Governor Cuomo: You can't get to LaGuardia by train today, and that really is inexcusable, and that we're going to change over the next several years.

Brian Lehrer: That was governor Cuomo in 2015, pitching the AirTrain to New Yorkers as a way to get to, and from LaGuardia airport faster. Just this month, the project finally got approved at a price tag of $2.1 billion. What will that get travelers? Approximately 2.3 miles of above-ground track, connecting LaGuardia to the 7 train and the Long Island railroad, Willets Point stop, that's the city field Willets Point, Long Island railroad number seven-stop? Cuomo says it will take 30 minutes only from Midtown to get to LaGuardia that way or the other way, once the project is completed.

While this has been a pet project for the governor over half a decade, transit experts and advocates have criticized the project as a pointless boondoggle, which won't actually save anyone much time, and lobby for alternatives like extending the end train from Astoria to the airport. With me now is one of those critics, senior writer for Motherboard, Aaron Gordon. His latest piece is called Congrats to Andrew Cuomo on His Useless LaGuardia AirTrain.

Aaron, welcome to WNYC.

Aaron Gordon: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me on.

Brian Lehrer: Remind people just as a starting point, how, if you're coming from Manhattan, let's say, how people generally get to LaGuardia airport other than by taxi?

Aaron Gordon: Other than by taxi, if you're coming from Manhattan, the public transit options are to take basically the subway out to Queens. There are a couple of different stops you can go to, but I think Jackson Heights is the most common one. You can get there via the E or F express for Manhattan. I think it's about two or three stops from Manhattan. Then you get on the Q70 select bus service, which typically takes about 10 minutes from that stop to LaGuardia. There are various other ways depending on where exactly in Manhattan you're coming from, but I would say that's probably the most common one if you're coming from Midtown.

Brian Lehrer: There's a bus from the upper west side from around 106 Broadway that'll get you there eventually. As an alternative, for a cold $2.1 billion, Cuomo and others at the Port Authority say the AirTrain will result in a 30-minute trip from Midtown to LaGuardia, or from LaGuardia to Midtown. Do you believe that number?

Aaron Gordon: I think there's definitely a scenario in which one could make it in 30 minutes with the LaGuardia AirTrain, but I think there are a number of caveats, and when you actually do the math based on what the typical experience will be like, I don't think that's what most travelers will experience. It's also worth noting that their number is specifically about coming from Penn station using the LIRR. The LIRR station is on the Port Washington branch, which runs infrequent service for most of the day.

Because of the design of the tracks, further north in Long Island, where it single tracks to the terminal, can't actually run regular service throughout the entire day. They really need periods where they're running infrequent service. I'm not really sure what the point is of running an Airtrain off of an LIRR line that at many points in the day is going to run service every half hour, every 45 minutes, something in those lines.

Brian Lehrer: Right. I actually grew up near there, and I well know that that Port Washington branch runs only every 30 minutes, sometimes only 60, every 60 minutes, depending on trackwork during-- unless it's rush hour. If you take the 7 train as your other alternative, which is cheaper, well, it does not take 30 minutes to get from LaGuardia airport to Willets Point, and then on the number 7 train to get into Manhattan, it takes significantly longer, but they must've had a reason.

Let's give the governor the benefit of the doubt here that he's trying to earnestly do something to improve transportation into Manhattan from LaGuardia airport. I assume they looked at the N train extension from Astoria, which as the crow flies or as the whatever animal burrows underground in the subway tunnel, it's not very far actually, and the N train already goes to Midtown. Why didn't they choose that option?

Aaron Gordon: Yes, the entrance is elevated as it runs in Astoria, and so they would probably just extend it, elevate it, which is, of course, cheaper than tunneling. Also, makes it more politically contentious, because people know how loud the elevated tracks are because they were built so long ago with steel, which is louder than concrete structures like the AirTrain to JFK is. Basically, the short answer is I think it's politically more contentious. They would have to talk to people about building a train through neighborhoods that don't currently have them. I don't think anyone in Cuomo's office had the appetite for that kind of fight to build this extension.

