Critics Say It's Time To Close La Guardia Airport

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."

Comments

Using Denver as a positive example?

[michaelmalak]

It now costs $110 for a taxi to downtown. Yeah, rail is opening next year, 20 years after the airport. That'll make it convenient for those traveling without children, skis, disabilities, or extended-stay luggage, and whose Denver location is near a stop on Denver's rail system, which was optimized for miles of track laid rather than number of useful locations served or transit time.

MCI

[rfengr]

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.

Re: No thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Small Airports Have Advantages

[psperl]

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...

[ewhenn]

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

[Zocalo]

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

[PPH]

The only expansion LGA needs is the subway.

Not exactly. As described here it's also a question of airspace. J.F.K., Newark-Liberty, and LaGuardia all overlap and cause delays and complex routing to avoid conflicts.

Re: No thank you

[antiperimetaparalogo]

Sure, I'll explain. Right now, La Guardia is shared use land. Everybody in the city gets access to the benefits of that property. It's a public resource, used by the public for transportation. Yes, many airlines lease space on it, and no, you can't go build a squatter village on it, but it is, very effectively, a public space.

On the other hand, when developed, the site will be only for those rich enough to be able to afford a million dollar apartment. Those who can pay the most will get the best views, and those who were making an honest living working at LGA will either find themselves working for the super-rich, or more likely, unemployed. YEs, there will be construction jobs, but those will leave, and all that will be left for the majority of people in NYC will be a larger traffic problem on the bridges and tunnels. How is that not stealing from the citizenry for the benefit of the few?

Thanks for answering, allow me to use the case i already mentioned, my own city's, Athens Greece, old airport (many Slashdoters are tired with me always mentioning that i am Greek - it is some Greek pride, but it is a good example also for what you mention).

Athens's old airport (the biggest free zone for city development in Europe) is inside the city, next to the sea, in a great place, surrounded by upper class neighbourhoods. The original plan was to create the biggest city park in Europe, since until 2008 we didn't yet had the well known now "Greek financial crisis". Some few city planners and politicians (with who i agreed also) proposed at that time to create exactly what you -negatively- describe (a super-rich people's mega neighbourhood), and with the profits to buy some blocks inside the center of the city, demolish the buildings, and create many smaller parks instead of the huge park in an already upper class area. But most Greeks were against that plan because... "why have the rich build their houses in such a great place?" (the same think you support i think). Now, and because of the "Greek financial crisis", we will do it that (the project already started), but since now we need those billions Euros the projects we hope will bring to Greece for other things (i.e., not go bankrupt), we must forget the smaller parks inside the city's center. But even now, this development will be good for all the people of Athens (and Greece!) since a a super-rich people's mega neighbourhood brings profits to the city and the rest of the people (you know... Capitalism, the invisible hand, etc, something we Greeks -and you- don't like it so much, but anyway...)

As i already wrote, i am not an engineer/architect (while you are, as you wrote), but as i also wrote, city planning is more than what the civil engineers/architects know/want, and you prove my point because you mostly oppose the closure of NY GL airport airport on political issues/views, not on technical reasons. City planning is also a social/economic/political issue, so some factors of it are beyong your technical field - i respect your knowledge in that field (i am a fucking ignorant in it), but you should not use my respect as you did (i.e., writting "But, I'm just a civil engineer, what the hell do I know") when your most important objectiions are actually ideological - in that "discussion universe" (social/economic/political) you are just one more citizen (hopefully respected for his technical knowledge, but not with more value in the decisions making). I would like to repeat again that i don't doubt that you are a good civil engineer - but i oppose your ideological based objections (that you attempt to present as civil engineering issues).