what, a mile from the terminal?  But it's okay because FERRIES.  Ferries– a few exceptions like Staten Island granted– are such useless, classist bullish*t.)  Also you will note that the plan apparently includes an increase in in parking capacity, but of course these pictures conveniently airbrush out the garages that would require.

Oh, here's a radical idea that I saw linked to recently, which ought to be on the table (apologies for the source): maybe just shut LaGuardia down and use the airspace/funds for increasing capacity and reliability in JFK/Newark instead?

[traininthedistance]

Of course they're going to shower money on La Guardia, and leave Penn Station (which receives more travelers than all three metro airports COMBINED) and a desperately-needed new pair of tunnels under the Hudson to rot.

Thanks, Cuomo.  And as for you, Biden, I'd have expected better.  Sigh.

Didn't Christie scotch that deal?

Yes. But keep in mind that– not only back then but even today– Cuomo has been singularly uninterested in going to bat for it, getting it done, pushing Christie (who he is best buds with), etc.  There is blame on both sides of the Hudson, and we all suffer.

[traininthedistance]

Cuomo said it would be $4 billion and five years?  Ooooooops it's gonna be more like twice that, both on cost and time.

The only surprise here is that the truth is coming out so fast.

[traininthedistance]

Also, train, do you use the same handle on Twitter?

Yep.  Well, my username is a little different b/c of the character limit.  I don't tweet much, mostly just use it as a news feed and occasionally retweet urbanist/anti-Cuomo stuff and the occasional Clickhole article.