Staffers Demand End To Cuomo's LaGuardia AirTrain Plan: Report

EAST ELMHURST, QUEENS — Less than six hours after Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned, Port Authority staffers demanded that the agency halt the governor’s controversial LaGuardia Airport AirTrain plan, a new report shows.

Dozens of staffers sent a letter to Port Authority executive director Rick Cotton on Tuesday, which calls for the Port Authority Inspector General to look into whether Cuomo exerted “undue influence” in the process of getting his LaGuardia AirTrain proposal federally approved, the New York Daily News reported.

"For too long, Gov. Cuomo and his staff have repeatedly pushed the agency to make non-transparent, politically motivated decisions, including decisions that squander the trust and money of our bondholders, customers, and the general public,” reads the letter to Cotton, first reported by the Daily News.

Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration — or the FAA — gave the Port Authority the go-ahead to start construction on Cuomo’s AirTrain plan, which would link LaGuardia Airport with a 7- and LIRR-train station at Willets Point.

Although the Port Authority board hasn’t approved contracts for the project, agency sources told the Daily News that the governor had planned a ceremony to announce the start of the AirTrain’s construction — a ribbon cutting that itself was cut short after Attorney General Letitia James' investigation found that Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women while in office, the Daily News reported.

In their letter, however, Port Authority staffers suggest that Cuomo may have put pressure on agency officials to “manipulate the federally-mandated Environmental Impact Statement process,” the Daily News reported.

Riverkeeper, an environmental organization, joined in with the staffers' call for an investigation into Cuomo's role in the project on Wednesday, citing a letter the group unearthed that shows the FAA's misgivings with the project.

“It’s telling that even those within the ranks of Port Authority are alleging undue influence over the project and calling it a waste of money. That they had to wait until six years after it was initially proposed shows a culture of disingenuousness and fear of retaliation within the agency," said Riverkeeper senior attorney Mike Dulong in a news statement.

Last November, the FAA concluded that the only “feasible” alternative to Cuomo’s AirTrain plan was to do nothing at all — despite dozens of proposed project alternatives, including a subway extension or dedicated bus line to the airport.

At the time U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked the FAA to explain why they eliminated alternative plans that would extend existing transportation options to the airport.

"This decision will have a lasting impact on thousands of people in our community," Ocasio-Cortez said. "It's imperative that we understand why further investment and improvement of other transit options have been ruled out."

Pushback against the project, however, dates back to its inception. Since Cuomo first proposed the AirTrain in 2015, he has consistently said that it will “cut down travel time,” despite opposing claims from a chorus of transit experts.

"Compared to existing transit services, most riders using the AirTrain would spend more time traveling to LaGuardia than they do now," transit expert Yonah Freemark wrote in 2015.

Benjamin Kabak, editor of the transportation website Second Ave. Sagas, called the AirTrain "a $2 billion boondoggle with few transit benefits being driven solely by the governor's whims" in a Streetsblog op-ed.

One of the project’s main transit supporters has been Cotton, himself a Cuomo appointee.

As of Wednesday, he has not responded publicly to the letter that his staffers wrote to him. The letter also asks Port Authority officials to reconsider the agency’s return to in-person work plan, and investigate if any staffers were involved in the AG’s sexual harassment report, the Daily News reported.

Last week the executive director declined to answer questions about Cuomo’s scandals, the Daily News reported.