The other reason is, when they were first starting to look into this project in the 2010s, the FAA had a rule that basically the way that these AirTrains, which are kind of like uniquely American transportation projects, the way they're funded is through surcharges on airline tickets collected by the airlines and authorized by the FAA. It's counted as an airport improvement and not really a public transportation project. As a result, until very recently, in January, in fact, there had been a rule that you couldn't use these surcharges to pay for public transportation improvements, like extending the N train. You could only use it to build a special airport train, like an AirTrain. I think that's another reason why the governor's office wanted to build an AirTrain instead of extending the N, because they could essentially get airport passengers to pay for a good chunk of the project through airline surcharges rather than having to come up with the money themselves.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, are you a frequent flyer? Do you work at LaGuardia? How do you get there now, and will this AirTrain be a game-changer for you, or do you wish the Port Authority was doing something else with this money? Let us know at 646-435-720, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Aaron, and my guest is Aaron Gordon from Motherboards. His latest piece is called Congrats to Andrew Cuomo on His Useless LaGuardia AirTrain.

Do you have a better realistic option, because if you're right, that it would just be too politically fraught, and you can imagine the not in my backyard, or not over my backyard, fights that would break out overextending the elevated N train there, and then that would become a community rallying point. If you assume that that's not feasible, and you assume that this isn't great, the plan that's on the table, is there a better way?

Aaron Gordon: Yes, I think there are multiple better options on the table, especially when considering cost, although even to be honest, when not considering cost, and just considering travel times and convenience. A transportation expert named Yonah Freemark, who now works for the Urban Institute, back in 2015, did analysis comparing the AirTrain proposal to a number of alternatives. One of them involves running the AirTrain to, I think it's the Woodside LIRR stop, which is on the main branch instead of the Willets Point, which is on, as we've discussed, the Port Washington branch.

Then other proposals were--

Brian Lehrer: Which is to say for people who don't know the LIRR, that basically, every branch of the Long Island railroad goes through Woodside, so the trains come there every few minutes.

Aaron Gordon: Right. It would be more akin to the JFK AirTrain, which connects to Jamaica, which has a number of lines running through it, to go to Atlantic terminal, so it's much more convenient. Yes, that was one option he considered. Also, you did consider the N train extension. Also considered just putting in bus-only lanes for the buses to LaGuardia that already exists, so that they're more reliable and don't get stuck in traffic, as I'm sure anyone who has used them knows is always a big wild card when taking the bus out to LaGuardia.

Basically, the upshot is, all of these options would either be faster-- would be faster and cheaper, although it's possible that AirTrain to LIRR would be more expensive, but that's not a good option for a number of other reasons. I think a lot of people who criticize this project advocate for at least taking a swing with bus-only lanes. They're cheap, they're easy to implement. You can literally test them out with just putting some cones on the ground, as we've seen in the COVID era. It's very easy to run pilot tests with bus-only lanes, and it would be fascinating to see how much of a difference that made in the willingness of people to take public transit to LaGuardia and the reliability of those buses. I've used those buses at many different times of day. Sometimes I've gotten stuck in traffic, and it's very frustrating. Other times it's been literally less than 10 minutes from the subway to the airport, and it couldn't have been easier. What if that was the experience all the time, is the question. I think that's one thing that a lot of people want to ask about. I'll also just add real quickly, that I don't necessarily take it for granted that the end train extension is politically infeasible. Yes, it would be harder because it's not running over water, but we've got to build stuff in the city. We've got to build more transportation in the city. If every proposal is dismissed because it might require convincing some people that a train through their neighborhood would be a good thing rather than a bad thing, I'm not

sure that's a reason to not pursue a project at all.

Brian Lehrer: Greg in Woodside, you're on WNYC. Hi, Greg.

Greg: Hi. I'm calling from Woodside, Queens. I'm baring seven train right now. If I get interrupted, apologies for that. I'm wondering if the two reasons for providing an AirTrain connection from Willets to LaGuardia are, one, funding, and two, not having any community opposition to an AirTrain running over the Grand Central. Why not get the best of both worlds and provide a second extension, not just connect Willets to LaGuardia, but also LaGuardia to Astoria on the end train via an AirTrain?

