Manhattan Firm To Be Paid $14.6M To Design LaGuardia AirTrain, Gov. Says

LAGUARDIA, QUEENS — A Manhattan-based engineering firm has been chosen to develop plans for a controversial AirTrain at LaGuardia Airport, Gov. Cuomo announced Monday.

Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc. will get $14.6 million to come up with plans for connecting LaGuardia Airport, the only East Coast airport without rail access, according to Gov. Cuomo.

The firm will be responsible for planning two stations at the new LaGuardia terminals and the rail link from the Willets Point LIRR and MTA stop, Cuomo said.

LaGuardia is expected to have more than 34 million passengers a year by 2030. The new transportation system will provide a 30-minute commute from Grand Central and Penn Station to the airport, linking to LIRR and subway trains at Willets Point, Cuomo said.

However, some are sceptical that the AirTrain will decrease travel times to the airport.

"The truth is that the City and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have significantly improved bus service to LaGuardia over the past few years, introducing an improved limited-stop service from Woodside and Jackson Heights in 2013 and an improved M60 bus from Manhattan in 2014," said Yonah Freemark, a transportation blogger who studied the proposals for the blog Transport Politics.

"These services are still slower than they ought to be but, when combined with the subways they link to, they’re faster than the AirTrain would be, primarily because Mets-Willets point is not only too far east from the center of the region’s population but also because it is not a major interchange point."

Aviation blogger Jason Rabinowitz tweeted that the 30-minute travel time is implausible due to the scheduled departure times of the 7 train and the LIRR.

Lead image via 320-ROC/Flickr