Brian Lehrer: Via an AirTrain. I see, rather than, well, I don't know if that's any different politically, Aaron, than extending the end train itself.

Aaron Gordon: I don't think it is. I think it's basically the same concept. One of the things that I've noticed reporting on New York city transportation, is that a lot of people think all elevated trains by nature are as noisy as the steel structured ones, like the one that runs over [unintelligible 00:12:13] Astoria and runs in several parts of Brooklyn, like where the J runs. Those trains are incredibly noisy and a lot of people think that's just how all overhead trains are, but that's not true. If you build the structures out of concrete, and build in basically modern structures, they can actually be quite quiet. There's a stretch of the seven in Queens that's like this. Obviously the AirTrain, if you've ever been near it, you know that it's quite quiet, the one in JFK as well.

There's this major opposition to building new, especially overhead subways in New York, which is based on antiquated idea of how loud they actually are, which doesn't really match [unintelligible 00:12:56].

Brian Lehrer: Jordan in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jordan.

Jordan: Hi. This is all fits in with Governor Cuomo's pattern of trying to get a ribbon to cut and doing it in a short-sighted way. The way he rebuilt the Tappan Zee with no provision for eventual connection, a rail connection to the Port Jervis line. What we have here is something cheap that he can cut a ribbon for within his administration, rather than connecting to the Astoria line, which you could actually make a regional hub if you made a connection to the Amtrak line that runs above it. The governor, who just likes cutting funding for transit, is he will just criticize it, cut the funding, and then leave them to their own devices. It's bloody-minded. It's like we're back in 1925 building the Triborough Bridge at 125th Street instead of 103rd Street, which would have made a much shorter trip to the airport at the time.

Brian Lehrer: Jordan, thank you very much. I guess you agree with that caller, Aaron, because I see that you wrote Cuomo's whole infrastructure philosophy is no one will care about the details as long as he builds big shiny things. That's pretty cynical.

Aaron Gordon: I think it's hard not to be cynical when really studying the plans of this AirTrain, because it's very hard to see the benefits, including-- when I read through the FAA's authorization and approval document of this plan, the thing they're  

constantly citing as the main benefit that this AirTrain will offer is better parking alternatives for people going to LaGuardia. I have no doubt that because they're going to be able to build these very large parking structures adjacent to city field or near city fields, it will make it easier to park and then take the AirTrain to LaGuardia or rent a car from LaGuardia.

That's not the point of what public transportation is. Public transportation is not supposed to be a connection to more parking a mile away, basically like a glorified Disney shuttle bus. That's a very short-sighted and frankly ignorant view of what we need to be doing right now in the face of climate change. It's awkward to talk about this issue when you're talking about connection to an airport considering all the emissions that flying creates. If we're trying to build a city that functions even more on public transportation than the one we already have, is citing the main benefit of a new rail connection to an airport being better. It will make it easier to park a mile away. It's hard to not be simple, to be perfectly honest.

Brian Lehrer: In our last minute, to return to the express bus lane option, with the political opposition to that, and I have to say, as somebody who has taken buses from LaGuardia to Manhattan many times, and buses from Newark Airport to Manhattan many times, they can be really fast. If you have that dedicated lane, then it won't get caught in rush hour traffic, whatever traffic, like whatever cars, is the problem with that politically that there's already so much traffic, especially on the Grand Central, that the opposition to taking a lane out of general use would just be too big? We have 30 seconds.

Aaron Gordon: I think that's the rough outline of it. I think politicians are afraid of saying they're going to take away from drivers and make them dedicated bus only because they have this perception that voters tend to not take the bus very often. Whether that's real, I don't think that's actually true, but that's the perception in a lot of political circles. Just like any other transportation system, the more it's a network rather than a bunch of individual lanes with better separate, better like divorced from one another [unintelligible 00:17:18] the option is going to be. If we had a real dedicated bus lane network throughout the entire city, then I think it'd be more popular.

Brian Lehrer: Jump in. Aaron Gordon, senior writer for Motherboard. By the way, read his other recent article called American Cars are now almost as big as tanks that won World War II. Aaron, thanks a lot.

Aaron Gordon: Thanks, Brian.

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